Episode 26
Helena stepped out into the corridor, carrying a tray laden with the snacks the Princess had generously given her. Having slept poorly the previous night and experiencing that strange sensation for the first time when the Princess grabbed her hand, her body felt incredibly heavy.
‘Ah, my head…’
In fact, last night she had a very ominous dream about the monastery collapsing and the Empire falling. Of course, she was just a mere maid, not a religious sister…
‘Could there be no reason for someone living under the monastery’s roof to have such an impious dream?’
Wanting to ask about it, she had gone to see sister Mellots early in the morning, but upon seeing the face of the sister who was about to embark on a pilgrimage, she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
‘And in the nightmare, the source of all misfortune was, of all people, the Second Prince…’
The face of sister Melotz, who had been so happy saying it had been a long time since royalty visited the monastery, and the face of the Prince she had seen at the waterfall yesterday alternated in her mind.
‘Red eyes…’
Helena hadn’t imagined, before seeing royalty in person, that crimson eyes could be so beautiful.
‘But the Prince’s eyes in the dream were black…’
That made it all the more confusing. It was too different from reality to dare call it a prophetic dream, yet it was too long and vivid to be meaningless.
Helena shook her head side to side. The next day was the Sabbath, so there was much to do. Hurrying along the corridor with the tray, she turned a corner and ran into the Lord of the Magic Tower. Her heart plummeted the moment she saw him, but it was绝不是 out of fear.
‘What… is that?’
It wasn’t like that when she encountered him yesterday, but now it felt as if a strange energy, different from others, filled his entire body. It was a truly bizarre sensation. The energy wasn’t visible or audible, but it was clearly within the man.
—Thump-thump, thump-thump…
Simultaneously, the two pulses she had felt from the Princess seemed to seep into her palms again. Helena gasped for breath. The Magic Tower Lord simply brushed past her as if he hadn’t seen her.
“Ah…”
A sharp, piercing headache instantly flashed through her mind. The tray Helena had been struggling to hold slipped from her fingertips.
—Crash!
With a clattering sound, Helena collapsed right there.
The Sabbath arrived. While I was shut in the small room with Phoebe, taking turns embroidering, the monastery’s day passed busily.
‘Rurik will attend the service, so it would be good if he could meet Helena, even if it’s in the chapel.’
I was lying in bed, having wasted almost the entire day hoping for such luck, when sister Melotz came to see me as the outside was tinged red.
“Your Highness the Princess.”
She hastily stopped me as I tried to get out of bed and bowed her head respectfully.
“How are you feeling?”
I smiled awkwardly.
“I’m sorry for causing concern. Are you leaving now?”
Remembering her mention of departing on a pilgrimage on the Sabbath, I asked. The sister smiled gently.
“Actually, I came because of that matter. This pilgrimage is a meaningful and glorious journey, drawing just one person from monasteries across the Empire to the holy site of Goldiye in the Muasak border region.”
Muasak was another small country Rurik had incorporated into the Empire during the three-year war.
“Ah, I see.”
I could only give such an absent-minded reply because, of course, I hadn’t guessed at all what sister Melotz was about to say until then. The sister continued.
“It was something I had been waiting for while praying for victory in the war… but ultimately, I had to yield the pilgrimage to another.”
“What?”
Finally sensing the ominous premonition, I looked at the sister with a shaken gaze. sister Melotz took out a thin letter and handed it to me.
“Although the period was short, serving Your Highness seems to have given me a spiritual awakening.”
Flustered, I lowered my gaze to the letter and saw the neatly written name ‘Helena Garnier’. Surprised, I gasped and asked.
“Are you saying Helena went on the pilgrimage in your place? But she’s just a maid…”
Sister Melotz nodded.
“Awakening comes regardless of status. Sometimes a child not yet of age receives divine revelation before a sister who has devoted her whole life to the monastery.”
Helena had an awakening?
“Sister Helena Garnier said all of this was due to Your Highness’s virtue.”
Due to my virtue? Not because she met Rurik?
‘Could it be because she noticed my pregnancy?’
I couldn’t bring myself to open the letter in front of the sister, only reading Helena’s name written on it over and over.
“H-Helena became a sister?”
Sister Melotz replied calmly.
“Yes, it was somewhat hasty, but I vouched for the child’s qualifications. So she left this letter for Your Highness.”
But if Helena’s recognized ability was based on her noticing my pregnancy, then even though the milk was spilled, I had to deal with it.
“I can keep it, the secret.”
While remembering Helena’s voice saying those words, I asked with a trembling heart.
“What kind of… awakening did she have?”
“I ask for your understanding that I cannot reveal the details. Regarding religious enlightenment, even the monastery has strict unwritten rules.”
Sister Melotz smiled meaningfully as she finished explaining.
“Anyway, I will be able to personally attend to Your Highness for the remaining two days. To think it would end up like this… even at my age, one cannot fathom God’s will in the slightest.”
Contrary to her words, the sister’s face seemed full of faith and fulfillment. Who attended to me was no longer important to me at all. I had lost the heroine I had envisioned every day since right after my possession, right before my eyes, and was left holding only a flimsy letter instead.
“C-Can you tell me when she might return?”
Sister Melotz kindly answered.
“It’s a pilgrimage on foot to the Muasak border, which takes nearly a month even on horseback. I wish her luck.”
How could this be…! The sister bowed to me, who was stunned, just as before, and then disappeared.
Only after hearing the door close did I let out a small, shrill scream and unfold Helena’s letter.
To the respected Princess Louise.
The three days I served you, so many thoughts and memories passed through my inadequate body that I had no time even to sleep.
Although nothing is clear to me yet, there is one thing this lacking one is certain of…
Your Highness are the gentlest light of this continent. Please, do not lose the affection of the Emperor’s sword, just as you are now.
A dry swallow went down my throat.
‘Do not lose the affection?’
It seemed clear that Helena had awakened to the past. She had seen the past, realized she had regressed, and yet…
‘She left everything to me and left? That Rurik?’
Why? What about me is so trustworthy? In my bewildered gaze, the final greeting was reflected.
Stay healthy.
When you need this weak one, please call for me again.
Call for her again? I finally managed to calm my excited chest a little.
‘All of this is because Rurik hasn’t gone berserk yet.’
So, it seemed Helena judged it wasn’t yet her time to act.
‘No, she clearly saw Rurik flying into a rage the last time I fainted!’
Did she not think he was unstable, that it would be too late after he had already gone berserk?
‘Why, for what reason…!’
Perhaps the problem was that I had calmed him down so completely in front of Helena that day. Everything was so different from the dream’s content that maybe Helena had much more to ponder as well.
Anyway, Helena had left on a journey with no set return date, and the only way for me to leave the imperial capital had also vanished.
‘Ah, I’m doomed…!’
On the last day at the monastery, I gifted the camellia handkerchief I had diligently embroidered to Sister Melotz.
“Goodness, you should have rested when you were unwell…!”
Sister Melotz was very surprised and declined, saying it didn’t seem like a gift she should receive.
“I just made it because I was bored. I truly caused a lot of trouble over the past week.”
I handed her an additional letter.
“And this one… if by any chance Helena returns, could you give it to her?”
