COARV Chapter 8

"……!"

"It has been a long while since a Stern's wedding was held. The vow must be held sacred."

Come to think of it, that was true in the original novel too. Lesche Berke, for all his cold looks, was almost conservative in how strictly he held to the sanctity of marriage vows.

The bedroom went silent as a dying mouse. Except for the sound of Lina's shallow breathing. I couldn't even see what expression Lina was wearing.

Lesche looked at Kallis, unable to say anything, and tilted his chin at an angle.

"Then I'll leave the Saint in your care. Marquess Kallis Haneton. Priests."

The priests, if anything, were relieved that this icy atmosphere had finally broken.

"Understood, Your Highness."

Now, once Lesche left, what expression should I even wear when I looked at Kallis?

Honestly, I didn't know. What he'd say to me was predictable enough. That's not what I meant. It was because the Saint was in pain.

And what I'd say in return, then—

"Lady Seria."

Just then, a voice reached me. Lesche looked down at me and offered his arm.

"……?"

"Come, walk out with me. The Saint needs rest."

"Se—!"

Kallis called out for me, and I turned. Our eyes met. His eyes were full of a strange kind of anger. But that was all. That was the whole of it.

Even if I decided to stay here for Kallis's sake, I'd have to leave again soon enough anyway.

Because Lina was still in pain. Because Kallis needed to be at her side.

Still, if he'd called out my name all the way to the end, I would have chosen to stay by my fiancé's side. But Lina let out a low groan, and Kallis turned back and murmured her name, checking on her condition.

I pulled my gaze away from Kallis and looked back at Lesche. I set my hand on his arm.

"Thank you, Your Highness."

I walked out without looking back. I don't remember with what state of mind I made it to my room. I bowed my head to Lesche and dropped straight onto the bed. When the maids asked, carefully, "Shall we bring tea?" I sent them away and buried my face in the pillow.

I hadn't managed to leave it behind, so the demon-crystal bracelet I'd tucked away and run with rattled softly as I moved.

For a moment it felt as though tears might come, but Seria's mask held firm.

That, I thought, was a very good thing.

2. The Provisional Marriage

"You didn't sleep well, Lady Seria."

"Oh, Sir Elliot."

The next day.

Elliot (Angel) wore an oddly pitying expression.

Judging by his face, the rumor had already spread through the castle entirely. Haneton's noblewomen were friendly toward me, but the nobles who'd come from other territories weren't necessarily so. I had no idea what they were saying about me, so all the more reason to keep pretending nothing was wrong.

I had no interest in being torn apart by nobles just days before my own wedding.

"Where are you headed now? I'll go in your place."

"No, Sir. I need to bring the silver laurel branches with me anyway."

"Then I'll head to the stables ahead of you."

"Thank you."

"Think nothing of it."

I stepped into the storehouse known as the Treasure Vault of the Green Fields. A vast storehouse, faintly smelling of dust, with no one but the servant standing guard.

It was a place that stored, exclusively, the various expensive and precious items needed for the silver laurel branches and the glacier inspection, and since only those with permission could enter, it saw very few visitors.

Somehow, it eased my mind a little.

I gathered the silver laurel branches as usual, out of habit.

"Lady Seria Stern."

A voice, right then.

I turned around, startled.

"Your Highness."

It was Lesche. The one who'd walked me all the way out to the hallway yesterday. I'd been too flustered to even greet him properly and had gone straight to my room.

I bowed my head, then lifted it. I met his red eyes, then gasped and dropped my gaze immediately. Lesche's eyes had been that savage.

"After everything that happened yesterday, do you truly think the inspection is even possible?"

"……."

"If it's just an excuse to run away, you could simply shut yourself in the annex instead."

My grip on the silver laurel branch tightened, faintly.

"I'll check the glacier as thoroughly as I always do, so don't worry. I won't neglect it. Not for a moment."

"……."

The mocking expression that had been plain on Lesche's face shifted, just slightly. He was about to say something when—

A familiar voice came from behind.

"…Seria. There you are."

His expression twisted at once. A voice I could recognize without even looking. Kallis. Honestly, I didn't particularly want to see his face right now.

Before I could turn to face Kallis, Lesche spoke first.

"Marquess Kallis Haneton. It seems I'm invisible to your eyes."

"My apologies, Your Highness."

The sound of footsteps approaching. Kallis pulled my wrist toward him. I had no choice but to turn around.

Here, too, the expression-reading radar I'd developed, out of pure survival instinct, exclusively for the original novel's important characters, kicked into gear.

Kallis was angry right now.

What? Why? What does he have to be angry about?

"I searched everywhere for my fiancée and couldn't find her."

