Many girls dream of becoming princesses.
Perhaps it’s because, in fairy tales, a princess is loved unconditionally, living a life of bliss under the protection of a doting king and eventually finding her perfect prince.
I was born an imperial princess, a rank higher than almost anyone else in the world. But I was never loved.
“It's all because of you!”
My mother, the Empress, blamed me constantly.
The legend of our lineage was well-known. Emperor Siegfried, the founder of the Schwanherd Empire, possessed striking purple eyes. His companion, the lake spirit Odette Rauenheim, had platinum-blonde hair that shimmered like moonlight and eyes of pure gold. Their descendants were always born with that same blonde hair and purple eyes—a sacred symbol of the imperial bloodline.
Because of the legend that the spirit Rauenheim often took the form of a swan, the women of our family were known as the "Swans of the Empire."
But unfortunately, my hair was black—a stark contrast to my mother’s silver locks and my father’s gold. Black was the common, modest hair color of the northern barbarians, a shade the Empire despised. Only because my eyes were purple did my father recognize me as his daughter and grant me the name Cornelia.
My mother, however, loathed the name.
“Cornelia! His Majesty clearly considers you a failure as well!” she would scream.
The name Cornelia means “wisdom,” but in the old tongue, it also translates to “ugly crow.”
“Be obedient, do you understand?”
My mother sought to control my every move. To her, I was a broken thing. If I failed to meet her impossible standards, she would scold me harshly, strike me, or drown me in offensive vitriol.
The physical abuse only stopped when I was six and my younger brother was born. He was the son she had always wanted—a boy with hair as gold as the sun. After that, my mother no longer struck me. Instead, she did something worse: she stopped caring about me entirely.
“Look, Mother! I’ve mastered the imperial etiquette.”
“Mother, Sir Taylor said I’m showing great promise with the sword!”
“Mother, please look at me...”
I clung to her, desperate for even a shred of affection. Like a beggar on the street, I pleaded for her love. But she only looked at me with disgust.
“Why are you still standing there? Get her out of my sight!”
My nanny, who had always bullied me in secret, took the Empress's dismissal as permission. Her grip on my arm was so tight I cried out in pain.
"It hurts! Mother!"
I looked at my mother, pleading for help, but she simply closed the door to her chambers. The nanny smirked, dragging me by my bruised wrist and whispering into my ear.
“You’re going to be punished for not listening today.”
I knew what that meant. I would be locked in a dark, cramped closet for hours. Terrified, I looked around for anyone—anyone at all—to help me. But there was no one. My mother was gone, and the servants only looked away.
*There is no one to protect me.*
In a fit of desperation, I bit the nanny’s arm as hard as I could.
“Agh!”
With a frantic sweep of my hand, I knocked a decorative vase off a side table. It shattered against the floor. I scooped up a sharp shard and pointed it at the nanny, my chest heaving.
“If any of you touch me, I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you all!”
“Princess, please! Put that down before you get hurt!”
It was only a small shard of porcelain, but the servants hesitated.
“One of you, take it from her! If the Princess is injured, it's our heads on the block!”
“You do it! What if she stabs me?”
Despite my age, I had a fierce spirit. They only treated me harshly because they had my mother’s authority behind them. Face to face with my unexpected defiance, they were actually afraid.
*I have to prove I mean it.*
Without hesitation, I squeezed the shard until it sliced into my palm.
Blood dripped steadily onto the white marble floor. I let out a piercing cry. I was still royalty, and now that they had allowed my blood to be spilled, they couldn't escape the consequences.
“Your Highness! How did you get such a terrible wound?” the imperial doctor asked later.
I pointed a trembling finger at the nanny. “She made me clean up a broken vase with my bare hands.”
“What?! I never—! She’s lying!”
The nanny protested wildly, but a servant’s word meant nothing against a princess’s accusation, especially when blood was involved. My mother didn't care about me, but she cared about the optics of the palace. The nanny was flogged and expelled that very day.
From then on, I noticed a change in the way the maids treated me. They were polite. Tentative.
*I shouldn't be soft. The moment I am, they will look at me with disdain again.*
I realized then that I had to protect myself. It was better to be feared than to be ignored. I leaned into my status, demanding expensive clothes and acting out so that no one would dare overlook me.
Five years passed in this fashion.
“I told you to be quiet and stay out of the way!” the Empress hissed.
I laughed in her face. No matter how well I behaved, she never cared. It was only when I caused trouble that she actually saw me, even if it was only to scream.
