139. Cup of Blood
The day of the knighting ceremony arrived. The Hersen Palace bustled with activity.
Nikolai stood on the balcony, lost in thought as he watched people hurrying around the palace chapel.
He felt strange.
In his memory, the Hersen Palace, despite its ornate style and vast, magnificent scale, remained quiet most of the year.
In Grand Duke Yuri’s final years, his paranoia worsened, and he tried to kill anyone who displeased him regardless of status, causing nobles to stop visiting.
Even after Nikolai became Grand Duke, he rarely held parties at the palace.
Initially, the boyars avoided him fearing revenge, and afterward, he was occupied with state affairs to care for the people’s livelihood and even went on an incognito trip to the south.
The quiet and desolate Hersen Palace found new life with successive events from welcoming the Charmente delegation to the knighting ceremony and royal wedding.
Nobles who originally planned to return to their territories after sending off the imperial delegation now stayed at the Spring Palace until the royal wedding day.
Nikolai found the lively atmosphere unfamiliar.
But this unfamiliarity wasn’t unpleasant.
No, he rather liked it.
The chirping of birds. The sound of leaves rustling in the wind.
The overlapping murmur of voices. The occasional burst of cheerful laughter.
The delightful screams of children playing on the lawn.
The purring of cats lounging on blankets enjoying their owners’ touch.
The barking of dogs wagging their tails excitedly, wanting to play as they chased cats pursuing butterflies.
The clattering of dishes hitting each other.
The clinking of glasses during toasts.
Sounds were truly fascinating.
Sounds that usually went unnoticed became audible only when one paid attention and listened carefully.
Just as his world found color after meeting Katya, he realized sounds also had warmth after meeting her.
Among the many sounds that existed in the world, Nikolai had several that he considered special.
“Huff huff huff……”
He smiled and looked down at the sound coming from under the bridge.
Laika sat beside him, mouth open happily, having somehow entered his room.
Nikolai loved this old dog’s breathing sounds.
“You’re just like Laika.”
“Who is…… that?”
“Our dog. Huge as a mountain but exactly alike in being afraid of baths.”
“Are you saying I’m like a dog? How rude.”
This aged dog his wife loved was family who had spent a lifetime with her.
Looking back, it made him happy.
It meant she thought of him intimately enough to remind her of family.
Even before Katya accepted his proposal, this dog had liked him.
In a way, Laika was the first to accept him as a son-in-law of the Smirnov family.
Nikolai had liked this dog who gave him infinite and passionate love from their first meeting.
When he lowered himself to pat its head, the excited dog licked his face all over.
“Laika, no!”
His heart reacted first to the familiar voice in his ear.
His most beloved sound in the world was—
“Your Highness, get up quickly too. All the preparations will be ruined if your clothes get dirty.”
Every sound that came from this woman with strawberry blonde hair.
Katya wrapped both hands around his arm to help her husband up.
Nikolai turned his head sideways and immediately pulled her in for a kiss.
The clever old dog knew right away.
That when the two owners kissed, they wouldn’t separate for quite a while.
The dog gave up trying to get attention and turned away.
The scent of other people it liked began wafting to its large black nose.
Soon, an excited Laika ran out into the corridor.
After their lips parted, Katya held onto his shoulders and looked up.
“You’re covered in drool everywhere.”
“Your lips are your handiwork though.”
Nikolai winked while pointing to his lips.
“Oh please, I wasn’t as bad as Laika.”
“Then want to make it fair and do more?”
“How is that fair? You just want it!”
“You caught me.”
Katya burst out laughing at her husband admitting his ulterior motives.
Nikolai felt utmost happiness whenever he heard this laughter.
Happiness. Warmth. Laughter. Family. Love.
These were things he couldn’t even imagine during the time he was abandoned by his father and confined in the tower.
No, more precisely, until he met her.
He didn’t know such things could be allowed in his life.
“I love you, Tia.”
“I love you too.”
Katya whispered with a bright smile.
Because she loved him, this choice was the best.
Being with Nikolai made her understand what it meant to miss someone even while looking at them.
When you fall in love with someone, you miss not only their present self but also their past self you hadn’t seen and their future self you don’t know yet.
