Chapter 63. Uninvited Guest
Blair suppressed the sudden welling of longing and began reading the fairy tale book. At first, it was difficult because Asiel came to mind, but gradually her heart stabilized.
Perhaps her body had mistaken the small warmth in her arms for Asiel.
Even so, she liked that sense of stability and peace, so Blair did her best to narrate the story.
Fortunately, the child showed interest in the story Blair was telling and focused intently.
The peace was shattered the moment a prince appeared in the fairy tale.
"I'm going to read a book too."
A boy who looked about five or six years old approached holding a fairy tale book. Behind him, a girl of similar age came running.
"Hey! That's my book, okay? Give it back!"
"No! It's mine!"
"You left yours over there!"
The girl grabbed and pulled the boy's fairy tale book. The boy held on without backing down.
"Um, kids?"
When Blair, flustered by seeing the two children bickering, stopped her storytelling, the child in her arms furrowed their tiny brow deeply and shouted in clumsy pronunciation.
"Too loud!"
But the older sister and brother didn't seem to have any intention of stopping their book tug-of-war.
Eventually, unable to watch any longer, Blair put down the child in her arms on a chair and stood up to approach the two children.
"Kids, if you pull like that, the book will get hurt. I'll read it to you, so together—"
The moment she grabbed the book the children were pulling, the girl let go, and Blair's hand was sliced by the sharp edge of the paper.
"Ah."
"Gasp."
Seeing blood coming from Blair's finger, the two children stopped their quarrel. At the same time, their faces turned pale white.
"My lady?"
Melly, who happened to be coming this way, witnessed the situation and hurriedly approached.
"Oh my, your hand...! Are you okay?"
"It's fine. It's nothing, so please don't make a fuss. The children will be startled."
Blair quickly covered her bleeding finger to calm the startled children, but the child who saw it burst into tears.
"You're hurt!"
"Hurt? Who?"
Miela, who heard the commotion, approached. Blair's plan to not make a big deal of things already seemed to have gone awry.
The boy pointed at Blair and said in a tiny voice.
"T-the princess is hurt."
"I'm fine. I just got a little cut from the book."
Blair tried to reassure them that she was okay, but the children couldn't calm down easily. It seemed to be from guilt.
Then, as if remembering something, the girl approached Miela.
"Miela unnie, can't you heal her?"
"R-right! Help us, noona."
"Alright. Then I'll heal the lady, and you two promise not to fight anymore. Promise."
The children nodded vigorously.
Miela made the children promise by linking pinky fingers, then sent them off. Then she approached Blair.
"You took precious time to come visit, but I'm only making you experience things you shouldn't have to."
The feeling that those words suggested she wasn't welcoming of her visit was probably just due to her personal feelings toward that woman.
Blair tried to hide her feelings and replied.
"It's fine. It's a relief the children aren't hurt."
"I'm glad you think so. Then, my lady, may I see your wound?"
Miela extended her hand to Blair.
Blair placed her hand, which had started to sting belatedly, on top of hers.
At the same time, suddenly, memories of her past life overlapped.
In her past life too, on this day, though for a different reason, she had received treatment from Miela. At the temple main building, for her heels scraped raw by new shoes.
Then she recalled Miela's hands stroking Heardin's abdomen to treat his ribs. Remembering that, her fingertips trembled.
At that moment, Blair unknowingly pulled back the hand she had extended to Miela.
"...No."
At that, Miela looked at Blair with questioning eyes.
"My lady?"
"Come to think of it, I don't think I need to be healed. It would use your precious divine energy, Priestess."
Blair clasped her hands together to hide them, as if Miela might grab them. For some reason, she had a baseless premonition that she shouldn't receive healing from her.
"I'm fine with it, but if you don't want it, it can't be helped."
It was just as the conversation with Miela was about to wrap up.
"Princess!"
Some children came running, out of breath.
Blair and Miela looked at the children with questioning eyes.
"What's the matter?"
"The prince! The prince is here!"
"...The prince?"
"Someone who looks like a prince! You said he was the princess's husband."
Looking in the direction the children's small hands were pointing, they could see Heardin approaching.
Blair's eyes widened in surprise.
'We were supposed to meet at 2 o'clock.'
Today he had a morning state council meeting, so he was supposed to stop by the imperial palace and come to the temple as soon as it ended.
