My Wonderful Second Life

Chapter 4-The sad end of Lucreatia

It took me a few days to come to my senses over what happened. Not only did I die, but I also did it in such a stupid way. To add salt to the injury, I had the misfortune of being reborn into the body of Lucreatia...

And who was Lucreatia Mountnero? Well, she was the saddest part of "A Duchess Love."

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Lucreatia was a side character, her relevance only important at the beginning of the book.

She was the adoptive daughter of the Duke of Mountnero, while her sister Jennifer was the rightful heir, blood from his blood. So having already an heir, why would the Duke adopt another child? For altruism? Because he found Lucreatia in the streets and took pity on her situation? No, of course not.

A person known as the cold-blooded snake of the Sun Empire wouldn't have such pure intentions.

No... you see, Lucreatia was the daughter of his unrequited love. The same love who refused to marry him, because she loved another person. Because of such, the Duke made sure she and her lover lived a miserable existence. Ripped from her noble rights, Lucreatia's mother led a poor life, yet she still found happiness in those gloomy times with her husband. However, all changed when he died while she was still pregnant. After the traumatic event, her mind grew lost in the overwhelming guilt added to her heart.

Unable to cope with being left alone, she took her own life. Her daughter was but two years old when that came to happen. The Duke, when he found out about her death, rushed to her side, bent on killing the child he thought had caused his love's death. However, when he saw Lucreatia, he noticed the child's silver hair and golden eyes. "Lucky" Lucreatia was the spitting image of her mother.

Charming.

The Duke showered Lucreatia with affection instead of his actual daughter. Jennifer, while never mistreated, was never truly loved, either. Lucreatia knew deep down from her younger years that his affection was an extension of his love for her mother. He loved her image and not herself. And Lucreatia was unable to accept it.

Craving for genuine love, she grew close to her sister, who, pure and sweet, loved Lucreatia back with all her heart. But with everything in Lucreatia's life, things went wrong when her sister befriended both the crown princes of the Sun and the Moon Empire. The neighbouring Empires had a good relationship since their founding, and every generation of princes studied together to promote friendship and future alliances. These two were especially close and were always together.

One day, while they were running from their tutors, they came across Jennifer, who was the daughter of a great house of the Sun Empire and visiting the palace on an errand. Because of her sweet nature and her cute side, the princes became enthralled by her presence. This soon turned into love and hell broke loose, as Jennifer fell in love with prince Cedric of the Moon Empire.

Their love was so consuming, they pondered eloping to stay together, leaving their titles and life behind. But their fiery romance got challenged when Jennifer realized that Lucreatia, her beloved sister, had always loved prince Cedric and, since discovering their relationship, had fallen into a state of deep depression. Jennifer's guilt was so vast it caused her to become sick as well.

However, bad things didn't stop there. Even worse was bound to come. Prince Francis of the Sun Empire, best friend of Cedric, was chosen as Jennifer's fiance. This meant elopement between the moon prince and a great lady of the Sun would cause a war between the empires and the destruction of many of their people's lives. The once best friends had turned into enemies.

Jennifer's kind heart couldn't allow for such destruction of her homeland, so she left prince Cedric, lying to him by saying she had fallen in love with prince Francis. What Jennifer hadn't expected was that she was now pregnant with Cedric's child. After marrying prince Francis, she gave birth to a boy. Sadly, Jennifer never saw him afterwards. As, right after birth, the Sun royal family sent the baby to the Moon Empire to be with his father, the now Emperor Cedric.