Katya already started missing this man.
“Your Highness.”
Nikolai stroked her hair and responded with a “Mm?” to his wife calling him softly.
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
“And the choices I’ve made until now?”
“You’ve always made the best choices.”
“The best choices?”
“You married me first—”
Katya chuckled again at his joke.
“You didn’t give up and held onto me when I tried to push you away.”
“……”
“Your decisions were always right. I was the beneficiary.”
“Not always right. I almost married Ivan Petrovsky.”
“That bastard makes my teeth grind too. But because you were there that day, I met you again. I was planning to leave for another city right away originally.”
Thanks to meeting Katya again at the carriage office, they spent the night together, and from that one night, Nikolai fell for her.
That’s how their relationship began.
Sometimes in life, you find another stroke of luck even on a wrongly taken path.
“I ended up staying longer in Padovangrad to propose because I fell for you that day.”
If Katya hadn’t fallen into Ivan’s trap and gone to the Petrovsky’s villa that day,
If she hadn’t run away in the middle of the night, she would have missed Nikolai.
Through that day’s decision which she thought was the worst, Katya had seized her destiny.
“I trust your choices.”
Something hot welled up inside at her husband’s words, making her eyes turn red.
Though she tried to act calm, she was actually afraid too.
Afraid her choice might be wrong.
Afraid she might never see her beloved Nikolai again because of it.
“Your Highness. No matter what choices I make from now on……”
“Yes.”
“Please trust me until the end like now.”
“I will.”
Katya hugged the Grand Duke who smiled without knowing anything.
Trying to feel his warmth even a little longer.
***
Norbert’s knighting ceremony was held before all the nobles of the Grand Duchy of Hersen.
Perhaps feeling especially emotional about the fruition of their long love, Klavdia teared up.
The final procedure of the event was a toast.
Everyone gathered in the hall raised glass cups.
Following tradition, the protagonist who was being knighted was given a wooden cup.
Klavdia, Norbert’s fiancée, had the same.
As per custom, the sovereign and his consort’s cups were made of brass.
A Grand Ducal knight came up to the platform carrying four cups filled with wine.
The four men and women approached the table with the cups.
There were pairs of brass and wooden cups, with different carvings and decorations to distinguish between men and women.
As they reached for their designated cups—
“Could this be…… brass?”
Katya asked quietly with a troubled expression.
“What’s wrong, Tia?”
“When I touch brass, I get rashes on my skin right away. My face swells up. Sometimes it gets so bad my throat swells and I have trouble breathing.”
“What?”
“But it’s a ceremony, so I should at least pretend to drink, right?”
Surprised by this news he was hearing for the first time, Nikolai quickly grabbed her hand as she reached for the brass cup.
“Don’t even touch it.”
“But how can I do that at an important occasion as Grand Duchess.”
In this difficult situation, Klavdia suggested an alternative.
“Then shall we switch?”
“What?”
“The important ones today are the Grand Duke and knight anyway, right? I don’t think it’ll be such a problem if we switch cups. And from far away, the colors look similar so it won’t be noticeable.”
“Is that really alright? The ceremony will be ruined because of me……”
But then the problem was that the carefully matched couple’s cups wouldn’t match anymore.
Nikolai came up with a new solution.
“Then let’s just have Duke Norbert and Sister take the brass cups.”
“That goes against protocol. How can a knight swearing loyalty to the sovereign use better cups than the sovereign?”
“No. Actually, I’ve always found it strange. That at the knighting ceremony, we put more effort into making the Grand Duke’s cups when the knight is the protagonist. Even traditions need to change with the times.”
Thanks to the Grand Duke’s consideration, Norbert and Klavdia ended up holding the jewel-inlaid brass cups.
When the four turned around, Oksana and Oblonsky near the platform simultaneously turned pale.
The cups had been switched.
Before they could do anything, the Grand Duke’s toast continued and everyone in the chapel moistened their lips with alcohol in the cheerful atmosphere.
That’s when it happened.
“Tia!”
The Grand Duchess who had touched Klavdia’s cup to her lips collapsed to the ground, spitting red blood.