COARV Chapter 5

Sterns mattered more visibly in Berke territory, home to the frozen lake, than anywhere else. But across the whole continent, there were barely one or two Sterns at any given time, and most of them were arrogant—and of them all, Seria Stern had carried an especially strong streak of the villainess about her.

But that was old news now.

Baron Aison, who oversaw the God's representative—Lina's—lessons, said with a smile,

"Lady Seria has changed a great deal, this past year."

The number of balls she attended, once nearly daily, had slowly, quietly dwindled.

Not that she'd withdrawn from society entirely, mind.

Either way, anyone paying attention knew Seria Stern had been changing steadily, starting about a year ago. If it had happened all at once, people might have found it strange. But Seria had changed gradually, always within the bounds of what others could make sense of.

"And her relationship with Marquess Kallis Haneton improving so much—that dates back to that same day too."

Only a very small number of people knew that Seria had healed Kallis's arm herself. Naturally, Baron Aison was not among them.

Lina, who had asked after every detail she could about "Lady Seria Stern," nodded at Aison's words.

"I see. So that's how she managed to get engaged to Kallis…."

A short break. Noise stirred outside, and Lina pressed herself close to the window frame. Baron Aison nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight of her hanging there like a child.

"Your Holiness, that's dangerous!"

"Ah. My apologies."

"And you already have such a delicate constitution…."

Baron Aison's words were true enough. Lina's body was in a genuinely fragile state, ravaged from within by her own unstable holy power. Even now, both her arms, her legs, and even her thighs were wrapped tightly in fine bandages. Her skin bruised a sickly yellow wherever her body failed to contain the surge of divine power.

It was fortunate, at least, that Marquess Kallis Haneton and Grand Duke Lesche Berke were both present here. They were two of the heads among the empire's Seventeen Families—men who held some ability to control holy power.

That Lina's condition had held at nothing worse than yellowed bruises was, in large part, thanks to Marquess Kallis Haneton's devoted effort.

"You seem quite close with the Marquess."

"Yes. Kallis really does have a wonderful personality."

"Mm…."

At how casually, how familiarly Lina said it, Baron Aison's face went a little strained.

"Your Holiness? You shouldn't address the Marquess so familiarly outside."

"Huh? Why not?"

"Because the Marquess is soon to be married, Your Holiness. It could lead to ugly rumors."

"What? Surely not!"

Lina burst out laughing.

"Kallis and I are just friends, you know?"

"The nobles here don't quite see it that way, unfortunately."

"But…."

Lina murmured, sounding puzzled, "Kallis calls me by my name too, though…." Baron Aison said, "I see," and nodded.

'I'll need to have a word with the Marquess about this separately, later.'

That was when it happened.

Outside the window, a sudden burst of noise rose up. Both their eyes turned toward it as one.

Baron Aison said,

"That would be Lady Seria Stern, returning from the glacier."

He was right.

Seria Stern, just back from riding. A snow-white fur cloak wrapped around her. Her cheeks, too, frozen red. From what Aison had overheard, she went out to check the glacier every single day these days.

And the figure hurrying out to greet Seria was a face Lina knew well too. Marquess Kallis Haneton. A smile bloomed across Lina's face at the sight of him. She waved both hands wide from the window.

"Kalli—!"

Lina's call never made it to the end.

Kallis had already closed the distance to Seria in one unbroken rush the moment she dismounted, and taken her cheeks—certainly ice-cold by now—between both hands.

Then some exchange followed. The words themselves weren't quite audible, but Kallis often fretted over his fiancée catching cold, so it was almost certainly the same kind of doting scolding.

To anyone watching, it looked every bit like a pair of affectionate lovers.

Lina lowered her hands, watched them in silence for a moment, and then asked abruptly,

"Why does Kallis's fiancée go out to the glacier every day?"

Baron Aison was about to launch into another gentle correction, but Lina's eyes were simply too guileless. Well—she had said she came from another world, after all.

'This is something that can be taught slowly, over time.'

"Because she's a Stern, Your Holiness. It's a kind of good deed only a Stern can offer during the winter. She's been especially diligent about it lately, and it's earned no end of praise from within Berke territory."

"I'm jealous…."

"Pardon?"

"Never mind."

Lina, having murmured to herself, asked carefully,

"Teacher."

"Yes, Your Holiness?"

"What house does Stern belong to? A duke's house? Is Kallis's fiancée a duke's daughter?"

"Lady Seria Stern is the daughter of the prestigious Western Keliden Marquessate."

"Wow. Kallis's fiancée really does have everything."

Having gotten that far, a new question occurred to Lina.

"Then why is she called Lady Stern instead of Lady Keliden?"

