It was about despair here as well—the despair of a princess whose dreams had been stolen by a natural disaster, forcing her down the path of evil.
Renato had altered the key to make the song easier on a mezzo-soprano like Ekaterina. Her tone was gentle and subdued, her deep sorrow hidden beneath a thin layer of ice.
Aside from the piano and her voice, the auditorium was silent as a grave. When she first appeared, Ekaterina had made an impression with her malevolent laughter. Everyone had heard rumors about her—the lady of the House of Yulnova, the likely future empress—but they hadn’t expected that. Many had mistaken her role for her true personality, hence the laughter.
But now...her voice was beautiful.
She was nowhere near Olga’s level, and some of the students who’d heard Olga practice for weeks could tell something was missing. Even so, the standard that the people of this world sought was not especially high. In the empire, there were no social media sites, no video streaming, not even phonographs. To hear music, one either invited musicians to one’s home or went to the theater. The audience consisted entirely of nobles, who did have access to music at times, but those from the countryside seldom heard first-rate songstresses.
Ekaterina had learned from one such songstress, Madam DiDonato, had been in a choir in her previous life, and had been born with a good ear. As a result, her singing was appreciated far more than she realized by the audience.
She also benefited from Renato’s genius accompaniment. She had sung this piece many times in front of him while sharing Madam DiDonato’s advice with Olga, so he knew exactly how she performed it. He matched her preferences, supported her, and covered her small mistakes. His entire focus was on making her voice and the piano blend beautifully.
And the song itself was extraordinary. It came from a world where music theory had advanced for centuries, and even there it had been a global hit—a masterpiece among masterpieces. To this audience, it sounded like the pinnacle of refinement. How could they resist its appeal?
Many found themselves thinking that they had never heard anything so magnificent.
Ekaterina kept singing of her lost hopes and dreams, of the lofty ideals she’d once believed in, and of the cruel fate that had torn her life apart like a wild beast.
She reached the most difficult and important part of the song—the section where the pitch rose and rose. Her hazy expression twisted into pain, but she forced the notes out, raising her arms in a desperate attempt to grasp something beyond reach. She looked like a butterfly, unable to escape a spider’s web.
By now, the audience understood that the villainess had turned to evil because of some cruel twist of fate. Her agonized expression as she struggled to keep singing was so pitiful that some spectators lifted handkerchiefs to their eyes.
In truth, Ekaterina had lifted her arms because it made high notes easier. She’d learned the technique in her past life from a famous voice trainer’s video she’d watched with her choir friends. Madam DiDonato had taught her something similar here. She was so desperate to get the notes out that anything would do.
She hadn’t planned for it, but the motion looked perfect in the scene—a complete fluke.
With the perilous verse behind her, Ekaterina continued. In the original song, that next part was about the heroine’s love interest who had forsaken her. It reminded Ekaterina of her mother, who’d waited for the man who cast her aside until the end. She couldn’t bring herself to understand her mother’s choice, so she’d drastically rewritten the lyrics while apologizing silently to the original lyricist.
Right now, though, she couldn’t think about any of that. The climax of the song was coming up in a fleeting, sorrowful scream.
After reminiscing over her foolish, meaningless life, the villainess curled her fingers into hooks and bent forward as she howled her despair.
The spectators held their breaths.
From the scream emerged a long, sustained tone, heavy with grief. Ekaterina’s fists closed, and she pressed them to her chest, holding the note with every bit of air in her lungs.
Right before the last phrase, she let out a deep sigh—a desperate attempt to catch enough breath to finish.
It came out as a heart-wrenching expression of sorrow in the face of crushed dreams. Alas, Ekaterina failed to draw in enough air, and the last few words vanished into the piano.
It was finally over; Ekaterina rejoiced. Her chest hurt. Her entire body hurt. She just managed to stay upright, but she was so starved for oxygen she felt on the verge of fainting. The sound of her blood pumping echoed painfully in her ears.
Because of that, she didn’t hear the turbulent applause that filled the room, nor did she notice the audience rising one after the other, like a wave.
When the cocoon of light disappeared, the audience was shocked to find that Ekaterina had disappeared from the stage. Impressed oohs and aahs erupted as the crowd, still emotional from the song, remembered that the music wasn’t the only amazing part of this play.
In truth, Mina had wrapped herself in a spare blackout curtain, rushed onstage, and whisked away the woozy Ekaterina before anyone noticed. Ekaterina’s battle maid was also a master of stealth.
Renato stood up and walked back to the wings on his own two feet, the audience applauding him the whole way. Meanwhile, comments from the crowd surged and muddled together.
“I never thought I’d hear something like that in the middle of a students’ play.”
“It was wonderful! Truly! I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so touching in my life. So sorrowful... So heart-wrenching... I cried the entire time.”
“I loved how the piano solo and the song connected thematically. I think that’s why I got so lost in the song. Brilliant idea. I wish I could hear it all again!”
“That villainess looked wicked at first, but she had her reasons... She was so pitiful while she sang that I wanted to rescue her. I’d certainly like to meet Lady Ekaterina.”
“She’s the lady of a grand ducal house—completely out of your league. Still...it felt like a dream.”
“She’s a far better actress and singer than your average performer. I suppose that’s how she finds so many geniuses. She’s multitalented herself.”
Everyone’s perception of Ekaterina had flipped after this scene, and praise swept through the auditorium. Alexei’s advisors were relieved by the positive—and harmless—comments, but none of them dared say a word. They waited for Alexei’s reaction in silence.
“How could I be so blind! I didn’t realize she was suffering so much, all this time...” Alexei whispered, clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white.
At first, Ekaterina had refused to speak to him. The years of oppression must have crushed her hopes and dreams, Alexei thought, heartbroken.
Despite that, he couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful, how noble she had looked while singing.
He was most definitely mixing reality and fiction, but to him, the song embodied Ekaterina’s sorrow during her years of imprisonment. The only reason he hadn’t leaped onto the stage to embrace her was that he knew his sister’s sense of responsibility. She would never want him to interrupt her class’s play. Still, knowing he couldn’t go to her and forcing himself not to had been absolute torment.
If Ekaterina had seen his face at that moment, she would have screamed inside: I did my best so my brother would enjoy the festival! I don’t want him to be sad!
A few seats away, Mikhail was clenching his fists just as hard.
“Your Highness?”
“No need to worry, Lucas. I just got too into it.” Mikhail sighed. “I know she’s acting, but it’s hard to see her hurting and not be able to do anything.”
She’d looked like she was suffering—truly suffering—and all he had wanted to do was rush to her and promise her that everything would be all right.
How nice that would have been.
But he didn’t have the right. Besides, such words wouldn’t make Ekaterina happy. She didn’t want to be protected. She always tried to protect others, despite not being all that strong herself.
Mikhail was irritated, and his chest ached. But he also felt warm, and light, and soft.
I love her, he thought.
It was as though someone had squeezed his heart in their palm. Overcome by conflicting emotions, he understood once again: Love hurt.
“Why don’t you rescue her?” Lucas asked nonchalantly. “You’re clearly not the only man in this room who wants to.”
“Stop it. Do you want me to turn into a tyrant?”
The men staring at Ekaterina with heated eyes annoyed Mikhail to no end. They’d been irritating him for a while—ever since she first stepped onstage before the play, in fact—and he wanted to throw them out of the auditorium one by one. The fact that he could do it made the urge that much harder to suppress.