Chapter 86 - And There Were Two (1/2)

(Elder Sister POV)

I am Odriana, the first daughter of the Lindulf House. We were a rather respectable family of merchants ever since our grandparents' time.

Grandfather and Grandmother had started up the Lindulf trading company in their prime after migrating over from a place they had refused to tell us, stating it was better that we did not know.

We had just assumed they had crossed over the Death Mountains from Dong country and were just unwilling to talk about it.

From young, I had been closer to my younger brother than my elder one. It was no surprise since father had been grooming him to be his next successor ever since he was born while I was just an asset to be used by the House.

I had been initially betrothed to another man fifteen years my senior of a more wealthy merchant House. It was nothing more than an arranged marriage to help gain familiar relations with them for my House.

It was not a surprising thing since these types of arranged marriages were common between nobles and wealthy merchants and I had already accepted my fate.

But my younger brother, barely eight years old at that time, had helped me break off the engagement by exposing the nefarious deeds the other House had done to obtain their position.

Exploiting workers, backroom deals, scams and inflating prices of their sold goods were just some of what he had told me they were guilty of.

Normally, these kinds of things would be an open secret that everybody knew but could do nothing about since these noble Houses could literally buy their way out of trouble.

But younger brother had apparently made a deal that the local lord could not refuse and thus managed to incarcerate them without any problems.

That made him unpopular with the rest of the family since they had been counting on the other House's influence to push our own trade influence further.

As to what younger brother had offered for the lord, I had not been able to find out and neither did anyone else. The lord had resigned from his position soon after and left his son to take over, he himself moving out of town for places unknown.

That event made me determined to spoil my adorable younger brother as much as I could.

He has done way more for me than either father or brother ever did.

But unfortunately for me, since my usefulness as a bargaining chip had ran out at that time, I was pulled away to learn how the administration of the business world was applied to help out the House's trade.

I could only envy my little sister who could hog brother all for herself in my absence.

I even heard he had started tutoring her about the various truths of the world.

Oh, but it's not like I hate Elaria, mind you. It's not her fault that I was dealt these cards in life.

Besides, I could still come back and visit my adorable little brother on my days off, pampering him to the fullest extent while he soothed me with his presence.

I was no longer in danger of being married off since there weren't any 'respectable enough House for us to form familial ties with' according to father.

Things continued like this for the next few years.

I had thought this would be our routine for the foreseeable future but of course fate had other plans in mind.

I received the news that my most angelic little brother had lost all of his memories from someone's despicable actions one day, rendering him unable to even to recall his own name.

He became reserved and detached from everyone else where even Elaria had a difficult time approaching him, much less myself.

I only learned much later that the House had started ostracizing him because of something he had granted to our little sister, though I had no idea why at that time.

With how reclusive he had become, I barely had any opportunity to spend time with him anymore, making me resent the fact that I had been put in this position by my House.

I felt it was still bearable in a way since I could still see my brother from time to time, slowly trying to get him out of his reclusive new self and back to the old one. But the final straw came when my most innocent younger brother revealed his plans to leave the House in favour of starting his own journey.

It was only then that I found out about how the House had been treating my adorable little brother.