"Stern is a title granted by divine decree from the Holy Kingdom. Lady Seria is a rare and precious Stern, formally recognized by the High Priests themselves."

"Ah-ha. Kind of like a Catholic baptismal name."

"A baptismal name?"

"In my original world… there's something like that."

Lina trailed off there, tilting her head.

"Could I get that title too?"

"Pardon? But you're already the Saint, Your Holiness."

"But Stern sounds so much more impressive."

"To your eyes, Your Holiness, Lady Stern might well look more impressive."

Of all the timing for this, Baron Aison thought, chewing it over.

The lady drawing the most attention at Berke Castle right now was, without question, Seria Stern. With her wedding to Marquess Haneton only days away, that was hardly surprising.

The castle stayed in constant motion preparing the wedding hall for Seria, and nobles from Haneton territory and every allied house with a stake in the match were arriving in steady streams to attend the ceremony. Every last one of them was angling for a chance to make an impression on Seria, so the guest quarters where she stayed were forever crowded with visitors.

"But you'll receive your own grand welcome in just six months, Your Holiness. Though you'll need to learn all the etiquette expected of you first, of course."

Lina answered, downcast,

"Still, I want to be a Stern too—like Kallis's fiancée."

Baron Aison said, with a smile touching his voice,

"You have to meet certain criteria to become a Stern."

"Criteria? Like what? I'll have you know I'm confident in my memorization, despite how I look!"

"Ah-ha-ha. It isn't something you learn."

Baron Aison, laughing, explained kindly.

"A Stern first bears a star-shaped mark somewhere on the body. It isn't there from birth—it's said to manifest when the child turns fifteen. And they must have been born on a Winter Wednesday, and must possess holy power."

Which meant Lina was almost certainly not a Stern. If she were, the maids who'd helped bathe her that very first day would already have spotted the star-shaped mark and reported it. No such report had come in, not once.

"A star-shaped mark… a Winter Wednesday…."

Lina counted on her fingers, lost in thought. Watching her sink so deeply into it, Aison suspected the rest of the lesson wouldn't reach her ears at all.

Baron Aison dismissed the lesson early.

"Well then, that's all for today, Your Holiness."

"It's almost Lady Seria's birthday, isn't it? Her 'Winter Wednesday.'"

At the words of the priestess who'd brought me my cold medicine, Dame Abigail nodded.

"Time really does fly."

I retraced the dates in my head. I'd forgotten entirely.

"So it is. I've been too busy to notice."

Tomorrow alone, I was scheduled to view the wedding hall together with the noblewomen who'd come up from Haneton territory, and hold a small tea party afterward.

Winter Wednesday.

There was a verse the temple kept, about it.

A child of Monday will be fair of face,

a child of Monday, fair of face—

but a child of Tuesday is filled with God's own grace,

and a child of Wednesday is filled with grief and woe,

and a child of Thursday will travel far, to lands they've yet to know.

A child of Friday loves freely and gives,

a child of Saturday burns with passion and drive,

and a child of Sunday is gracious and gay, and good, and glad, come what may.

Isn't it a raw deal, being born on a Wednesday?

If only the sorrow came with a matching amount of money….

Seria Stern had been born on a Winter Wednesday. On her fifteenth birthday, a small star-shaped mark had appeared on her once-clear white throat, and since she also possessed holy power, she'd been officially recognized as a Stern. That was how the original had explained it.

A Stern's holy power was a completely different kind of force from a priestess's holy power, technically speaking. But Sterns were so rare to begin with that no one bothered making the distinction.

The idle chatter about birthdays drifted, before long, toward Lina. The priestess let out a long, heavy sigh and said,

"Speaking of which, it's becoming a real problem—Her Holiness keeps taking such an interest in celestium lately."

"The Saint does? Isn't that dangerous, if her holy power isn't stabilized yet?"

"I tell her as much, but she is a rather curious sort."

'Right, that tracked with the original too.' Lina, being the bright, lovable, textbook-perfect female lead that she was, was also plenty curious.

Which caused all sorts of incidents. This was, in fact, a story from the middle of the original.

After every kind of hardship, Lina finally finishes fully stabilizing her holy power. I couldn't begin to describe how overjoyed Lina had been, watching the skin that had always been mottled with bruises finally come clean.

But that lasted only a moment. A new trial arrives to strike Lina next. She touches the celestium monument.

The rare celestium monument was used to identify Sterns. Lina touches the celestium monument, and this awakens the dormant Stern's holy power that had been lying latent inside her all along.

She falls seriously ill once from it, but it also becomes the turning point where the male lead, Lesche, finally acknowledges his own feelings properly.

The person who, in the original, was the one who got Lina to touch the celestium in the first place—

was Seria Stern. Fuck.

Me.

Me again.