Chapter 83

From the moment of that meeting, Viola became Melody's mother.

An unidentified lost child, her whole body covered in wounds.

A child with no connections to anyone at all, and yet Viola had cherished her more dearly than anything.

Young Melody had worried that she might come to be resented for it.

Viola had originally been a noblewoman, or so she'd said. But she'd pretended to be the child's birth mother to protect her, and because of it, she'd been branded with disgrace and cast out of her family.

Because of her, her mother was no longer a noblewoman at all.

It felt as though she'd committed some sin against Viola.

Status mattered. Even young as she was, the child understood that bone-deep.

Because it was precisely for lacking noble status that Melody had been so helplessly seized by the Temple.

"Uu..."

Was she, perhaps, ruining the precious life Viola…