Alive || 86: Eighty-Six [ vers. ENG ]

understanding

Deep down, Marguerite has always known: the choices she has made so far cannot be forgotten. Everything has a price. And because she had chosen to follow the path she had taken, there was no turning back. All she wanted was the paternal love she saw in the series and books she read as a child. An unconditional love that would never waver.

Instead, today, she finds herself chained to regrets that are too heavy to bear.

Behind this mask of a docile young woman ready to do anything to become the person her father wanted her to be. Behind this mask of a young woman proud of her blood, sure of herself at all times and never stumbling... There was a little girl who didn't know how to navigate this life if she no longer followed her script. A little girl who trembled every night at the thought of people's intentions disappearing or criticism piling up on her fragile back.

Fighting for her country. It sounded good to her ears. If she could cling to anything to survive under all that weight then she would. She could never make amends to those she had hurt anyway. Reaching out now was too late.

A dead man wouldn't come back to life and she wouldn't be forgiven by the others.

So what could she do?

Charlize Kaslan was someone she never thought she'd meet. When her father told her she was alive and in this country, she couldn't believe it. The war had been raging for so long, so how could she have travelled here? The answer to this question surprised her even more. However, she realized straight away that there was a hidden reason why her father had revealed all this to her. He never shared information with her without ulterior motives. Just like all those times he'd asked her to go to a particular school, to do a particular activity, to befriend a particular person... There was always something in it for him.

But what could he possibly want from her?

Again and again, the same answer. Power. But this time, the power of House Kaslan.

Her father had always aspired to the title of heir but had never been able to achieve it. Before the war, when he was the only living son of this family, the current chief of the family chose Hortense – Charlize's mom. And even though communication between the Republic and Giad had been cut off many years ago, he had never changed his mind. His old age had even made him more certain that he would rather throw away his fortune than give it to him. So, if he learned that his granddaughter was alive, the choice would be made.

No matter how interested he was in the title, he would not let it slip through his fingers again.

Marguerite had no particular ill feeling towards her cousin. She didn't even know her. And after spending the last few weeks at her side, she had come to the conclusion that she was far from the portrait her father had painted of her.

Charlize is as deceitful as her mother. She coveted the place of heiress that her mother had abandoned without really understanding its value.

Wrong. She was far from the diabolical child she had been presented as. Charlize didn't talk much with her classmates. She went with the flow but kept her distance. At first, Marguerite had mistaken this for shyness, but she soon realized that this was perhaps not the case. Yes, she had a problem with authority, but that wasn't all.