The pure white wedding dress, which was the finest work of who was said to be the best dressmaker in Albion, was beautiful enough to draw a sigh from Estelle. Its sleeves were long, but since the wedding was to be held in summer, they were made out of lace. At the same time, they were designed to hide the scar on Estelle’s left arm. The dress had a long train and didn’t expose much skin. It was a tasteful design.
The tiara holding down the veil had once belonged to Miriallia, and as for the earrings, Estelle had borrowed them from Sierra in order to uphold the tradition of wearing the three “somethings.”
Here in the Kingdom of Rosalia, it was said that a bride who wore “something new,” “something old,” and “something borrowed” would be happy for the rest of her life.
The tiara and the earrings were made out of pearls, matching the pure image of the dress.
The veil was Leah’s work, while the gloves and parts of the dress used laces knit by Estelle.
“You look beautiful, Lady Estelle,” said May, tears welling up in her eyes. She’d put extra effort into Estelle’s makeup today.
Leah, who stood behind Estelle and who’d done her hair, also looked ready to cry.
“Thank you two for making me beautiful.” Estelle felt tears on the way too.
“You mustn’t cry yet, Lady Estelle. Your beautiful makeup will go to waste,” warned Leah.
Estelle hurried to blink the tears away.
This was the day of Arcrayne and Estelle’s wedding.
Since Arcrayne had already been invested as crown prince, many important people from both in and out of Rosalia had been invited to his wedding.
The wedding would be held at Albion Cathedral, which was located between the palace and the Tower of Albion. This was the headquarters of the Rosalian Church—the denomination of Messianism that was the state religion in Rosalia.
Sirius would be the one escorting Estelle to the cathedral and delivering her to the bridegroom. He’d volunteered to fill in for Estelle’s father, but when she’d met up with him in the morning, he’d looked terribly pale—probably because of all the high-ranking guests.
Arcrayne had gone to the cathedral ahead of Estelle and was waiting for her there.
The schedule was tight today—the wedding would be followed by a parade, then there would be the ritual at the underground Shrine, and then a dinner party with the guests. Estelle was slightly worried about whether she could physically keep up with all of this.
Roughly two months had already passed since Marwick’s High Treason. After the failed rebellion orchestrated by the queen and her father had been disclosed to the public in full, the royal family had become swamped with questions for a while—both from inside Rosalia and from the neighboring states. It had been a massive uproar.
The investigation had made much progress in those two months.
Mircea Marwick had used every means at his disposal to attack Arcrayne for a long time.
Apparently, a hidden chamber found in the duke’s mansion had held plentiful evidence of him basically doing whatever he’d wanted. While Queen Miriallia had died a natural death, he’d been involved in the death of the previous Marquess Rogell, and he’d used his underworld connections to damage the standing of nobles supporting the first prince’s faction.
When Sierra and Claus had learned the truth about the death of their family member, they’d both looked disconsolate. Recalling it made Estelle cast her eyes down.
These things had become clear because Silvio, who’d been trying to shift responsibility until now, had finally started testifying properly after all this time. Threatening him with speeding up his punishment appeared to have worked.
Among the things he’d said, his testimony about the second most recent conspiracy—the dragon attack—had been nauseating to hear. In order to bury a part of the artifact in the dragon’s forehead, Mircea had used a rifleman from the earldom of Wyntia.
The rifleman and his family had been found dead. They’d been killed so they wouldn’t talk.
To make matters worse, there’d apparently been inhumane experiments held in the name of “examining the artifact.” Since the mana scientists involved had already made their escape, they’d been put on the wanted list with made-up charges.
As there were a lot of the duke’s additional crimes to work through, it would probably be years until all the investigation and court processes came to an end and Silvio’s punishment was decided.