Chapter 41. The Letter
The envelope was pure white, without a single mark or decoration.
It almost certainly wasn’t from Viole.
Ninia had once received a message like this before—delivered in the same discreet way. It had been from someone once very close to her.
At the sudden rush of memory, her hands and feet turned cold.
She didn’t know how long she stood frozen in the middle of the hallway before the bell for noon snapped her back to her senses.
‘…First things first.’
Ninia took the letter from the basket and tucked it into the inner pocket of her dress.
She didn’t know who had sent it, nor what it contained.
But instinct told her one thing—she had to hide it.
She set off toward Tarahan’s office again.
By the time she arrived, her heart was pounding madly, sweat chilling her skin; she looked far from composed.
She forced herself to stop, steady her breath, and smooth her expression until it matched her usual calm demeanor.
At least outwardly.
Inside, her heart was still trembling with fear.
Just around the corner lay Tarahan’s office. As she turned it, she spotted the butler waiting in front of the door.
“Your Grace, you’re a little late,” he said.
He checked his pocket watch as usual before turning his eyes on her.
She was about ten minutes late, but she didn’t understand why that concerned him.
“I was fetching the tea. Is something the matter?”
At her answer, Severus’s gaze shifted to the basket in her hands, as if checking whether something else was hidden inside.
The suspicion in his eyes was obvious.
Her pulse quickened with unease, but she knew that was simply how Severus was.
Even if her reputation in the castle had improved somewhat, not everyone looked kindly on Ninia.
Severus was one of those people.
He believed Ninia had somehow manipulated the servants into giving her their loyalty.
“His Grace has gone out unexpectedly,” he said. “I was instructed to inform you and await your arrival.”
The unexpected news widened Ninia’s eyes.
She recalled how yesterday, Zernom had rushed in to deliver some urgent message to Tarahan.
Perhaps this sudden departure had something to do with that.
“I see. I must have kept you waiting. Since he’s away, I’ll be going back. You can return to your duties.”
She answered lightly, though inside she let out a long sigh of relief.
Truthfully, she hadn’t been sure she could act normally in front of him.
Perhaps it was luck.
Turning her back to Severus, Ninia retraced her steps down the corridor.
“Please have a safe return, Your Grace,” he said behind her.
He didn’t follow her to the door as he usually did.
Still, she could feel his persistent gaze stabbing into her back until she turned the corner—then it vanished.
Her hand, clutching the pocket that hid the letter, was pale and trembling.
Step by heavy step, she made her way back to her room.
Only when the door closed behind her did she finally find herself completely alone.
Her legs gave out under the weight of her tension, and she slid down the door, sitting on the floor.
‘It can’t be.’
She repeated the same words she’d whispered to herself all the way down the corridor.
The letter’s sender might be Tarahan. Or it could be someone else—someone she hadn’t even imagined.
Her nervous fingers drew the letter from her pocket.
When she unfolded the neatly folded paper, her breath caught.
“Altahaf.”
The image of a red rose entwined with thorned branches—a sigil that had long been used as a secret mark.
Ninia couldn’t take her eyes off the symbol of the High Priest, which she hadn’t seen in so long.
No matter how much she tried to deny it, she knew this was the hand of her former teacher—the one who had trained her.
Below the drawing flowed elegant, graceful script written in the ancient tongue—exactly like Ninia’s own handwriting.
[Meet with Lady Teeran Lawen.]
The brief command sent a shiver down her spine, as though she were once again the saint she had tried so hard to forget.
She hadn’t escaped.
The words seared into her heart overlapped with Altahaf’s message, leaving her thoughts in disarray.
The name and title were unfamiliar.
Why was Altahaf instructing her to meet this woman?
“…Why now?”
Her abandoned body had long been erasing the goddess within her.
And yet, as if to deny that abandonment, the goddess had sent her serpent—forcing the memories of the holy sanctuary back to life.
Leaning forward, Ninia curled into herself.
The scars left by that final torture still marred her back, burning now as though they’d reopened.
She clasped her hands together—a long-forgotten habit—then startled and drew them apart, curling both into fists.
‘As I no longer pray…’
Instead of prayer, she called Tarahan’s image to mind.
His voice, deep and misted like the depths of water.
His heat, sharp enough to burn.
His hands, gripping her throat—every piece of him bound her in a strange, comforting captivity.
“…I’m afraid,” she whispered.
If Tarahan had been before her eyes, would she have been able to say it aloud?
He liked when she was honest with him, but this time—she was certain—it would have been different.
Alone in her room, she was sure of it.
His absence lasted nearly half a month.
And today, at last, Ninia was able to see him again upon his return to the castle.
At the dinner table, Tarahan didn’t look as worn as before, though faint traces of fatigue lingered around his eyes.
‘He won’t tell me this time either.’
Just as there were parts of his life he drew a firm line around, there were secrets of hers she could never reveal.
The letter had weighed on her mind ever since.
The temple was the proxy of a god who wielded absolute power, and their reach surely extended even to the far northern lands.
If any harm were to befall him because of this, that would be her sin.
So—she had to meet the woman named in the letter.
Lady Teeran Lawen must know what Altahaf couldn’t write openly.
“…Tarahan, I have a favor to ask,” she said softly.
He looked at her over the rim of his glass, swallowing the liquor before answering.
His throat moved as he set the glass down, waiting.
“I’d like to make a friend.”
“A friend?” he repeated, brows knitting as though the word itself were strange.
Ninia, too, would never have uttered such a thing under normal circumstances.
But she had prepared her words carefully.
“…I just feel lost when you’re away,” she explained. “I thought it might help to have someone I can talk to.”
The mood in the castle had lightened lately, but the people here were all servants—hardly the kind one could confide in.
‘If a husband often leaves home… then surely his wife must be lonely.’
She remembered how isolated she’d felt when she first came here.
Tarahan watched her quietly, as if telling her to continue.
“I was thinking of inviting some of the ladies for a tea party… Would it be all right if I sent out invitations?”
In the library, she had found a registry of the northern noble families.
The Lawen family, mentioned in the letter, had once been central nobility—a baronial house exiled to the north when their patron earl’s family was destroyed.
‘If I arrange a gathering, no one will think twice about it.’
A tea party for noble ladies usually gathered at least four people—sometimes a dozen.
With so few houses in the north, adding Lady Lawen to the guest list would attract no suspicion.
‘What is he thinking…?’
In the silence that followed, Tarahan’s gaze seemed to pierce right through her.
Had he guessed her true intention?
Her hands curled on her lap, but at least she wasn’t trembling like she had the day she found the letter.
That much was thanks to all the times she’d rehearsed this moment in her mind.
“Two weeks from now,” he said at last.
He paused, took another drink, and drained the amber liquid to the last drop.
“After the glasshouse is finished. Unless you want people calling you the grand duchess of a ghost castle.”
“If you permit it, any time will do,” she replied.
She only hoped she appeared to him as a lonely wife yearning for company while her husband was away.
She answered with a bright tone—but she had no idea how she truly looked in his eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ she thought.
Ninia held back the words he wouldn’t want to hear.
And she prayed—fervently—that whatever divine scheme was reaching for her would end with her, and go no further.
