“Sir Ka Dillon promised to help you as much as possible, but just in case. It’s your trial, so you must have some intuition about how it will turn out, right? The opponent is too big from the start. If you feel it’s going to be difficult… run away far with Sir Ka Dillon. Don’t come back here. You don’t need to tell us your destination. It’s safer for you if we don’t know.”

The conclusion was already leaning towards the opponent. It’s nonsensical to think of winning against a ruler who has seized state power.

At best, the name of Del Mare, an old prestigious family, only induced a semblance of a fair trial.

Her parents were prepared for the worst outcome. Money, jewels, documents. All assets that are easy to carry and are highly liquid.

They planned to remain at the Del Mare main house as bait, hiding their daughter away, ready to send her off if necessary.

But Satin immediately shook her head.

“No. Even if I run away, I’m too obviously of Del Mare blood to hide for long. It’s foolish for me to run away from something that started because of me.”

The Del Mare family was known for their distinctively striking silver hair and pale skin color, revealing their origin even before stating their name.

With direct and branch family lines combined, their numbers were far fewer compared to other families, making them stand out even more.

However, her parents’ urging to at least change her residence didn’t subside.

Eventually, Satin accepted their suggestion and headed to the newlywed house with Rublier. Honestly, there was no better place for a comfortable prenatal care, even if just for a short while.

The two arrived quietly at the newlywed house. A select few servants had arrived earlier to prepare the house.

To avoid drawing attention with too many people coming and going from Del Mare, most were from the Ka Dillon family.

“The bedroom is prepared in the room you used before.”

The previous bedroom was the marital bedroom. Satin didn’t even look in that direction and walked to the room she had used alone.

The place that had remained empty since the evil spirit burned to death was where Larie had wanted to turn into a nursery to raise children.

She had returned carrying the child she had longed for so much, but Larie was no longer there.

Satin closed the door behind her and curled up. Tears kept pouring out, but fearing Rublier would come running if she made a sound, she covered her mouth with her hand and cried.

The habit of wandering around several times a day continued even at the newlywed house.

Satin even blinked awake in the middle of the night. She got up in the middle of sleep and opened the bedroom door, then startled.

Rublier, holding his sword, was sitting leaning against the wall next to the bedroom door, dozing off and looking up at her.

In the past, she would have clutched her chest when startled, but since being diagnosed as pregnant, her hand automatically went to her lower abdomen. She found herself unconsciously caressing her belly.

“I’m sorry I startled you…”

Passing by Rublier, who now apologized habitually, Satin went to the dressing room to find a winter coat.

While putting the coat over her nightgown and walking down the corridor, she felt the presence of someone silently packing and following her.

A warm wind blew. Rublier wrapped a shawl around her neck and shoulders, though she didn’t know when he had brought it out.

Satin walked very slowly. Rublier matched his pace to hers.

As they slowly walked from the bedroom to the fields, the two didn’t utter a single word, as if by agreement.

When wandering around the house, no matter how spacious it was, a house was still a house.

The space to walk was limited, so it wasn’t tiring. That’s why Satin didn’t know how far she could walk.

She thought she could walk as much as she wanted until she felt refreshed when the space to walk expanded, but unexpectedly, the limit of her physical strength came early.

Satin tried to sit down, bending her body on the bare ground of the winter field. She was tired and wanted to rest a bit before going back. She walked, only looking forward, not saving any energy to return.

But Rublier, who was behind her, quickly lifted and embraced Satin.

“They say the main reason for your weakness is the effect of staying in the cold prison. We’ve been outside for a long time, so let’s go back. I know you’re angry with me… but you’re tired. Please bear with it for a little while.”

Satin was about to refuse but quickly changed her mind. She decided to ignore her feelings for a moment.

It was much better for the baby to return home using Rublier’s strength than to sit on the cold ground. What did it matter if it was a bit calculating? There was a child to consider.

Satin let her arms hang limply. The air flowed between her fingers. She tried clenching her fist. It felt empty with nothing left in her hand.

It was just like their past married life. There was a feeling of time having passed, but nothing remained of the marriage.

Anger. Satin repeated to herself. Was that it? Was she angry? Had she been angry at him all this time? Of course, there was some anger. But that wasn’t all. Now, a different emotion had emerged besides anger.

“It’s not anger.”

Even to her own ears, her voice sounded very calm and soft, which she liked.

It seemed her parents’ long-standing education to control her emotions like a noble had finally paid off. Satin heard footsteps that continued with hesitation.

“…Satin?”

“Sir Ka Dillon was confused too. I’ll understand. I can’t say I did everything right either. There were certainly points that were bound to be misunderstood. So you misunderstood, and we divorced. Maybe it was the natural course of events.”

She felt his hands tighten as he adjusted his hold on her.

“So…”

Satin exhaled steadily.

“So you don’t have to try to look back on our past. There’s no need for that. We’ve each made a mistake towards the other, so at least we’ll have one less mistake to make when we meet other people later. That’s enough.”