"You're actually smiling after what you did? Do you even know who that girl was? You slapped a high-ranking noble's daughter!"
“I do, but I’ve slapped so many lately that they all start to look the same.”
*Slap!*
My mother’s hand caught me across the face. She stared at me, eyes burning with rage. I met her gaze evenly.
“Aren’t you even curious *why* I slapped her? Or what she was saying about me behind my back?”
“If you were more like Madeleine, no one would have anything bad to say!”
There it was. The constant comparison to my cousin. I thought I was used to it, but a primitive instinct warned me to get out of the room before she said anything more.
My mother’s voice followed me, dripping with venom. “You’re useless. I wish you had died in my womb. Why do you insist on standing in your brother's way?”
For five years—no, since the day I was born—I thought I had grown indifferent to her cruelty. But hearing her wish for my non-existence still shattered my heart.
“If you’re finished with your speech, I’m leaving.”
I walked out with my head held high, ignoring the insults she hurled at my back. I knew that if I shed even a single tear, the servants would see it as a weakness to be exploited.
The only person who followed me was a young slave I had bought with a year’s worth of my allowance.
“Go away. Don't follow me.”
The boy turned away without a word. It was a superficial relationship at best. *If he saw me crying, he’d probably lose respect for me, too.*
I sought out the Abandoned Garden, a neglected corner of the palace rumored to be cursed. No one went there, which meant no one would see me break.
“Why did you hit me?” I whispered to the empty air, the tears finally falling. “She called me an illegitimate child... she said I was proof of an affair...”
I hated being a target of such rumors more than my mother hated me. Despite her coldness, I still loved her. She was beautiful, elegant—everything I wanted to be.
“I hate myself too,” I sobbed. I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be the daughter she was proud of. I wanted people to call me a swan, not a crow.
“Everyone hates me because I’m flawed...”
A sudden rustle nearby made my blood run cold. I quickly wiped my face, my voice turning into a sharp defensive blade.
“Who’s there?! Get out!”
A boy stepped out from the shadows. He looked slightly older than me, dressed in clothes that were simple but made of the finest fabrics. His gait was steady, aristocratic.
But it was his face that caught my attention. Even in the gloom, his blonde hair seemed to glow, and his eyes were as blue as a summer lake.
I couldn't recall ever seeing him, yet his presence felt strangely familiar.
The boy bowed deeply. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”
Panic flared in my chest. “Did you hear everything?”
The thought of an aristocratic boy hearing me call myself "flawed" while crying like a child was unbearable. I knew the rumors would spread like wildfire. I narrowed my eyes, my voice lethal.
“If you tell anyone what you saw here...”
Instead of running, he reached out and offered me something. It was a fine handkerchief, embroidered with a golden dragon.
My breath hitched. I knew that crest. As I stood there, stunned by his identity, he looked me straight in the eye.
“Please do not call yourself flawed, Your Highness. To me, you are the most noble person in the world.”
Normally, I would have laughed in his face for saying something so transparently false. But for the first time in my life, my heart began to race. My face burned. He was... beautiful.
He offered a radiant smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone what happened here.”
I grabbed the handkerchief, watching him walk away. I tried to tell myself not to expect anything, but the confusion and anticipation were overwhelming.
That was my first meeting with Eric Lennon Brant.
I kept that handkerchief. I cleaned it and preserved it, even though it eventually became a source of pain. Because Eric Lennon Brant was Madeleine Arguin’s childhood friend.
Madeleine... the cousin my mother always used to belittle me. She would constantly boast about her friendships with powerful nobles, with the young Duke Brant always at the top of her list.
*Of course. He’s Madeleine’s friend. It was probably just a ploy to make fun of me.*
I learned then that the only way to avoid disappointment is to expect nothing at all. Just like I had learned when the messy-haired boy who used to bring me flowers on Foundation Day suddenly stopped coming.
*He was probably making fun of me, too.*
But every time I tried to throw Eric’s handkerchief into the fire, the memory of those blue eyes would stop me. My heart would ache with a dull, persistent pain.
A vague image of another boy would sometimes surface in my mind—a thin, miserable child with messy brown hair that hid his face. He was the one who had brought me those flowers years ago. He was nothing like the radiant Eric Lennon Brant, yet for some reason, the memories felt entwined.
In the end, I could never bring myself to burn the handkerchief. I simply tucked it away in the back of my drawer, out of sight.