IWAPUF 18

The Countess said nothing. Her silence lingered just long enough to draw blood.
“That was the first mistake,” someone snarled. “Taking in a woman with no name, no station
—no idea where she even came from!”
The voice belonged to an old man, the eldest among them, face red with fury and contempt.
A shadow passed over the Countess’s features. She had always been a mystery to the nobility—a
commoner with a past that no one could trace. In that absence, they had built their own truths,
twisted and foul. Whispers, innuendos. Some so vile they could never be repeated aloud.
A younger man sneered, voice dripping with mockery.
“Who’s to say Ariel isn’t his brat, too? Maybe this is a fake.”
Crash!
The room fell silent, like a spell had been cast.
At my feet, porcelain shards glittered on the floor. A shattered teacup, ground beneath my heel. I
pressed down harder, the crunch of it echoing in the sudden stillness. Then I looked up and smiled
sweetly.
“I must’ve misheard,” I said lightly, scanning the room. “Would you mind repeating that?”
Everyone looked away, suddenly fascinated by the carpet, the drapes—anything but my face.
Everyone except him.
My eyes locked on the younger man who had just spoken.
“You’re saying El—my aunt—isn’t of Pison blood?” I asked, voice calm but carrying like a
knife. “Is that what I heard?”
He blinked, his mouth opening and closing like a beached fish.
A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. It wasn’t kind.
“So,” I said softly, “what you’re implying is that my grandmother cheated on the Count… Is
that it? You really want to make that claim—in front of me?”
“I—I didn’t mean—”
The color drained from his face. Pale as milk.
Everyone here knew my story. The gossip, the cruel speculation. The accusation that I was born
from an affair, an illegitimate child.
They knew what such a suggestion would do to me.
And I was more than happy to let them imagine the worst.
“So then,” I said, voice suddenly cool, “should I take that as a personal insult?”
Had this been a few years ago, I might have flinched. Cried. Fled the room. But I wasn’t that girl
anymore.
The man dropped to his knees.
“No! I would never—my lady, please forgive me!”
His hands trembled against the floor, his skin nicked and bloodied by the shards of the shattered
cup. But he didn’t seem to notice, panic overtaking pain.
It wasn’t surprising. I was the Marquess of Eliont’s daughter. The only daughter. And I was the
Crown Prince’s betrothed.
To cross me was to risk ruin.
I didn’t speak. I simply looked down at him, quiet and unmoved.
He began to shake.
“Please,” he begged. “Please forgive me…”
But I tilted my head and said, evenly, “You’re apologizing to the wrong person.”
All eyes turned to the Countess.
The man—so desperate moments ago—suddenly hesitated, awkward and stiff. His pride wouldn’
t allow him to bow to her. A commoner.
Not even now.
And in that moment, they revealed themselves.
They could fall at the feet of a girl half their age, but not to a woman who had ruled the household
with quiet grace. She had married the Count, borne his child, served as the heart of this family…
but to them, she would always be lesser.
I stared them down, my gaze colder than ice. No one dared speak. Even their breathing felt muted.
A man coughed.
“Ahem… Youthful tempers,” he offered weakly. “Surely, my lady, you understand how young
men can be…”
I turned my gaze toward him.
He was older, in his fifties perhaps. One of the loudest voices from earlier.
“Young tempers,” I repeated.
“Yes, yes. The young make mistakes. Haven’t we all?”
Another voice chimed in to support him.
Emboldened, the older man straightened, puffing out his chest. The young one, sensing an opening,
began to inch his way toward them.
I let them. For a moment.
Then I laughed. Light and elegant. A practiced weapon.
“And tell me,” I said, “do you really think this is the place to speak of youthful folly?”
A new voice cut in—sharp and cracked with age.
“That’s enough! You may be the Count’s granddaughter, but this is no place for an unbloomed
child to—!”
The eldest among them had risen, leaning on his cane, fury trembling in his hands. He had been
the first to insult the Countess, and now he turned it on me.
And just like that, I was done.
There was a clean, satisfying snap somewhere inside me. I no longer saw the point in playing nice.
I turned to him with the most radiant smile I could summon.
“Forgive me,” I said sweetly. “But may I ask your name?”
He straightened with pride. “Ahem. I am Crisa Eslott.”
I snorted.
Not a stifled giggle. Not a polite smile.
An actual, unfiltered laugh.
His face turned a shade of blotchy purple.
Leaning back in my chair, I crossed my arms and made myself comfortable. The posture annoyed
me—it reminded me of the Crown Prince—but I knew exactly how irritating it was to others. And
I was in the mood to irritate.
“Eslott,” I said. “Never heard of it.”
The insult rang through the room like a bell. A deliberate slight. In noble circles, not knowing a
family name wasn’t ignorance—it was war.
Several people shot to their feet.
“My lady, that’s—!”
“Honestly, I assumed you at least had a family name to pass on,” I said mildly. “I suppose I was
mistaken.”
The man’s face darkened, nearly black with rage.
I let my gaze sweep across the room, pausing on each furious, frozen face.
No one here misunderstood what I was about to say.
“And who are you,” I said slowly, “to question anything, when none of you even carry the
name Pison?”
“My lady—!”
“Yes,” I snapped, my voice like flint. “That’s right. I am a lady. A real noble lady. Not like you
—men without names. Nobles in title only, clinging to borrowed honor.”
A sharp inhale rippled through the room.
No one had expected me to go that far.
They should have.
Among nobles, the middle name was sacred. A mark of bloodline. Only direct heirs born of a
lawful wife carried it. Without it, you were nobility in name only—your title ended with you. You
could not pass it on. Not to a wife. Not to children.
Even if the Emperor himself granted you a new name, it would not carry the legacy of the old. It
would be yours—and yours alone.
