COARV Chapter 11

"But the blizzard right now—"

"If I push through, I think I can make it somehow. Thanks to the map, I know roughly where we are, and if I just keep walking in the right direction, I should run into the search party eventually."

Kallis's eyes shone with determination.

"Lina, now that I know this cabin's number, I'll send them here the moment I find the search party."

"You're leaving me behind? Here?"

The glacier looked mysterious on the surface, but inside it was like an endless ocean. Alone in a place like this? Lina trembled with fear.

"Taking you with me would be too dangerous."

"Do you have to go? Can't the wedding be postponed a day or two? Isn't this how noble weddings work...?"

Kallis spoke in an unprecedentedly heavy tone.

"A Stern's wedding can't be postponed. It absolutely... cannot be postponed, Lina."

Lina couldn't quite understand Kallis's words. What made a Stern's wedding different from other nobles' weddings?

"Then when the blizzard dies down even a little, we can move— Kallis?"

Lina's eyes went round.

"Kallis!"

Kallis wiped his mouth. His gaze wavered. Vivid blood on the back of his hand.

"Are you okay? Why are you suddenly bleeding—"

Without answering, he stared at the red blood, then moved to the small window. When he opened the wooden shutter, another vertically divided wooden shutter appeared. He carefully opened it, and the blizzard whipped inside. Squinting through the wind, the outside was still dark.

But he could be certain.

The wedding ceremony had begun.

Kallis coughed and closed the window.

He had to get back somehow. As he moved toward the door, his legs buckled like a patient's and he collapsed.

"Kallis!"

More coughing followed. Blood flowed from Kallis's mouth. In that brief moment, his face had turned pale as wax.

Lina somehow dragged Kallis onto the bed and covered him with blankets. Though she knew nothing of medicine, even at a glance she could tell Kallis's condition was serious.

In the midst of it all, after vomiting blood several more times, he murmured deliriously.

"Seria..."

Lina's face hardened.

A chain like a constellation rose from Kallis's neck and began to strangle him tightly.

"This is..."

Lina covered her mouth with both hands. Though she hadn't received formal lessons about Sterns, she'd learned briefly during doctrine classes with the priestess.

The mark of the covenant that appeared on a Stern's betrothed. But why was it strangling Kallis's neck?

"Kallis! Kallis!"

Lina frantically tried to tear the chain-shaped ring of light from Kallis's neck, but it was useless. The color drained completely from Kallis's face.

The ceremony hall on the wedding day was even more beautiful than the day before.

Light fragments shattered from the opulent chandeliers, dazzling. Red carpet ran from the entrance all the way to the officiant's platform, and lush flowers filled glass baskets along the edges, decorating the ceremony hall with fresh elegance.

Sacred banners glittered above the flickering candlelight. The many priests who had come all this way just for my wedding gathered together like a choir. Their expressions were full of worry. Sighs heavy with concern could be heard intermittently.

Kallis hadn't come.

In the wedding hall without a groom, I stood alone before the altar.

The guest seats were at least full. Actually, I couldn't tell if that was fortunate or unfortunate. Standing alone in an empty space would have been humiliating too, but this...

Designer Begonia had secured the veil with water-droplet diamond pins, and it veiled my face with a subtle haze.

Just as she'd promised, the wedding dress she'd painstakingly perfected until the very last moment was truly beautiful. With the ceremony hall's specially arranged lighting, hundreds of faceted beads sparkled magnificently.

Like this radiant wedding dress, golden vessels also sat on either side of the officiant at the altar platform, emanating light. From the golden vessel containing holy water came the quiet sound of dripping—drip, drip—as holy water fell endlessly. Like a water clock.

A month ago, at the covenant ceremony with Kallis held at the Grand Temple, there had been vessels like those. We'd wetted our hands with the holy water in the vessels and performed the covenant ceremony for him to become a Stern's man.

The wedding ceremony began when that holy water started to fall. And when it finished falling completely, the wedding ceremony ended.

I didn't quite understand why such a time bomb was necessary.

I was standing quietly with my expression arranged like a mask, looking only at the golden vessel, when suddenly screams came from behind.

"My lady...? My lady!"

"Lady Stern!"

I realized belatedly that I was the target of those screams. What I saw as I tried to turn around was blood.

Blood spreading from beneath my shoes like someone had poured a bucket. A beat late, coughing erupted.

Cough.

Red blood soaked the pure white wedding gloves that Begonia Salon's artisans had spent two months lace-knitting.

'Huh?'

I couldn't properly grasp what was happening.

"Lady Seria!"

Abigail rushed over first. The priests hurriedly clung to both her arms.

