Chapter 16
First Time
A plump, oily hand seized Ninia’s own. The lukewarm touch of another person, damp with sweat, sent a shiver of reflexive disgust through her. Her fingertips twitched, though she kept it hidden.
She was glad her head was lowered. If she looked up, she would see the count’s gleaming face, his bloodshot eyes leaking sticky greed.
“Saint, I am truly the wronged one,” he said.
He clung to her hand, pouring out his grievances. Ninia forced down the instinctive revulsion and kept her face calm.
It wasn’t unfamiliar. She could name more than ten people who had once clung to her, panting for blessings and salvation.
The king of a small nation and the general who led a coup against him. The foreign royal bastard who pretended to aid that general but killed him once the rebellion tipped in his favor and then claimed the throne. Each of them had knelt at Ninia’s feet, pleading their innocence.
As the goddess embraced all with mercy, so did the temple refuse no one. The high priest took their donations in turn and arranged their meetings with Ninia.
One by one they were murdered—the king, the general, and finally the foreign bastard, whose body was never even found.
“As you know, my lady Saint, who stopped the northern war? It was our goddess and her lily, you yourself.”
The count was no different. Humans were all the same. Those who begged salvation from the divine were drunk on their own desires, pleading for a rope to climb over the heads of the innocent.
A black lion’s shadow flickered across the count’s face. Ninia’s eyelids trembled faintly.
Tarahan had no qualms about taking flesh and bone; he was a beast who could do it. Yet that, in a way, was purity.
A predator is not a glutton. Unlike humans, it does not gorge itself to death.
“Saint, bless me. Restore what the black demon has taken from me. May he suffer the punishment he deserves—stricken with a wasting disease, dying in torment. Pray that he is at last consumed by the light of heaven.”
Ninia looked down at the hand gripping hers. Tarahan had once touched her, but though he loathed her, he never desired her.
Perhaps that was why she never felt the universal disgust toward him that she felt for others. Slowly, she pulled her hand free.
“Count Troyd.”
After listening to his curse thinly veiled as devotion, Ninia finally spoke. A flicker of joy shone in his bloodshot eyes at the sound of his name from her lips.
“That barbarian—no, that Grand Duke—must return my lands. Please, in your holy office, write a letter to Her Majesty the Empress.”
It was a naked demand, the mask of piety gone. The Emperor had tolerated Tarahan only because he brought Ninia, who could soften his lowly birth. The Empress, forced to heed the temple’s influence, could not support the count.
If the Empress wished to stretch her power into the north, she needed justification. And Ninia, Tarahan’s weak point, would be perfect.
Ninia hadn’t read the count’s reply to her last letter, but she doubted it differed from what he just said.
The Empress’s hatred of Tarahan was certain, but her support for the count always had a reason.
Ninia studied the count’s face. If that reason were false, would the Empress still show him mercy?
“Count, I didn’t come here to bless you.”
“…What do you mean? Ah—did Her Majesty already contact you?”
Color drained from his face. Even as he invoked the goddess, the man who once sounded so bold now shrank before another human’s name. Ninia, seeing his sudden pallor, slowly shook her head.
“No. I haven’t heard from anyone. I’ll be sending my own message soon.”
“Ah… of course. I shall never regret throwing myself into the arms of the goddess,” he said, clutching his chest and murmuring the divine name. Likely he hadn’t been a believer for even a few years.
A faith gained in haste, a passion ripened too quickly—what burns hotter, and what turns cold? A cloud slid over the sun at the window, shadowing Ninia’s blue eyes until they shone like deep indigo.
“If only this barren winter land could be like the ‘Garden of Heaven,’” she said quietly.
Count Troyd blinked at her subdued tone, then gave a hearty laugh and nodded as if to agree.
“Indeed. Soon the goddess’s hand will reach the north, and this place will become a garden of heaven, just as you say.”
Goddess. Grace. The Empress’s favor.
The count launched into a grand speech, boasting as if victory were certain. Ninia listened silently, letting him soar. The beautiful saint was on his side—or so he thought—as the lily of the temple finally smiled at him.
“I’ve seen that painting myself,” she said.
“Ah yes. You were present when I gifted it to the Empress, weren’t you?”
Even if she hadn’t attended the banquet, she would have had other chances to view it. The Empress loved to flaunt her treasures to her courtiers and foreign envoys.
Her words were so natural that the count looked faintly puzzled. Perhaps he sensed a strange undercurrent. Good.
“No. I mean I saw it before the Empress’s birthday banquet.”
The table beneath his hand shifted slightly. Ninia clasped her own hands together, untouched by anyone’s warmth. His expression tightened, but seasoned by trips between the capital and the north, he did not yet reveal himself.
“Ha. You must be mistaken. I’ve never revealed my family’s inheritance before gifting it to Her Majesty.”
That was the story of the final work of Le Mans. The previous lord of the Troyd family, an art connoisseur, had owned the piece when he was exiled north. In bitterness toward the capital, he vowed never to reveal it. But the current Count Ervan Troyd broke that vow and presented the painting to the Empress.
“No, Count. I’m certain what I saw was The Garden of Heaven—the genuine work.”
“…Saint, your joke goes too far.”
At last his irritation showed, but Ninia remained serene. Her private suspicion hardened into certainty beneath his gaze.
She had learned to read eyes. Faces can lie, but few can hide the shards of feeling in their eyes.
He smiled as if amused, but the eyes, half-hidden by wrinkles, were sharp and wary.
“The painting I gifted was authenticated as genuine by both the Imperial and the museum experts. You must be mistaken.”
Many forgeries of Le Mans’s last work existed, but his unique style and special pigments made it almost impossible to counterfeit.
“The true painting is in the temple’s possession. So what you gave the Empress must be the fake.”
By the time she finished, the count’s smile was gone.
As his face darkened, a glint of resolve sparked in Ninia’s eyes.
I should have known from the start.
Ever since meeting Tarahan in his office, she had replayed the Empress’s birthday banquet in her mind. Memory dulled with time, but she refused to let it go.
The nobles present. The Empress and Emperor on their thrones. The high priest Altahaf and the regional bishops, and Ninia herself.
The Troyd servants had brought in what looked like a painting. She remembered the curiosity in High Priest Altahaf’s eyes.
The goddess’s realm and art were inseparable. Since the twelfth Holy Reign, the temple had collected the rarest and most beautiful treasures. Everyone knew priceless works lay hidden beneath the great shrines.
The wrapping came off and the painting was revealed. The crowd buzzed. When the imperial appraiser hurried in and declared it genuine, everyone gasped—everyone except one: High Priest Altahaf.
