COARV Chapter 13

Kallis's voice barely registered.

Because, unwillingly held too long in Kallis's grip, I felt it—a strange power. Something like the holy power that ran through my own body. And yet—a strange revulsion, like two same poles of a magnet forced together.

Come to think of it, how was Kallis even alive?

At the wedding, I had felt certain death approaching. And I'd learned at the Grand Temple that a Stern and a Stern's spouse met the same end.

Thinking about it now, that had meant the tragedy at the wedding hall. If I had sensed my own death coming, that meant Kallis, too, had been standing right at death's threshold.

Lesche Berke had saved me—but that had been me, and only me, that he'd saved.

Kallis should have died as the price for failing to keep the covenant. Or, failing that, he should have been hurt just as badly.

But by any measure, Kallis looked less injured than I did. From what I could see, hardly any visible wounds at all.

Which meant….

"…Kallis."

Slowly, I put it together.

The location. The timing. Everything already arranged. Kallis had been the one bound by covenant to share holy power with a Stern—and wasn't there, in this very territory, another Stern besides me. A Saint gifted by God, which meant she could skip, at her own discretion, the holy water and priests a wedding otherwise absolutely required.

"You… married Lina?"

"……."

Before marrying me, Kallis had undergone the Covenant Ceremony overseen by the Grand Temple.

It was the preparatory ritual for a Stern's wedding—dipping both hands into specially prepared holy water, completing the preparations to become a Stern's man.

The Covenant Ceremony was something like a ritual cleansing. It marked the stage where the preparations for marriage were finished, but that didn't mean you were immediately bound to a particular person.

The stage where you actually became bound to someone was the wedding itself.

Which was why Lesche had been able to perform an abbreviated Covenant Ceremony and marry me right away.

Which meant, in other words—

Kallis, who had already completed his own Covenant Ceremony, was, in theory, also free to marry any Stern. Nobody had ever considered the possibility, given how few Sterns existed—maybe one or two on the entire continent, if that.

But Lina was a Stern.

"You chose to marry Lina… and that's why you were alive. In much better shape than I was."

"……."

I didn't know what expression I was wearing as I looked at Kallis. Only that I was shaking, betrayal rising in me—that was probably the face I wore.

"I was vomiting blood, right at death's door, and I never once thought of anyone but you."

"……."

"You'd already gone and had a temporary wedding with Lina, just to survive."

What had I been waiting for? Who had I been waiting for, alone, so pitifully?

I slowly dragged both hands down my face. The pressure of raw, exhausted skin against flesh, and the flare of white behind my eyes. Then the darkness that followed. And then, coming into focus after it—Kallis's wavering eyes.

"Seria."

"What a waste—the time I spent liking you, Kallis."

Shock spread across his face. He spoke in a pleading tone.

"Seria, be as angry with me as you want. But my marriage was a temporary one, and you married the Grand Duke as a temporary arrangement too, didn't you? Am I wrong?"

"So?"

"Let's get divorced. Both of us. Get divorced and marry each other again. I'll arrange the grandest wedding there's ever been. We can just start over from the beginning. We have time, after all…."

"Time?"

I glared into Kallis's wavering eyes.

"All we need is time?"

Even if there were time now, what good did that do.

"My feelings for you are gone. What's time got to do with anything."

"Seria!"

I wrench free of the hand still gripping me tight and walk straight out of the bedroom in nothing but slippers on bare feet.

It was the kind of thing I would never, under ordinary circumstances, have done. Seria was a villainess, a wild good-for-nothing—but she was also a flawlessly composed noblewoman, and I had no wish to invite anyone's suspicion by suddenly, visibly changing all at once.

But right now, keeping up appearances felt entirely pointless.

I'd nearly died living a good life—what difference did it make now? What had I even been watching my step for?

"Seria!"

Kallis came chasing after and caught my wrist. His grip was so strong I couldn't even shake it off.

"Let go!"

At that, the knights who'd been standing by the door with grave expressions on their faces stepped forward and seized both of Kallis's arms.

Caught in an instant, Kallis shouted in fury.

"What do you think you're doing right now? Do you not know who I am? Let go of me, now!"

"Our apologies, my lord."

"Our apologies."

Kallis stared at me, both arms restrained. I didn't so much as glance at the man who'd once been my fiancé, and walked down the corridor at nearly a run.

The corridor was fairly cold. I clutched my shawl tight and let out a sigh, walking alone down its length.

If the wedding had gone the way it was supposed to, what would I be doing right now?

I'd be busy, probably.

Run off my feet preparing for the reception, for all the nobles who'd come to see the wedding. Though by now, all of that had surely fallen apart into nothing.

Even setting aside the fact that I somehow married Lesche instead—the reception's still being held under my name and Kallis's.

A reception with another man's name plastered all over it, and Lesche walking in instead of Kallis?

Forget how it's a complete trainwreck—knowing Lesche Berke, there's no way he'd swallow it. Having gotten that far, I could work out the next step.

Lesche Berke must have had a reason for saving me. So I'd ask him what it was, and decide what to do from there.