Satin pretended not to notice the anxious trembling transmitted through his hands.

“When I see you, Sir Ka Dillon, I’ll often be reminded of the back that left home without looking back, and the cold chill of the prison where I curled up alone. Similarly, when Sir Ka Dillon sees me, Gjorn will keep coming to mind. There’s no reason for us to stay by each other’s side and suffer. We’ll just be hurting each other.”

She deliberately scattered her gaze into the distance. The dark night rustled. She focused only on the overgrown grass, the swaying of clothes in the passing time, and his regular footsteps rising and falling.

“I’ve always said that while you can have a loveless marriage, you can’t have a marriage without trust. My highest value is trust. We’ve already had our trust broken once. It’s much harder to recover broken trust than to build trust from scratch. Why try to take the difficult path?”

Satin concluded impassively.

“There’s no need for you to keep being bound to me, considering our relationship was only meant to go that far.”

Rublier remained silent. His words froze as his heart plummeted.

The woman with a strong personality who used to flare up and argue fiercely when upset, now spoke quietly without getting angry once, drawing a clear line with formal speech just like when they first met.

Rublier wished she would rather burst out in anger. It was terrifyingly scary because it seemed like she thought he wasn’t even worth getting angry at, like she had lost her vitality, like she had completely emptied her heart.

He was afraid she might disappear the moment he put her down.

Just like his first impression of her at the Academy where they met.

The image of the twelve-year-old girl who looked like she might disperse into thin air, bathed in dazzling light, overlapped with Satin’s face now.

“It’s okay. You can do anything to me. You have that right.”

Rublier carefully lifted Satin higher. His throat choked up at how light the weight of Satin and the child was.

“I won’t ask for anything. I’ll live atoning. Just let me stay by your side.”

It suddenly felt like it was raining. Satin was about to check the sky but lowered her eyes, then looked again at the scene that had briefly caught her eye.

Rublier’s hands, which were holding her securely, were covered in scabbed wounds, seemingly injured somewhere without her knowing.

Judging by the state, they were quite old wounds, but she had no memory of them. That’s how much she had been ignoring him.

Satin said nothing.

The house had already come close within reach.

* * *

A sudden guest arrived at the isolated house, cut off from the world. If it had been an ordinary guest, they would have been turned away with various excuses, but the identity of the guest reported by the servant was Rublier’s parents.

“Sleep well. I’ll be back soon.”

Due to her easily accumulating physical and mental fatigue, Satin was still in bed even though the sun was high in the sky.

Rublier, who had briefly stopped by the bedroom to check on her meal, left Satin alone and went to the reception room by himself.

The reason for the Ka Dillon family’s visit to Rublier was obvious.

They would want their son to withdraw from this affair. Unlike her, who had little connection with Kirion, Rublier was Kirion’s only close friend.

Given their past relationship, Kirion would likely treat her and Rublier differently.

When sending Satin to this house, her parents had opened up about their innermost feelings.

That a child must unconditionally be kept alive for their parents. The same principle would apply equally to the Ka Dillon family.

Their son had quit the Holy Knights and was walking a dangerous tightrope because of his divorced wife. How could parents just stand by and watch?

“…I suppose not.”

Satin quietly closed her eyes, trying to fall asleep. But her mind was wide awake.

It was useless to wait, covering herself with the blanket. Instead, she became completely awake.

Finally, Satin threw off the blanket.

“What can I do when you don’t even pretend to hear no matter how many times I call you to come? So we came here ourselves.”

Tired of lying in bed with a clear mind and doing nothing, and thinking it would be better to vacate the house since Rublier had guests, Satin changed into outdoor clothes.

She planned to take a short walk in front of the house. As she crossed the corridor, muffling her footsteps, a shout bursting from the reception room struck her ears.

“I don’t understand why you’re following her all the way here and clinging on. Didn’t she put the necklace up for auction intending to divorce? Are you thinking of reuniting with Del Mare?”

She ended up eavesdropping unintentionally. Satin hesitated as she was about to hurry out of the house.

The necklace was put up for auction? Wasn’t Gjorn holding onto it?

“Satin never did that.”

“Then did the necklace grow legs?”

“Not just legs. It could have grown even more. There’s someone who wants to harm Satin, so what’s the big deal about sneaking away one measly necklace?”

Satin was dumbfounded. She thought she had grasped Kirion’s dark side to some extent, but it seemed there were still aspects she had missed.

She had no idea where the necklace had gone. Rublier hadn’t made any excuses either.

He didn’t ask or mention the necklace at all, as if it had never existed, so Satin thought he might have forgotten about its existence.

Come to think of it, the necklace was missing even during the process of tidying up the house and wrapping up their married life.

It was a treasure carrying his family’s history, so it would have been reasonable to demand its return during the divorce, but Rublier had ended things just by notifying her of the divorce papers.

So he found it at the auction house.

When did he find it?

Is that why he decided on divorce?