COARV Chapter 21

Lesche looked me up and down, then said,

"Not bad."

"Your eyes and your mouth disagree, Your Highness. The eyes reveal a great deal more than you might think. It seems you're simply clumsy with words."

I left Begonia with a reminder to be sure to attend the ball herself, and left the room together with Lesche.

"Your cheek's still red."

"I made use of the interlude and paid the glacier a visit."

Since that would be my excuse regardless.

"Shameless."

Lesche let out a short laugh.

Outside the door, Linon, along with Elliot and a handful of other Berke knights, were already waiting. Since they'd all be attending the ball, they were dressed rather more splendidly and formally than usual.

"Your Highness, if I may just a moment—"

Elliot approached Lesche, apparently with some business to attend to. Sensing I ought to step away, Linon came over to me instead.

"Lady Seria! You look truly beautiful today."

"Thank you. But Linon."

"Yes, my lady?"

Ignoring Linon's practiced flattery, I gestured for him to come closer. He obliged readily enough, though with a bewildered expression, coming to stand near me.

"…."

I said nothing, simply extending my open palm toward him. Linon asked, "Yes? You want my hand? Am I a dog? Woof woof," and, with the question, laid his palm over mine. Our skin didn't touch, though. Linon had stopped it hovering just slightly above.

I promptly seized Linon's hand and gripped it. He blinked at me, wide-eyed.

"Lady Seria?"

"You look wonderful today, Linon."

"Ah. Yes. Thank… you?"

For once, Linon actually looked flustered. I let go of his hand and laughed.

He said he had an obsession with cleanliness. But he doesn't avoid my hand.

Which meant it wasn't that he'd been cleaning my annex every day because I was dirty. Then why had he been doing it? I made a note to ask him, given the chance sometime later.

"Let's go, my lady."

"Yes, Your Highness."

It seemed Elliot had finished relaying whatever brief business he'd had. I made my way toward the main castle's grand hall together with Lesche. Linon, Elliot, and the other knights followed at a comfortable distance behind us.

"What did you do to Linon?"

The question came out of nowhere. I glanced back once. They were still following at that same comfortable distance.

Just in case, though, I stretched my neck up and whispered close to Lesche's ear.

"He said he had an obsession with cleanliness, so I just ran a little experiment. Whether he'd avoid my hand or not."

"Your hand wouldn't be avoided regardless."

"Why not?"

"Who knows. Ask him yourself sometime."

Lesche's answer only left me with more questions than before.

Would he even give me a real answer if I asked?

In any case, I nodded. Escorted in by Lesche, the grand hall we entered was already crowded with people. I paused for a moment, taking in the vast hall with a proud eye, admiring what I saw.

As expected of Seria's taste. Incredible. Superb.

Seria's taste remained one of the memories still lingering in this body. Frequenting high society as often as she had eating meals meant, with a high probability, that she possessed a correspondingly excellent eye.

Villainesses, more often than not, were beautiful and refined. Seria, fortunately, was no exception.

Picking out decorations to my own liking, arranging them in harmony, and dressing up the grand hall in splendor left me thoroughly satisfied. There was something surprisingly fun, beyond what I'd imagined, about decorating a space exactly as I wished, on someone else's coin.

Especially that large, lavish rose sculpture carved from pink marble. I'd been astonished to find such an exquisitely detailed sculpture buried under thick dust in Berke Castle's own storeroom.

Isn't that the sort of sculpture magnificent enough that even a Grand Ducal residence in the capital would display it in the hall for everyone to see? Pink marble is precious enough in this world as it is.

Excavating the vast storeroom had its own kind of fun to it, which meant I could work all the harder for it. Even so, I doubted I'd even seen half of it yet.

Berke really was something else.

The brief interlude before the first dance began. There were only a handful of people who could approach and speak to me during this window.

"Lady Seria Stern?"

Turning around, a sturdily built knight bowed his head to me.

"Sir Johannes."

Johannes. Knight commander of House Davieu's order.

Of the guests gathered in this grand hall, more than three-tenths were knights. All of them had dressed neatly in formal ballroom attire and slicked back their hair, but they were knights all the same.

Considering that a ball's usual knight attendance ran somewhere around one-tenth, this was three times that number. The reason behind this strange attendance rate was none other than Seria's own family—House Keliden.

Originally, Kallis and I had planned on two separate wedding ceremonies. One was the Stern's ceremony, to be held here at Berke territory.

The other was to be a grand noble wedding held at Haneton territory. Given House Haneton's standing and influence, that wedding was set to draw the empire's most prominent nobles from across the entire realm.

The trouble was this Stern's ceremony specifically. House Keliden's presence loomed over the question of whether it was appropriate for family heads or direct-line relatives to attend even this ceremony.

That Seria had cut all ties with House Keliden as thoroughly as she had was common knowledge among any half-competent noble. She'd left Keliden lands entirely and moved up to the capital—what more needed saying?

Of course, Seria's case wasn't entirely without precedent. But even in such cases, families would typically send someone as a mere formality, to at least go through the motions of checking in.

