Chapter 08
The Signature
“You woke up after only two days. We should have taken care of this as soon as you arrived at the castle…”
Zernom’s voice trailed off as though he were offering an excuse. A faint shadow of guilt crossed his face, as if he were about to do something shameful.
“…These are quite detailed documents.”
The papers—surely prepared by the Grand Duke’s representative—were heavy and thick.
Flipping through them, Ninia quickly realized they weren’t the sort of thing one could skim.
The very first page was an engagement permit.
After that came page upon page of monthly budgets, lists of basic provisions, the names of maids, and places she would be allowed to visit.
It was less an engagement contract than a set of behavioral restrictions.
Not a single line granted her any authority befitting a Grand Duchess.
…The rest can wait.
Halfway through, Ninia gave up reading.
Partly because of Zernom’s nervous fidgeting, but more because she already knew she would have to sign no matter what the clauses said.
“I’ll sign.”
“…Are you truly certain?”
Though he had handed her the papers, Zernom looked reluctant to let her proceed.
The contents were that unreasonable.
The allotted budget wouldn’t allow for even modest dignity, let alone luxury.
She was denied a personal maid, forbidden to leave the castle without the Grand Duke’s approval, and restricted to a handful of rooms she could enter on her own.
Zernom, forced here by his master’s orders, was sure any sane person would refuse.
But Ninia nodded easily.
“Yes. I won’t go out without the Grand Duke’s permission, and the budget is sufficient. Everything else is much like life in the temple.”
She had no one to visit and no desire to spend money in a castle still under repair.
Even imagining it pricked her conscience.
Personal maids were drawn from noble daughters, but what pampered young lady would volunteer to come to a place that felt like a battlefield?
The miracle is that I’m alive at all.
She still didn’t know why she’d been spared, yet simply breathing felt like something to be grateful for—
though the man to thank despised her.
“May I borrow a pen?”
Suppressing a wry smile, Ninia asked politely.
After a moment’s hesitation Zernom sighed and brought her a quill and ink.
She set the papers on the table and, page by page, signed wherever a signature was required.
If she were still a Saint she might have used a personal seal, but all she had now was her own hand.
Watching her elegant, almost calligraphic script, Zernom clicked his tongue in reluctant admiration.
“Is that all?”
“Yes. That’s everything.”
When she signed the final page, he gathered the papers and slipped them into a brown envelope.
A major life event reduced to a few dozen sheets of paper—and then silence.
Ninia didn’t even ask about a wedding.
Perhaps, she thought, the real marriage was to those documents themselves.
She stared at the dull envelope in Zernom’s arms.
“…Is the Grand Duke in the castle?”
“His Grace is away on external business.”
So the man who had pressed for her signature wasn’t even present.
“I see.”
She accepted it calmly, and Zernom felt a strange relief at her composure.
There was no need to tell this fragile former Saint that the “external business” involved separating the heads from the bodies of nobles who refused to yield their mines.
Even if not for the mines, Tarahan was frantically busy.
It was a war that promised immense wealth and the entire northern territory—if he could win.
But victory was nearly impossible, and the northern nobles were old and feeble.
They had once sworn that if Tarahan gained the upper hand, they would surrender their most precious holdings rather than flee south.
Cowardly and weak.
Yet when he did seize the advantage, they all feigned ignorance, claiming the Emperor’s refusal to recognize him.
“I did promise, but all my ministers rise in revolt because of you; I have no choice.”
The Emperor had once vowed to grant Tarahan, his hidden illegitimate son, the northern lands and a Grand Dukedom after the war.
But later he changed his tune:
“It is unfitting to reward the bastard of a lowborn mother so greatly.”
He claimed that every noble house—including the founding families—opposed it, and as Emperor he had to heed the will of the realm.
A convenient excuse.
With one parent of low birth, Tarahan needed a partner of unimpeachable pedigree—someone who could give him legitimacy.
That was why Ninia was here.
Does she understand that?
Zernom couldn’t tell whether her quiet compliance came from knowledge of these circumstances or from the serene acceptance she’d learned as a Saint.
“Forgive me for disturbing your rest. Please remember to take your medicine.”
When the master is busy, the servants are even busier.
Many northern lords still clung to their wealth despite imperial recognition of Tarahan.
He personally visited them, took their heads, and Zernom cataloged the seized estates for his reports.
Soon the matter of rewards would be settled.
“Take care on your way,” Ninia said softly.
Zernom left, relieved he would likely not have to spend much time with the new Grand Duchess.
The door closed.
Alone, Ninia looked away from it.
The half-finished porridge beside her was already cold.
She drank a glass of water instead and slowly sat up.
Dizzy, but not incapacitated.
Is it thanks to the physician?
For someone bedridden two days, she felt surprisingly well.
She touched the gauze on her arm, curiosity winning out as she peeled it halfway back.
A tiny puncture marked her skin.
“They called this… an injection, didn’t they?”
She pressed lightly on the red dot.
An injection was one of the magical devices of old.
Though the decree to exterminate mages had swept the continent, not all their knowledge had vanished.
Those unable to cast spells but able to draw on the flow of ambient mana to create new tools were called magitechs.
They invented many magical instruments, injections among them.
Physicians filled the needle with medicine and pierced the body to deliver it inside.
Such treatment violated divine law for both healer and patient.
How curious.
The Temple claimed only holy power could heal.
Bandages and medicine without a blessing were deemed impure.
In nations where the goddess Kaner was the state religion, illegal medicine was branded the devil’s work and strictly banned.
Magitechs and physicians are demons.
Yet the shadow market always survived.
The poor, unable to summon a priest, turned first to doctors and apothecaries.
Without legal recognition, charlatans flourished and accidents were common.
Even so, those without money had little choice.
“That man didn’t look like a fraud…”
If he was genuine, that was even more troubling.
The Pietzen Empire worshiped Kaner.
For a physician to treat the Grand Duchess here in the ducal castle was shocking enough that any devout witness would run to the Temple crying that a demon lived in these halls.
But the northern provinces had no shrines to the goddess.
After Emperor Rubios ascended the throne, he had exiled his enemies to this barren region, far from the goddess’s gaze.
Those banished nobles grew rich on moneylending, but their usurious fortunes would soon pass into Tarahan’s hands.
“Oh, I was told to take the medicine, wasn’t I?”
Remembering Zernom’s reminder, Ninia looked around.
Beside the porridge bowl sat three small white pills.
She reached for them.
Even at the height of her station she had always extended a hand to the lowly, and she knew how people took pills.
She sipped water, dropped one pill onto her tongue, and swallowed.
Gulp.
The pill slid down her throat.
She repeated it twice more.
It was her first time, but not difficult.
“How strange,” she murmured.
What felt odd was not the bitter taste or the sensation of hard beads slipping down her throat.
Why don’t I feel guilty?
Even after breaking holy law, no guilt stirred in her.
Was it because the goddess’s touch did not reach the north?
Or because she herself had been forsaken?
Probably the latter, she thought, and quietly closed her eyes.