"You mustn't! You can't touch her!"

"Are you insane? The lady is covered in blood right now!"

"This is a Stern ritual! If you touch her wrong now, her divine power will become even more tangled!"

The priests' words weren't wrong at all. Until the wedding ceremony ended, no one except those who had completed the covenant ceremony could touch a Stern.

It was an unwritten law.

Even in cases where an accident occurred on the wedding day and a Stern was dying covered in blood, it was the same. If others made contact, the divine power would tangle and the Stern might go mad. The priests' repeated warnings to strictly observe the wedding ceremony time were only now beginning to make sense.

This cruelly strict taboo bound my entire body.

"When on earth is Marquess Haneton coming!"

"Gather all the Stern banners! Even if I have to use my divine power, somehow...!"

At some point I had collapsed right there on the carpet. My head was spinning.

I thought I'd somehow avoided the original's ruin ending, but was I still going to die like this? Because Seria Stern was a villainess, was it unavoidable?

But I'd never once interfered with the protagonists. I'd never coveted them. And yet I was still a villainess?

What did I do wrong?

Tears streamed down. The heavy diamond ornaments and veil I'd worn on my head slid down together. Even as my tangled hair hurt, it was quickly buried by the greater pain elsewhere.

It hurt terribly, and even in the midst of the pain, I could tell clearly.

I was going to die here.

At the Stern wedding ceremony everyone envied, I would die because the man who said he loved only me didn't come.

Everything felt like a farce.

"...Ah! Your Grace!"

"Grand Duke!"

I registered slowly that the entrance had become noisy because I'd lost so much blood. Of course I had no strength left to lift my head and look back.

Metal plate boots dirtied with white snow and mud entered my field of vision. They approached step by step. Knelt before me. Lifted the veil covering my face.

"You mustn't, Your Grace!"

"You cannot make contact with Lady Stern!"

The priests' shouts tangled in my ears.

"She's about to die—will just watching solve anything?"

Grinding his teeth as he shouted, then looking down at me.

"Seria Stern!"

I looked up blankly at the man shaking my body. He wasn't my fiancé Kallis Haneton.

Lesche Berke. On the floor rolled the veil crumpled in his hand. Lesche was gritting his teeth, looking at me in my blood-soaked wedding dress.

My blood had gotten on his beautiful silver hair as well.

"Stay conscious. Don't die. Don't you dare die, dammit!"

I couldn't tell exactly what expression he was looking down at me with. My vision was that unclear. My focus kept blurring.

Lesche glanced once at his blood-stained hand, then stood up. Through my hazy vision, I saw him stride to the holy water placed on either side of the altar platform and plunge his hands in.

"Prepare for the covenant ceremony."

"What?"

"Abbreviated. Immediately."

The priests froze like stone, then as if possessed pulled out scriptures to read before placing their hands on Lesche's forehead. Brilliant white light burst forth.

Though many steps had been skipped and it was significantly abbreviated, the outline was clearly similar to the covenant ceremony Kallis had received.

Linon rushed over and handed Lesche white gloves. He roughly pulled the gloves onto his hands and strode toward me.

At some point I realized my body was floating.

I realized a beat late.

That Lesche Berke, this man, had lifted my body into his arms.

"Proceed with the wedding!"

I could feel people panicking all the way here. The blood-stained veil was still clutched in Lesche Berke's—that man's—hand.

"...And thus, to swear eternity to the Stern who has received the constellation's blessing..."

A strange chain pattern seemed to be etching itself onto Lesche's neck. Though it might have been a hallucination from my pain.

I lost consciousness just like that.

Please don't kill me so horribly.

I want to live.

I want to live.

Don't kill me...

"...tern, Seria Stern!"

I came to my senses drenched in cold sweat. A familiar ceiling entered my view. It was the bedroom where I'd been staying.

My eyes were damp. Had I cried in my sleep? I seemed to have had a nightmare, but couldn't quite remember. As I carelessly rubbed my wet eyes with the back of my hand, soft cloth settled near my forehead. It was a men's handkerchief.

"If you're going to wipe, use that."

Only then did I turn my head to look to the side. Clean silver hair. Dark red pupils visible between those long silver lashes.

It was Lesche Berke.

Normally I would have jumped up in shock seeing him at my bedside, but now my body had no strength. Maybe because I'd passed the point of death, I just felt dazed. It was like a tidal wave had washed cleanly through my head and receded.

"...Your Grace."

Still, he must have frightened me for the past year. I asked cautiously.

"May I... stay lying down?"

Lesche gave a hollow laugh. Hah.