Kallis was smiling, but only the corners of his mouth had lifted.

"I didn't expect to find you here, with His Highness. This is such a quiet, isolated place."

Just as Kallis said, there was no one here but Lesche and me. If there was a problem—

"Marquess Haneton. Whose permission did you take to come in here?"

Lesche's voice sank, threatening.

"I've never granted you access to this vault."

That was true. Unlike Lesche, the castle's master, or myself, a Stern, Kallis had never received permission to enter the Treasure Vault of the Green Fields. This was an extremely sensitive matter even among ordinary nobles—let alone here, in the main castle of the Grand Duchy of Berke.

"My apologies, Your Highness. I lost my composure for a moment and committed a discourtesy."

Kallis apologized in a stiff voice.

"I'll pay the customary compensation as soon as I return. If Your Highness has a specific sum in mind, please say so. I'll gladly pay it."

"Gladly? Quite the bravado."

"It isn't bravado."

"You seem to be under a misunderstanding."

Lesche fixed Kallis with a chilling look.

"The punishment isn't something the likes of you gets to decide. I simply follow this castle's tradition."

"And what tradition is that?"

"Severing one hand at the wrist. Are you prepared for that?"

"……."

Kallis glared at Lesche.

"I didn't realize Your Highness wanted my hand. Or is it a war between our territories you're after?"

"It sounds to me like war is what you want, not I."

The atmosphere between them had grown dangerous enough to spill over. It felt as though a real war might actually break out. A war in the dead of winter—they seemed dead set on freezing everyone to death together. I gave Kallis's shirtsleeve a light tug, with two fingers. Both pairs of eyes dropped to my hand at once, and my hand shrank back on its own.

As if to prove they were both knights.

"Your Highness, though my fiancé committed a grave discourtesy, wouldn't it be too harsh on the knights who must inspect the glacier through the winter to start a war over something like this? Please, in the generosity you show a Stern, I beg you to let this pass, just this once."

Lesche's eyebrow lifted, slightly.

"My fiancé will swear never to commit such a discourtesy again. And offer a proper apology as well. Won't you?"

"……."

"Won't you, Kallis?"

Kallis, who'd been staring blankly at me, lowered his head slowly toward Lesche.

"I've been terribly discourteous. Your Highness."

Kallis's apology that followed was, fortunately, flawlessly courteous. If it hadn't been, I'd been about to stomp on his foot.

Lesche's expression was unreadable. Only, through the whole apology, he'd been watching not Kallis, but me.

"You've got quite the fiancée."

He said it briefly, in his usual expressionless face, then turned on his heel and walked out. It happened in an instant. Kallis and I were left alone in the vast, quiet Treasure Vault of the Green Fields.

"Seria."

"I have nothing to say."

I twisted my wrist, still caught, trying to pull free. But Kallis wouldn't let go. Normally—yes, I would have told him it was all right, that he'd come rushing here in a fit of temper without thinking it through.

But I couldn't do that right now. I simply couldn't understand it. Kallis's face, so pitifully attentive to Lina, kept circling in front of my eyes. His reaction, turning to her the instant she spoke, had left a sticky, clinging mark on one side of my chest.

When had feelings I'd tried so hard not to notice piled up this high?

"If you break the engagement by midnight tonight, you won't even have to go through with that sacred wedding, Kallis."

"…A broken engagement?"

Kallis's eyes went wide.

"A broken engagement, at a Stern's wedding? How does that even make sense? Seria!"

"Why doesn't it make sense?"

"You're… you're speaking too easily, out of anger."

"I'm speaking too easily?"

"Yes. Please, just calm down. Seria, are you bringing up a broken engagement over the fact that I nursed a sick Saint? Over that?"

"That's all?"

"She's ill. She has no one to rely on but me—she's the divine's representative, from an entirely different world. Can't you at least understand that much?"

"I do understand it."

"Is this what understanding looks like? Getting angry, taking another man's arm and walking out, not even looking at me?"

"You were the one who did all that with the Saint first."

"Lina was sick! How is that the same thing!"

My head felt like it was steaming.

"I suppose it is different, then. At least I don't go around dropping formality and calling His Highness by his given name."

"……."

For a moment, Kallis's face showed he knew he'd made a mistake. I bit down, hard.

"Let go of my hand."

"Seria."

I twisted my hand as hard as I could, trying to break free of Kallis's grip, But Kallis wouldn't let go—not even an inch. Fuck. This bastard, seriously.

In the end, the anger shot straight to the top of my head. I clenched my free hand into a fist and slammed it hard against the wooden shelf beside me.

CRACK! Kallis's eyes went wide at the sound of it.

"Seria!"