So if she got that pale, uncertain look on her face because she realized I might be in danger because of her, and if she’d made up her mind to face the Holy Emperor and become a Saint because of it…
“Ah!”
Emotions welled up in me in a sudden tempest, so that I didn’t know if it was fear, despair, or anger that had overtaken me at the thought of being left in the dark. But I clenched my fists so hard that my nails dug into my palm and drew blood.
“Lucas, breathe. Your mana’s affecting the flames. If they go out, we’re in trouble,” Dirk said.
“I know.”
He was trying to lighten the mood with a joke, but I could see him watching me carefully. I forced myself to redirect my overwhelming rage toward the dancer onstage, or anything else really, and gradually I was able to rein my mana in.
But I couldn’t shake this anxiety. I clenched my jaw so tight I thought it would break, and I had to fight the urge to run straight to Cecilia.
Calm down. If you lose control, they’ll use it against you.
If there was a spy from the Empire here, which was very likely, I couldn’t afford to make any missteps. And I couldn’t simply eliminate someone on impulse, as much as I hated it. The stakes were too high.
That meant my options were limited. So what now?
I lowered my gaze to gather my thoughts, and Dirk’s voice cut through the silence like he’d read my mind.
“If you understand, then you’d better focus on getting her pregnant. If the Rainbow Maiden has an heir, things could change.”
“I can’t believe you just said that out loud. Did Leon give you permission to say that, or do you just want to piss me off badly enough that I’d kill you?” The anger in my voice and eyes weren’t even close to what it’d been earlier.
But Dirk didn’t flinch. His expression remained sharp and composed, worthy of his status as the next head of the Herbst family, the royal shield.
Leon had told both me and Cecilia that she mustn’t get pregnant yet. And no matter how flippant Dirk acted, he was still a Herbst. His duty was to protect the royal family of Bern. He’d never treat the subject of an heir so lightly.
If he was pushing it now, they must have learned something about how the Empire selected its Saints. If Cecilia and I failed to conceive, there was a very real chance they would try to take her away. And that was absolutely unacceptable.
I glared at Dirk, demanding an answer. He matched my gaze for a while, then gave a dramatic sigh and shook his head.
“You’re terrifying sometimes, you know that?” he said. “Neither. It’s neither of those.”
“You know damn well I won’t be with anyone else but Cecilia. So if you’ve got shit to spew, you can keep it to yourself, shit brother of mine.”
“Shit, not just once, but twice! You really have no filter. Honestly, Lucas. You say the most outrageous things with a straight face, and your mouth is simply vulgar. That whole ‘too honest for your own good’ thing is a real problem.”
“Why do they call her the Rainbow Maiden?” Prince Islan asked.
It was the name the people of Bern used for Cecilia, spoken with great respect. It came from the brilliant rainbow-colored light her healing magic gave off.
Cecilia didn’t seem to know, but reattaching a severed limb with magic was nearly impossible. You could fix the cut, connect it, and stabilize it. But healing the internal damage completely required the body to want to heal. And when someone was near death, their natural healing ability was almost gone. Healing magic worked by supplementing that missing energy with the caster’s mana and their own regenerative strength.
It was difficult to do even with mild injuries. And it usually took multiple rounds to heal stab wounds or amputations.
But Cecilia had seen a dying patient abandoned on one of her sympathy visits and healed them with a single spell. Word of her exceptional magical prowess spread fast until it reached the clergy, who begged her to join them rather than wed Felix. That was how she got the nickname of the Rainbow Maiden.
So behind closed doors, you could say that people already called her a Saint.
“You already know this, Lucas, but her healing magic is extraordinary. It’s not normal to have that much restorative power, so much that it can fully heal someone like that. Sure, there are rare cases like you and Marshal Webber, but you’re a special case even among the Herbst family, and the marshal isn’t originally from Bern. So no matter how you look at it, Cecilia doesn’t fit that pattern, unless she was born with some kind of innate blessing.”
“She’s a genuine Cline. I thoroughly investigated her pedigree. There’s no mistaking it,” I said.
“I know,” Dirk said. “I looked into it too, right after you said you wanted to marry her.”
Of course he had to bring it up. Now Islan was staring at me like he knew something.
“What is it?”
“I looked into the birthplaces of the girls serving as Saints in the Empire right now. And every one of them came from a kingdom bordering Barlefeldt. And you won’t be surprised to hear that our kingdom borders it, too. In fact, the Cline estate sits right next to it.”
Dirk gave me a probing look as he smiled, and then it hit me.
“So the ones who were chosen as Saints aren’t natives of Barlefeldt born with rainbow-colored magic, but outsiders who somehow gained those blessings?”
Damn it. I was too focused on the idea that the Empire’s apostles were traveling the continent searching for Saints. If that were true, they wouldn’t be able to find one every single year. And yet somehow, they did. Every year without fail, they found someone suitable and dragged them back to the Empire.
And if there was a separate group working specifically around Barlefeldt’s borders, and if people with the qualities of a Saint were regularly born around that region, and the Empire had been aware of, and deliberately concealing that information…
“Then they’ve been using the search for Saints as a smokescreen, offering up those girls to the Depths. And if that’s the case, the origin of the Depths could be connected to the dragon that protects Barlefeldt.”
“Exactly, and judging by the way Lord Barnabash obsesses over and worships his mate…”
He loved his mate so much that even now, he still sought comfort in people carrying the remains of the Barlefeldt dragon’s essence, as if compelled by a curse.
But Barlefeldt was a kingdom ruled by dragonfolk, humans descended from the dragons most beloved by the goddess. And because of religious doctrine, the Empire couldn’t publicly demand sacrifices from them. So instead, they’d been offering up people from other kingdoms who’d been blessed by proximity to Barlefeldt’s magic, using them to contain monsters born from the overwhelming mana of the dragon who cursed the world.