She was planning to go out to the temple main building according to that time.
Because he came early, he ended up running into Miela. Her heart started beating fast at the unexpected situation.
"Blair."
Heardin, who approached with large strides, let his gaze linger on Blair for a moment before shifting to Miela beside her. His eyes narrowed as he recognized her.
The woman who, according to Blair's words, he would fall in love with in the future.
He still thought it was a ridiculous story, but his mood sank when he imagined Blair laughing and chatting with such a woman until just a moment ago.
Miela, who couldn't know his feelings, greeted him with a bright smile on her face.
"Hello, Duke. We meet again like this."
"Indeed, we meet again. What brings you here? I understand a priestess's duties are quite substantial."
Heardin deliberately gave moderate responses to Miela's words to observe Blair's reaction.
"Ah, it's a rare holiday, so I came to see the children and happened to meet the Duchess. It seemed like you needed help, so I was assisting."
"How kind of you to take my place."
"Oh, no. I'm doing it because I like it."
But Blair just quietly watched the conversation between the two. With that signature unreadable expression of hers.
As if the uninvited guest in this conversation wasn't Miela, but herself.
Heardin, who had kept his gaze fixed on Blair even while conversing with Miela, eventually took Blair's hand first.
"Then we have business to attend to, so we'll be going."
Blair was helplessly dragged by his hand without even a moment to say goodbye to Miela.
"Ah..."
A trace of disappointment and at the same time pity showed on Miela's face as she watched the two people's retreating figures.
"...As expected, you don't smile when you're beside the Duchess."
Poor person.
You must be happy.
'I have to save that person.'
From that hellish marriage of convenience.
* * *
The two, who left the orphanage, found the temple annex.
Most nobles of the Ardel Empire take their eternal rest in their own territories.
However, since nobles reside in townhouses in the capital for long periods, it wasn't easy to visit their family graves on death anniversaries.
The temple created an annex to house the souls of such people and called it the Spirit Chamber.
From the temple's perspective, they could receive donations on that pretext, and from the nobles' perspective, it was good to have the deceased enshrined nearby to visit.
Holy knights stood guard thoroughly in front of the building created this way.
Though there were no corpses here, since it was a place that housed the deceased, security was strict to maintain a solemn atmosphere.
"Please, come inside, both of you."
The holy knight who verified their identities guided them into the annex.
After climbing the annex stairs a few times, a room housing the ancestors of the Delmark Ducal House appeared. In front of it was the family crest.
The holy knight who finished guiding them stepped back, and the two entered the room. There were portraits of the previous Duke and Duchess of Delmark.
Blair, about to enter the room, suddenly paused facing their portraits.
'Should I even be here?'
In her past life, she stayed by his side as a matter of course, but this time, that thought came first.
I'll be leaving this house soon.
Am I needlessly interfering with his time to talk with his parents?
Blair looked at Heardin's back as he led the way in and carefully opened her mouth.
"Heardin."
At her call, he looked back.
"I'll step out for a moment."
"Why?"
"...Because I'm worried you might be uncomfortable."
Heardin stared at such Blair.
His fake wife always distanced herself from him at crucial moments like this. He didn't like that.
"What is there that a husband couldn't show his wife?"
Heardin, who approached with large strides, took Blair's hand and brought her to his side. Blair obediently followed his touch and stood beside him.
Standing side by side with him, even holding hands in front of the portraits, they somehow looked like a real married couple, which made her feel guilty for deceiving the previous Duke and Duchess. But his hand holding hers was firm, showing no intention of letting go.
Blair gazed up at Heardin standing beside her.
His expression upon visiting the place where his parents' souls were enshrined was terribly impassive. He looked like someone visiting the grave of a complete stranger, not the place where his parents' souls rested.
But Blair knew.
The boy who pretended to be fine when hearing about his parents' accident from others' lips, but would slip out of the banquet hall and suffer alone.
How much pain he must have become numb to, for that boy to become the man he was now.
She once even loved that loneliness. She thought she could fill that emptiness.
But now she knows that was an arrogant hope.
"Let's head back now."
After standing vigil for a moment, the two left the Spirit Chamber with a final prayer for the deceased.
Then, someone could be seen walking from the other end of the corridor. Recognizing him, Blair's eyes widened.