IWJACM Chapter 17

"If matters don't proceed as intended, I intend to tell His Majesty the truth. From there, what becomes of Your Highness will be for His Majesty to decide."

That meant that once the promised six months passed, he had no intention of concerning himself further with whatever happened to Elise.

If she failed to conceive by then, he would confess her lie to the Emperor, and the Emperor would go ahead as planned, striking off her head and sending it to the Kingdom of Ughel. Or perhaps he would hand her over alive, unkilled, to the Ughel prince.

Either way, the end was death. Elise nodded, composed. But the chill radiating off the man before her struck her, all at once, with unease.

She added, hurried.

"I'll cooperate—I promise, I will."

"For the promised six months, Kyrstan and Lothier—myself included—will protect Your Highness."

"That's not what I meant."

Elise couldn't shake what he'd said, that he'd rather not take a woman like her to bed at all. If the Grand Duke had no real intention of helping her, then this entire contract meant nothing.

Elise only chewed at her poor, undeserving lip, and Rezet's brow drew faintly tight.

"If not that, then what?"

"…D—don't avoid me."

This was no time to feel embarrassed. The moment her tongue finally came loose, Elise let the words spill out in a rush, unordered.

"I know I might not be to your taste much, or—no, that you might dislike it. Bedding a woman you have no real desire for must naturally be an ordeal for you. But promise me you won't refuse me, all the same."

Only then did Rezet appear to grasp what she meant. He murmured, as if surprised.

"It's a relief to know you understand that children don't simply drop from the sky."

"…I'm not that stupid."

Elise was nearly speechless with exasperation. She was twenty-two, not twelve. However sheltered from the world she'd been, she'd overheard things here and there. She remembered every word her maids once whispered to her, laughing with that teasing look on their faces.

Rezet Kyrstan wore an expression now somewhere between amusement and irritation. When Elise still couldn't shake her unease, he flicked his eyes toward the paper on the table.

"If it eases your mind that much, put it in writing. Something specifying the mutual duties and obligations of both parties—a contract, essentially. Would that do?"

Color rushed back into Elise's face. She'd already been thinking she ought to leave some evidence, somewhere. The only thing Elise could truly trust in was written proof of this marriage.

Soon her neat handwriting began stitching itself across the page. After first transcribing everything they'd already discussed into words, Elise found herself stuck at nearly the same point. Her hand, still holding the quill, stopped in midair.

"As for relations—shall we say a minimum of five times, within whatever period the attending physician indicates—"

Rezet's right eyebrow ticked upward, faintly. Elise flinched and let the sentence trail off.

"…Is that too few?"

If she truly had a constitution unsuited to bearing an heir, five times might well not be enough.

Five times a month, even across the full six months, only came to thirty. And her wretched carcass of a body wasn't in any state worth bragging about, either.

Elise sifted back through her memories of her life in Argan. She recalled one of her personal maids growing dispirited over years passing without a child, even after marriage. Bringing a child into the world, she'd said, was a miracle the divine had to grant.

Thirty attempts might not be enough to hope for a miracle.

The moment that thought landed, Elise hastily revised herself.

"Then—what about double that?"

But the Grand Duke's reaction wasn't especially favorable this time either. He went so far as to close his eyes for a long moment before opening them again.

Unable to read him at all, Elise grew flustered and impatient.

"Then triple——"

"Your Highness."

Rezet cut her off, firm. Elise's increasingly nonsensical proposals burst apart at once.

"…Then how?"

The face she turned up to him was as clean and guileless as the morning sun. Rezet held her clear, guileless golden eyes for a moment before he spoke, slow.

"'As often as circumstances allow.' Write it that way. I'd rather not itemize a number as though checking off homework."

"Ah, I see. That'll do, then."

Elise brightened and revised the contract at once. She didn't notice that the man's eyes were fixed on her face far more than on the words she was writing down.

Rezet, for his part, was genuinely doubting whether the woman had understood a single thing he'd actually said.

It was plain as day she knew nothing at all about coupling between a man and a woman. And it seemed his endless warnings had gone in one ear and straight out the other, every single time.

The princess had no idea he was currently working out just how he was meant to take her without tearing or breaking something in the process. Nor did she know how slim he privately judged her odds of surviving him to be.

He still didn't like this, not one bit. Rezet swallowed the tightness gathering at the back of his throat.

"Assuming—unlikely as it is—that you conceive safely and the child is born, the child will carry the Kyrstan name. Your Highness will have no claim whatsoever to raise the child, or keep it near you. Do you agree?"