Original story, my ass.

I really didn't know anymore. Had dying once and clawing back left me with nothing left to lose?

First things first.

I couldn't exactly go meet Lesche at the main castle looking like this. Right now I was in indoor slippers, with nothing but a shawl thrown over my white nightgown.

On top of that, my arm was starting to ache. I pulled back the long sleeve to check, and found the bandage more heavily soaked with red than before.

Still bleeding.

The pain arrived belatedly, and I winced. I'd forgotten, with Kallis bursting in the way he had. If I wanted to put on one of the simple dresses the maids had laid out and go to the main castle, I'd need to head back to my room first.

But no matter how I thought it through, Kallis was surely planted right outside my bedroom door, waiting me out. I didn't want to run into him right now. My sense of betrayal toward him was that overwhelming.

Should I go in through the window?

Getting back to my room without running into Kallis meant climbing through the window—that was the only way. Weighing it over, I looked out through a window in the corridor.

Frosted over, as always.

The window's probably the better bet, then.

Thinking that, I started walking—and ran straight into a familiar face.

"Aaaaaahhhh, my lady!"

It was Linon, my chief aide. He took one look at what I was wearing and nearly fainted on the spot.

"Do you think this is some warm southern paradise? Do you have any idea how brutal a central winter can get…?"

Linon hastily moved to take off his coat and hand it to me, then stopped short. He genuinely, physically hesitated, then spoke, flustered.

"My lady? I'm actually—I have a rather weaker constitution than you'd think, and… if I catch a cold, half of Berke ends up paralyzed…."

"Who asked you to take it off?"

"But then if you catch a cold, my lady, that puts me in a bind all over again. Aaah, aaah!"

…What an odd man.

In the original novel, Linon was described more than once as a genuinely remarkable talent. Top of his class at Altair Academy, of all places—hard enough to get into, harder still to graduate from.

Was Lesche Berke, keeping a talent like that on staff as his aide, actually that impressive a man?

"In any case, Lady Seria? Let's get you back and into proper clothes first. Then we'll head to the main castle together. His Highness's work should be finished right about now."

"Did His Highness ask for me?"

"No?"

"Then why?"

Linon asked, his eyes wearing a look of pure, feigned innocence.

"Don't you have quite a lot to say to His Highness?"

"I thought you were a mind reader for a second there. Let's go."

"I hear that a lot."

Linon followed along beside me, grinning ear to ear.

Can't exactly climb through a window with the Grand Duke's chief aide in tow.

But I had no desire at all to show weakness in front of Linon, someone I wasn't especially close with. Something about how uncomfortable it was to see Kallis, or whatever.

I hoped Kallis would have left my door by now, but—

"Seria!"

Of course.

Kallis was still waiting right outside my bedroom, exactly as expected. He stood with his arms crossed, his expression hard, and his gaze swept past me toward Linon walking beside me. Kallis's face went cold in an instant.

"What business does he have here?"

Linon tilted his head, looking genuinely puzzled.

"What business? Isn't escorting a lady simply what a gentleman does?"

"That's fine, then. I'll take over the escorting from here."

"Oh dear. My lord, I'm terribly sorry, but that won't do."

"Why not."

"There are places in this world where people draw swords over stealing a partner at a ball. Surely you don't expect me to draw a sword against you, my lord…?"

"……."

Kallis's expression hardened, stony, once he understood what Linon meant.

Linon wasn't a knight. Which meant he couldn't fight a duel on equal terms with Kallis, who had received formal knighthood. Instead, a knight from wherever Linon was affiliated would have to issue the challenge on his behalf—and Linon was currently affiliated with Berke.

But a Berke knight fighting Marquess Haneton wasn't remotely a fair match either. Given the Gleick Empire's long-standing social conventions, where a house's head was considered matched only against equals of the same rank—

Somehow this had ballooned into the absurd conclusion that Lesche Berke himself would have to duel Kallis on Linon's behalf.

Wasn't that basically a demonic talent? The gift Linon had for making completely nonsensical logic sound perfectly reasonable. Still, if Kallis had a shred of sense left as a nobleman, this was exactly the point where he ought to back down and concede—

"If that's the condition for escorting Seria, I'll gladly accept it."

"My lord…? Are you serious?"

"Do you really think I'm in a state to worry about winning or losing a duel right now?"

There was an impatience in Kallis's voice he couldn't quite hide. Unmistakably directed at me. He kept glancing my way, again and again, as he spoke.

It wasn't even remotely funny.

I decided to act like I didn't know him.

"Wait here, Linon."

"Seri…."

"I'm going to change first."

Only then did Kallis flinch and step back. Linon dipped his head.

"As you wish, my lady."

I stepped inside without looking back, then pulled the bell-cord to summon the maids.

I quickly changed into the comfortable indoor dress that had been laid out earlier but never worn, threw a cloak over it, and seriously considered climbing back out the window again—but in the end, factoring in my injured arm, I just opened the door and walked out.

"Seria, let's walk together for a bit. We need to talk."

As if he'd been waiting for exactly that moment, Kallis stepped into my path.