These people… were shadows of nobility.
And I had just dragged them into the light.
Even among legitimate heirs who bore both the family name and the middle name, they could not
pass the surname down to their own children unless they were direct successors to the family title.
Their offspring might inherit noble status, but not the name itself. And without the name, there
would be no middle name, either. It was a rule—unspoken but absolute—that kept the number of
nobles within strict limits.
Only the official successor could carry on the family surname. And so, in every noble house, there
were only a few who truly bore the name. In the Pison family, in fact, only two people still held
that right: Countess Pison and little El.
My grandfather—the late Count—had no brothers. Only two sisters, both of whom had taken their
husbands’ names upon marriage. Unless they divorced, they had no claim to the Pison name.
That was why no one else in this room—aside from the Countess—was legally entitled to it.
“My lady, surely this is going too far,” someone said stiffly.
It was true that in some families, those who had not inherited the name were still treated with a
degree of respect. Custom dictated it. But right now, all I saw were red, indignant faces.
“We may have tolerated your arrogance because of your youth,” another said, voice rising, “but
this—this is beyond foolish!”
The room erupted in muttered agreement, one voice after another fueling the unrest. I stood
slowly.
“And which of us, I wonder, is truly acting without sense?”
I stepped toward the old man who seemed to be their ringleader. He stood trembling, knuckles
white around the head of his cane. How often, I wondered, had he been spoken to like this? Likely
never. He had worn the Pison name like armor, assuming it gave him the right to judge, to slander,
to dismiss others as lesser.
“What exactly,” I asked gently, “makes you worthy of being treated as an elder of this house?
You have no name. No middle name. So tell me—why should I honor you at all?”
“My lady!”
“You might want to keep quiet,” I said coolly, “unless, of course, you can produce proof that
you bear even a shred of noble lineage. Can you?”
The man who had tried to intercept me froze and stepped back. A few others shifted
uncomfortably. Just as I’d suspected.
When I’d first mentioned the middle name, I’d noticed several of them reacting—visibly
unsettled. They fidgeted, their expressions stiff and nervous, like sitting on thorns. And now I
understood why.
None of them—not one—had been granted the middle name. Not even the Pison surname. Their
children, by law, were all commoners.
Even the old man, their most senior member, had no middle name to pass down.
Some of the younger ones in the room were barely older than I was, but I doubted any of them
bore the family name either. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if a fifth of them weren’t even legally
noble at all.
If they’d kept quiet, if they’d shown the barest trace of decency, I might have let it go.
Grandfather had known, and still allowed them to remain part of the family circle.
But instead, they chose to insult the Countess. They chose to insult El.
“The lady herself doesn’t carry the family name, either!” a younger man burst out.
At his words, the old man closed his eyes in anguish. I turned to the boy, examining his features.
He looked just enough like the elder that I guessed he must be a grandson.
I smiled at him. Bright and unbothered.
Our eyes met, and his cheeks reddened faintly. Of course they did.
The Marchioness of Eliont—my mother—had been renowned for her beauty. Aside from my hair,
I was her mirror image. And physically, I was in the prime of my youth. A bloom just beginning to
unfurl.
I curled the corners of my mouth into a soft, knowing smile.
“Honestly,” I said, “it’s remarkable. Someone without even the most basic understanding of
noble law dares to claim ties to the Pison household. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Whose
fault is it, I wonder?”
At that, the old man and a handful of his peers turned purple. The younger ones just looked
confused, watching nervously to see how the others would respond.
“She’s just spouting nonsense—”
“Enough!”
The old man cut him off, snapping like a bowstring. He stared at me with barely restrained fury.
“So what now?” he demanded. “Are we meant to accept him?”
He pointed toward Evan, his voice bitter, as if offering a reluctant concession. It infuriated me.
As though they were doing us a favor.
If that had truly been their intent, they should never have started this spectacle at all. But they had.
And I had no intention of letting it go.
These were the same people who would one day try to drag El down, whisper poison in her ears,
bind her with obligation and shame.
I was going to be rid of them. All of them.
“And who,” I said icily, “gave you the right to decide anything?”
“My lady!”
The old man shouted again, his voice cracking. I met it with a laugh.
“Beonne Rossa Eliont,” I said clearly. “Do you even understand what that name means?”
The trembling that seized him now was no longer from age. He looked like he might collapse.
In fact, several of the older ones did fall to the ground, unable to keep their balance.
Rossa.
It was more than a middle name. It was a name of succession.
Normally, a noblewoman took her husband’s surname upon marriage. Her children, too, would
carry that name. She would never again use her birth name, not even in death.
But exceptions existed.
In cases where a noble house had no male heir—or where the family head designated a daughter
as the successor—the rules shifted.
Imperial law forbade a daughter from inheriting a title directly, but she could pass that right to her
husband or to her children.
If her husband’s title was lesser than the one she inherited, he would take her name. If it was
greater, then one of her children would assume the title instead.
But if there was only one child?
A single heir could not carry two house names. And yet, neither house could be abandoned.
So the child would take the father’s name—and the mother’s inheritance would be encoded in the
middle name.
The middle name would be the name of the founding ancestor of her house.
Rossa was a feminine form. The masculine was Rossat. And the founder of House Pison had been
none other than Rossat Liddell Pison.
I could not inherit the title. But I carried the power of succession.
“I speak with the full authority of my name,” I said coldly. “And with it, I remove you all from
this family.”
A hush fell. Darkened faces. Stunned silence.
“You may also want to prepare your defense,” I added. “Falsely claiming noble status is a
crime.”
Even the younger ones—those who hadn’t understood at first—turned pale. But it was too late for
regret.
They had made their choices. And now, they would pay.