Keliden didn't even send anyone to the Stern's wedding.

That alone spoke to how poor relations were between her and her family. And they clearly hadn't bothered to hide it, either.

The Gleick Empire's nobility couldn't afford to ignore House Keliden's sensitivities, nor could they ignore a Stern's. So most nobles had settled on sending knights bearing the credentials of a proxy to the Stern's wedding.

In simpler terms: we're mindful of House Keliden, but we'll still extend the bare minimum of courtesy to Seria, soon to be both Stern and Marchioness of Haneton.

In any case, neither Keliden nor Seria is anyone to trifle with. Look how hard the nobility has to work just to navigate around the two of them.

Naturally, if forced to choose between the two, they'd choose House Keliden without a second thought. However much of a Stern Seria might be, she still couldn't match a distinguished western house like Keliden.

"My sincerest congratulations on your marriage. Are you feeling better now?"

"Yes. I'm well. Thank you, Sir Johannes."

"Think nothing of it. Please do visit the Davieu ducal estate sometime, when your schedule allows."

"I will. Please pass along my regards to the Duchess."

"How could there be any doubt."

He must have clearly witnessed me collapsing at the Stern's ceremony, drenched horrifically in my own blood—and yet Sir Johannes never once brought up that day. It was simply court etiquette. Courtesy. I, too, merely smiled, as though no such thing had ever happened.

Once Sir Johannes of House Davieu withdrew, no more knights came forward. They all lingered at a distance instead, hovering.

Every one of them clearly wanted to find some way to speak to me, though.

Who gives a damn.

I understood their anxiety and shock perfectly well. Seria Stern, the woman everyone had expected to become Marchioness of Haneton, had suddenly married the Grand Duke of Berke instead.

House Keliden or no House Keliden, this was the sort of matter that ought to have brought the family heads themselves rushing over in person.

Perhaps even now they're scrambling in a panic, having just gotten word, rushing down here as we speak.

Not that I had any intention of receiving them even if they did.

Among all those knights, Sir Johannes was the only one who held the rank of knight commander. House Davieu had clearly made a visible effort to attend to me properly.

As for the rest, I don't even know their names.

Among them were even a few houses that had, from the look of things, sent mere squires. Apparently unwilling to offend House Keliden, they'd sent men who hadn't even received their knighthood yet.

Well, I knew it perfectly well and chose not to make an issue of it. I hadn't retaliated against anyone simply for sending me a squire or a common knight instead.

Which is just to say, I didn't need to trouble myself over their fretting. I turned my gaze away, sharp and open about it. Those noble houses, forever gauging my mood, could stamp their feet in frustration all they liked—not that it was any concern of mine.

A few of the knights who'd given up trying to get close to me had shifted their behavior elsewhere. Having judged it impossible to earn my favor, they seemed to have decided to become wallflowers instead. If they'd all stood there together with sour, ashen faces, it might have felt like a curse being invoked for the ball's ruin—fortunately, the sheer number of Berke's own retainers in attendance made up for it.

"Let's go out."

"Yes."

It was nearly time for the host to lead the first dance. As we made our way to the empty dance floor, with the nobles gathered at the edges of the room, a faint stir arose near the entrance. Lina had arrived.

"How shameless. She's hardly the sort who should be attending a ball, is she."

"I know. Surely the Marquess of Haneton won't show up either?"

"Surely not?"

The whispers of the noble ladies caught my ear. As they'd said, Lina hadn't come with Kallis. She had, however, brought her tutor, Baron Aison, as her escort.

What's more, Lina brazenly came closer toward me.

The moment our eyes met, she let out an "Ah—!" and parted her lips slightly. She reached her hand toward me, as though she had something to say, and I pretended not to notice.

Lesche asked, in a passing tone,

"Didn't you confiscate her invitation?"

"What reason would I have given for it?"

"There's no shortage of reasons."

Lesche tilted his chin.

"Then you wouldn't have had to see a sight like this."

Around Lina, a couple of the braver knights among those who'd given up on me had gathered, watching her with careful eyes. Having failed to win my favor, they seemed to have switched their strategy to currying favor with the Saint instead.

If Kallis were to arrive, he'd no doubt dance with Lina alone. It was as good as certain.

"Not really. I'm not the lead anyway."

"If you're not the female lead, then what?"

Perhaps it was Lesche's flat, indifferent tone that drew the honest thought out of me.

"Just... I feel like some foreign object wedged between the two of them."

"Does putting yourself down like that bring you any joy?"

"I don't know what else I'm supposed to think of myself."

"Seria."

For a moment, my heart seemed to drop straight out of my chest. Lesche Berke. This was the first time in my life this man had ever called me by my name like that. He extended his hand toward me and continued.

"This ball tonight is for you."

"…."

"Not for the other two."

I bit my lip lightly. Lesche's lashes, as he watched me, fell low and long. Just then, the music began. An elegant piece, something like a minuet.

My feelings tangled together in a complicated knot, and I couldn't tell why some strange, sorrowful emotion was welling up alongside them.

His one hand settled firmly at my waist.