Chapter 50. His Unhappy Marriage
2023.10.20.
Miella placed her hand on the bleeding knight's arm.
From her slender fingertips, a radiant light emerged, then faded. Along with the light, the rather large wound that had been there vanished cleanly.
Miella examined the knight's complexion and the place where the wound had been, then asked.
"Are you alright now?"
"Yes, I'm fit as a fiddle! Thanks to you, Priestess."
Miella finished treating the remaining injured and rose to her feet. As she looked around as if searching for someone, the Knight Commander of Delmark approached her.
"Fate seems to have me indebted to you every time, Priestess. It must have been a rough journey, so thank you for coming."
Priests with divine power were typically deployed to treat the injured in major and minor incidents that occurred in the capital.
All the work was arduous, but there was one duty that most priests were reluctant to take on—accompany magical beast subjugation parties.
From the long distance to the magical beast habitats, the high risk of danger, to the generally large number of casualties.
There was absolutely no reason to volunteer for such a task.
Therefore, the Knight Commander of Delmark hadn't even considered that Miella might have come along voluntarily.
"Not at all. This is my job."
Miella smiled softly at him, then asked with expectant eyes.
"But, did His Grace the Duke not come?"
"He had other business. And the magical beasts that appeared today aren't particularly dangerous ones."
"Ah... I see."
Miella tried to hide her evident disappointment as she turned her gaze, then spotted something and her eyes widened.
Between the knights, things that looked like tulip bulbs were bound together, squirming.
"What are those?"
"Ah, captured young magical beasts. They usually live deep in the forest, but it seems they were swept here by the commotion earlier."
At the word 'magical beasts,' Miella's expression hardened with disgust.
"Why didn't you kill them?"
"They're still young, and more importantly, they're creatures that help the forest grow. They're usually too busy running away when they see humans, so they rarely cause harm."
The Delmark Knight Commander had dealt with magical beasts in the north countless times, so they knew their habits well.
While Delmark conducted large-scale magical beast subjugations, they avoided killing beasts that were beneficial to the forest or not threatening. The forest provided them with much, after all.
"I'm planning to release them deep in the forest once things are wrapped up here."
However, despite his explanation, Miella maintained her negative stance.
"They're still magical beasts, aren't they? You never know when they might turn and harm people."
"That's true, but..."
"I believe it's better not to leave any potential danger in the first place. I don't want to see anyone get hurt anymore, including the knights."
Worry was etched in Miella's luminous golden eyes as she calmly expressed her opinion.
Seeing those eyes, the Knight Commander found it difficult to insist on his own stance any further. Besides, wasn't she saying this out of concern for the people and for them?
A subordinate who had been watching gave the Knight Commander a look, signaling him to just play along.
Though the unexpected killing left a bitter taste in his mouth, the Knight Commander reluctantly gave the order to his subordinate.
"...Take them away and dispose of them."
"I'm sorry. For being so stubborn..."
"Not at all. I fully understand your concern, Priestess. Especially from someone who works so closely with the injured."
"Thank you for understanding."
Miella replied with a bright smile, as if she had never worn a troubled expression.
"Then I'll be going now. There might be other work calling me in God's service."
Behind Miella as she walked away, the knights could be heard murmuring.
"An angel, truly an angel. There's no one else like her."
"I tell you, her face is angelic and her heart is angelic too."
Miella, who healed the sick and worried for them while performing acts of service, was naturally good.
It was a reputation that had followed her ever since she became a priestess—one that was only natural for her.
Miella arrived at the temple by carriage.
'First, I need to take a bath.'
As she headed toward the annex to wash off any evil energy that might have clung to her, as she always did after returning from fieldwork, she heard the murmuring voices of several people nearby.
Looking in that direction, she saw young noblewomen and ladies gathered under a blossoming tree, engaged in conversation.
It was a common sight to see noblewomen and ladies who came to the temple to pray or make donations gathering for conversation.
Especially in spring, when the weather began to warm.
Miella was about to pass by as she normally would, but she stopped when she heard their conversation.
"But you two seemed to be on good terms at the banquet recently."
The recent banquet they mentioned was the one held at the Delmark ducal house.
Since Miella was not a noble, she hadn't received an invitation, but she had picked up things from the conversations of nobles who visited the temple.