"Yes."

"And also—though this is unlikely, to——"

Something Noyre had said, needling, surfaced in Rezet's mind.

'If it's true, can you even be certain the child is yours, Rezet? A physician can hardly determine whose seed it was, can he?'

Elise echoed his words back, puzzled.

"Unlikely, to——?"

"…Never mind."

Rezet let it drop. It wasn't a pleasant thought, but whoever the princess chose to let inside her was not his concern.

Regardless, if the child born turned out not to be a yon'gyn, Elise would no longer be a card worth playing for Noyre. Then she would only be dragged straight back to this capital.

He had no idea how she'd manage to survive the following six months after that, either—nor was that his concern. He cut off the train of thought before it went any further into this precarious marriage and its contract.

By then, Elise had finished the contract.

"There. That's everything, then."

Elise read through the words on the page one last time. Then she signed her name at the bottom of the contract.

Rezet signed without so much as reading it carefully. His name appeared beside hers in sharp, angular block letters.

They repeated the process once more, and two copies of the contract were complete. Elise's chest swelled, full.

'It's over.'

Until the first day of October, Elise was safe and free—penned inside the fence that was Rezet Kyrstan.

The reprieve she'd been granted had grown from six days to six months. If she conceived, that reprieve would stretch to ten months. Used well, it was more than enough time to hide safely from the Ughel threat while working out a way back to Argan.

Elise fought to steady the relief threatening to buckle her composure entirely. However hard-won these six months had been, she couldn't afford to let a single moment of it slip by wasted.

The Grand Duke gave a glance at Elise, still catching her breath, and said, flat.

"If it frightens you, you're free to run at any time."

"At any time—you mean?"

"Yes. If you're able to, that is."

Was there anywhere to flee, from the grasp of the man whose infamy as the war demon reached the entire continent?

It was a warning. An unspoken warning that if she failed to uphold the terms of the contract, there would be no more mercy beyond that. A voice, sneering and cold, dropped over Elise where she'd gone rigid.

"So it would be wise to conceive as quickly as possible. Before Your Highness's lie comes to light in the world."

Having set his own signature to the contract, the man remained bone-dry, as though he weren't even a party to it himself. He straightened his back, as if ready to take his leave.

"I intend to depart for the Lothier territory in three days. I plan to travel by carriage—will that suit you? If you need time to recover, I'll delay the schedule."

"It's fine. The last three days were only from having slept poorly before that, nothing more."

"…….."

"There's no need to trouble yourself over it."

Another brief silence fell. The conversation kept catching, breaking off. The Grand Duke seemed to find her, faintly, a little pathetic.

Elise looked up at him quietly.

"There's something I'd like to ask, my lord."

"Go ahead."

"If, suppose——"

Elise fell briefly silent, choosing her words.

If a child was conceived, and born safely into the world. After that——

The man had said nothing at all about what would become of their marriage after that point.

The child would belong to Kyrstan. And then—herself?

She wanted to ask what he intended to do with her once the child was born. Whether he'd let her go wherever she wished, or bind her to his side.

But before that—if she truly did have a child. Could she ever leave that child behind and depart for Argan forever?

That was territory Elise's imagination hadn't yet reached.

The man's eyes conveyed, wordless, that he was waiting. Elise shook her head.

"No, it's nothing."

That was too far away.

She would think about it later. Later.

"There's no need to hold a grand ceremony."

Rezet caught himself, abruptly. He was in a private audience with the Emperor.

"No particular need to broadcast the marriage between Argan's princess and Van Yela's Grand Duke, either. If the princess happens to die before bearing a child, you become a widower that very day. No sense cheapening your worth over it. Right?"

Noyre had already worked out precisely how to see this preposterous marriage through. No ceremony would be held; no formal betrothal would be announced.

Rezet held little interest in ceremonial procedure, so he let most of these plans pass over him, only half-listening.

But the muttering that followed from Noyre, he couldn't quite let pass unheard.

"No, actually—why bother marrying at all, come to that? Just have her drop the brat—that's all you need, isn't it?"

"Your Majesty."

"Once she safely bears the child—and if it seems worth getting a second one out of her—keep her alive a while longer. As for the marriage itself, why not take it with some noblewoman worthy of Kyrstan's honor instead? What about the Duke of Illyen's only daughter—still no interest there? If not her, then—"

In the end, it amounted to this: keep the princess as a brood mare, and take a proper wife on the side.