"You cheated, didn't you?"
I stood at the study door, staring hard at the man I once called father.
Mother had been dead for only three months, yet he'd already brought his new wife and her children into our home.
And what was even more absurd—that woman was already six months pregnant.
So it turned out that during Mother's final days, his so-called important business was nothing but a complete betrayal.
—
After Mother died, I lost everything.
My room was taken away, my stepmother and stepsister treated me like a toy they could humiliate at will, and the father who once loved me most gave me the loudest slap of my life with his own hand.
Everyone stood against me.
Except Alden.
The stepbrother everyone loathed, feared, and called a freak.
He was withdrawn, dangerous, and silent.
He always hid in the shadows, watching me with those gray-green eyes.
Until one day, I discovered his secret—
He could do magic.
Flames obeyed his commands.
Serpents answered his calls.
Walls couldn't stop his steps.
And it was from that day I learned that this world was far crazier than I'd imagined.
Because when I furiously cursed the man who betrayed Mother—
My words came true.
A careless curse brought instant retribution upon him.
Alden told me that power was called "prophetic speech."
The words I spoke were no longer just language.
They were commands the world had to execute.
From then on, my life spiraled completely out of control.
Talking serpents.
Inexplicable magic.
Mysteriously vanished inheritance.
The "Twenty-Fifth Hour Bank" that existed on no real-world map.
And that backflipping black cat that kept leading me toward the unknown...
All the mysteries were telling me:
I was not an ordinary person.
And Mother and Grandfather seemed to have hidden many truths from me.
But just as I tried to find answers, an even more terrifying truth was surfacing—
I discovered that Alden's secrets might be far more than just magic.
Why could he command serpents?
Why did everyone in the manor fear him?
And why did he always appear by my side whenever I was in danger?
I thought I'd only lost my mother, lost my home.
Later I learned.
That was merely fate's beginning.
And the real storm was hiding deep in the magical world, waiting for me.
I just didn't know—
When all truths were revealed, would Alden, whom I trusted most, become the person standing by my side...
Or the one who would completely change my destiny.