She had a feeling that if the topic was related to the Delmark ducal house's banquet, Herdin's name might come up.
Miella hid herself behind the wall and listened to their conversation.
"His Grace isn't the type to show such things. Even if he looks fine on the outside, wouldn't he be suffering inside?"
As the noblewomen and ladies talked while covering their mouths with fans, Rachel, who had brought up the topic and had been quietly listening, cautiously opened her mouth.
"From what I've seen up close, Blair... I mean, the Duchess does seem a bit possessive over His Grace. Whenever he so much as makes eye contact with another woman, she gets so anxious."
The name 'Blair' embedded itself vividly in Miella's ears.
"My, isn't that a superiority complex?"
"Hmm, perhaps. The Duchess has had a tendency to be overly possessive of things she considers hers since childhood. That's why she was very possessive of me too."
"Lady Seldon must have had a hard time as well."
"Oh, no. Since she's my longtime friend and family, I find even that side of her pitiful and understandable..."
Rachel spoke as if she genuinely felt sorry for Blair and was worried about her.
Hearing this, the noblewomen and ladies shifted from pitying Rachel for having endured such behavior from Blair to worrying about Herdin.
"If the Duchess is that possessive, His Grace must feel quite suffocated. If it's visible even to Lady Seldon, how much more controlling must she be in front of the Duke himself?"
"His Grace is truly unfortunate. He returned as a hero of the nation, only to marry into the imperial family, which could practically be considered enemies."
"Exactly. A man of his standing could have easily married any lady he desired."
After talking for a while, they noticed that there were many ears about and left one by one, claiming to have other business. Miella, who had been listening, quietly turned away as well.
As she mulled over the conversation from earlier, Herdin naturally came to mind.
A man who was indifferent and cold in all things.
Yet the moment Miella first saw him, she felt as if the world she had known was being shaken to its core.
It was as if God had made it so. As if telling all things in this world to love him.
'How could I not love such a person?'
As if following divine providence, Miella fell in love with him at first sight.
But he was a man who had already made vows with another before God.
Miella had no intention whatsoever of trying to take him from her. Even if it was an unrequited love, it was enough to simply watch him from afar.
She only wanted him to be happy.
But what if he wasn't happy?
What if that unhappiness was because of his marriage?
Miella was well aware of the bad blood between the imperial family and the Delmark ducal house.
If that longstanding grudge was what made him the cold and dry person he was now.
'Marriage to the Princess is too cruel for him.'
She had no personal grudge against Blair, but she came to hate the woman who made him unhappy.
She couldn't know for certain whether the noblewomen's gossip was true. Rumors, after all, had a way of fabricating things that never happened.
But one thing was certain.
That Blair, who had accepted marriage to him while fully knowing their past grudge, was a bad person.
Miella fell into thought.
'Is there no way I can save His Grace from his unhappy marriage?'
* * *
"Shall we call it a day here then?"
Agnes and Blair finished their tea time and stepped out of the greenhouse.
Now that the weather had warmed significantly, the temperature difference between inside and outside the greenhouse wasn't great. Agnes seemed to feel the same, as she said,
"It's truly spring now. Next time, we can have our tea time outdoors."
"I'll prepare a spot in the rear garden around the time the cherry blossoms bloom."
"Oh, how romantic. The tea will probably carry the scent of the flowers."
Blair smiled as she looked at Agnes's delight, then gazed at the cherry tree with its flower buds and recalled something.
"Lady Lorellaine, did he say anything else by any chance?"
"About what?"
"Regarding hypnosis."
"Ah, hypnosis. He didn't say anything in particular. It seems he thinks it's still too early."
"What do you think, my lady?"
"In my opinion, it seems fine to start working on overcoming the pyrophobia... But I suppose His Grace is very worried about you."
Agnes had a talent for packaging even ordinary words in a way that pleased the listener.
Blair saw her off and went up to her bedroom, thinking.
'Herdin being overprotective of me... is probably because of the guilt from the fireplace incident.'
But such a thing didn't help her in the slightest.
Blair stared blankly at the scenery outside the window.
A yellowish-green world covered with sprouting new shoots. It was now fully spring.
And the season she had Asiel was early summer.
'The time left for me is not much.'