She tilted her head at my words, then suddenly remembered she was straddling me. Her face instantly flushed scarlet, and she scrambled backward off my chest.
“I— Oh my, what a thing to do… I’m so sorry,” she murmured. Still trembling, she settled beside me and latched both small hands around my sleeve, refusing to let go.
A smile tugged at my lips despite myself. She seemed willing to believe me now, but fear still clung to her; she couldn’t bring herself to leave my side. How utterly endearing my wife was.
“I was going to tell you everything to begin with,” I said, plopping onto the sofa. I lifted her onto my lap as she sniffled, pressing a gentle kiss into the crown of her disheveled hair. “But Prince Ramtak got there first and spread nonsense. That was my fault. I’m sorry for making you anxious.”
“Wait, so he just asked to have me handed over, and that’s it? He said you’d agreed, so I should follow him calmly.” Bertia clung to me, voice shaking as she sought confirmation.
This required a careful answer. I couldn’t let her misunderstand anything.
“I didn’t agree,” I said plainly. “But he did, out of nowhere, demand you. He’s planning something troublesome, and I used the chance to bait him. I let him think what he wanted so I could draw out the full extent of his scheme.”
I made a point of telling her that my earlier reactions were deliberate and part of a larger stratagem designed to trap him.
“So… this was part of your plan, Lord Cecil?” she asked, voice small and wary.
Bertia pressed her fingers to her temples, brows knit tight as she tried to make sense of everything I’d said. Even in her confusion, she was listening, and that alone softened me. I gave her a reassuring smile and nodded once.
“That’s right. The truth is, he happened to see you with Futamata and jumped to a spectacularly wrong conclusion. He’s convinced you’ve become the Saintess and now wants to marry you to secure his own position.”
“I’m your wife,” Bertia said at once, voice trembling but resolute.
“Of course you are. But remember when I asked you to play the villainess to get close to him? Thanks to that, he’s still convinced you’re the same wicked lady and that I’m suffering because of it.”
Her eyes widened as realization struck.
Before seeing her with Futamata, Ramtak had wanted nothing to do with her, regarding her as unpleasant and troublesome. She knew that in theory, but now she truly felt the shape of his misunderstanding.
“In the novel,” she murmured faintly, “didn’t Princess Lysonna also get abandoned by the crown prince when he failed to defend her? So now… does that mean I, the stand-in villainess, am meant to be thrown away in her place?”
“Hmm, close,” I said, smiling wryly. “But that ending isn’t possible as long as I’m your husband, as I’ll never cast you aside. Still, you’re right about one thing. Prince Ramtak has a dangerous habit of treating political marriage as a trivial matter. He’s imagining exactly the kind of melodrama you’re describing.”
“Treating a political marriage lightly? What does that even mean?”
“In his head, he’s rewritten the story like this: I, the crown prince, have grown tired of my cold, villainous wife. You, the Saintess, are wasted on me. He, meanwhile, desires you and offers to take you in. Both sides get what they want, so surely everyone can part peacefully. At least, that’s how he sees it.”
“Wait, he thinks an entire royal marriage can be handled that easily?”
It seemed Bertia understood, at least, that the matter wasn’t as simple.
It was precisely because she knew it couldn’t be undone easily that her confusion over his words only deepened.
“There’s no way to just ‘make it work,’” I said gently. “Even though we truly care for each other now, our marriage began as a political union. If we were to divorce, the repercussions would spread far and wide between our kingdoms, allies, and our very bloodlines.”
“I thought so,” she murmured, her brows softening in relief. My clear rejection of the idea seemed to steady her; she must have needed to hear it from me outright to trust her own sense of reason.
“Worse,” I continued, “he plans to announce during the upcoming party that you are the Saintess, that he and you are bound by true love, and that the Serpent God itself has blessed your union.”
“What nonsense! I am the ‘maiden of destiny’ chosen by you, Lord Cecil! I already bear the mark given by Kuro and Zeno as proof of our bond!”
With a trembling, indignant gesture, she raised her hand to show me the back. In response to her emotion, the faint sigil there shimmered to life—Zeno’s mark, glowing softly as if in agreement.
It wasn’t as if that mark by itself disproved the existence of “true love” between her and anyone else, but it was undeniably proof of the deep, spiritual connection we shared. The visible manifestation of a bond no opportunistic prince could ever counterfeit.
Come to think of it, Ramtak intends to claim that the Serpent God, the guardian spirit of his nation, has blessed his so-called love. But the truth is that two higher-ranking spirits have already recognized our union as sacred.
If hierarchy meant anything, our relationship was blessed by beings greater than the Serpent God itself.
Of course, since so few people knew Kuro and Zeno’s true nature, it wasn’t something we could boast about publicly.
I turned my focus to the back of my own hand.
A faint light pulsed there. The proof of our bond that Kuro, grumbling the entire time, had carved into my skin at Bertia’s insistence. Its gentle glow was the mirror of the one shining on her hand.
“I know, Tia,” I said quietly. “You’re my one and only partner, and I’m yours. There’s no room for doubt. Nothing Prince Ramtak said is true. But if he spreads his half-baked nonsense without giving us the chance to deny it, it could spiral into troublesome rumors, especially since his lies involve religion. Anything that touches the title of Saintess affects this nation’s faith; we need to handle it carefully.”
Bertia nodded at that, her expression tightening into serious resolve. At last, she understood what I meant.
“And,” I went on, “you were worried, weren’t you? That something might happen here in this kingdom. Something that would anger the Serpent God and force the need for a real Saintess?”
“Yes,” she admitted softly. “You told me before that everything would be fine, but I can’t help worrying even now.”