Chapter 12 (Part 2)

After a few more days of peaceful showers without lightning, Ellenia barely managed to swallow some broth, ignoring the hallucinations beyond the sound of the rain that tormented her day and night.

The rosy cheeks that had once been plump had long since become shadowed, and her cheeks, which should have retained some baby fat, had become pitifully gaunt.

Yet, despite being terrified by the sound of the rain, she finally came to recognize her husband.

Though she made a face as if she would throw up after drinking the herbal tea, she began to vomit everything she ate in his arms, and she became familiar with her husband’s embrace, who closed the windows tightly to keep out the sound of the rain and wrapped her tightly in blankets. She had also become accustomed to his firm and hot chest, which he had to expose by taking off his tunic because her down blanket was too warm for a warrior’s body.

It had been a month already. In her increasingly fragile heart, a different feeling for her husband began to take root.

She waited for him to come to her after his work, and when his eyes turned to her, she shyly looked away, but was helplessly afraid that his eyes might grow cold. She felt sorry for keeping him from sleeping properly, yet couldn’t bear to leave his embrace…

It was akin to a kind of longing.

He was a grateful person, just that kind of emotion. But it seemed to have become something quite different from familial affection.

She also didn’t know what familial love was, so she couldn’t accurately understand where her distant longing originated from.

“I, uh, hate the sound of rain.”

It was a day when torrential rain poured all day long. The distant places flashed, and the sound of thunder began to approach. The season of stormy weather was coming again.

Edarson, guessing that his wife would be suffering alone, finished his work early and visited his wife’s room.

He caressed her swollen eyes, wrapped her in a cloud-like blanket, and held her tightly. With his strong arms, he embraced her head, so she wouldn’t hear the distressing sound of the rain.

In his thick embrace, Ellenia could somewhat forget the sound of the rain. Listening to his thumping heartbeat, she would fall asleep thinking about how it was similar and different from hers. As long as there was no lightning, that was enough.

That day was such a day.

When the sound of grumbling, as if complaining after a big fight with a friend, echoed around her chest, Edarson chuckled softly with a ticklish feeling. Though it was about her despair, he was embarrassed to be glad that she confided in him.

“I learned something new.”

“Don’t tease me.” 

She muttered, shaking her head.

Her wriggling caused a low groan to escape from above her head. She had become so accustomed to being held that she knew when such sounds would come.

Come to think of it, something hard… 

Embarrassed, Ellenia tried to move her hips away a bit.

“On rainy days, sob, my grandfather blamed me.”

“Did he?”

“He said I had the blood of a witch. That my mother and grandmother were harlots and seductresses.”

A low chuckle escaped Edarson’s lips.

Even with innocent gestures, she could make him so ar*used that perhaps to him alone, she was a harlot and seductress. He couldn’t say that it was the bishop of Nux who cursed her with those words.

“I wasn’t laughing at you.”

“…I know.”

Ellenia’s voice sounded petulant. Mixed with sobs, it was quite pitiful.

“So he… said he would purify me. The Lord, the Lord would, uh, punish me.”

“Punish you?”

“The sky would flash, and there would be thunderous roars.”

“…”

“If I was locked in a dark chest like this, he would whip, whip, and club me, uh, saying the Lord was merciful to let me off with that.”

At those words, Edarson, pretending to be surprised, pulled back the blanket. Underneath, his wife’s pale face showed a small blush, perhaps due to the heat from his bare body. Only that part was red under the late afternoon’s gray light.

“That, I…”

“Thanks to you, my lord, I’ve come to like the dark places.”

At her bashful smile, Edarson gently rubbed her eyes with his thick thumb. A red mark remained where the tears had been wiped away.

“Am I going mad? Is that why you pity me?”

“…Why do you say such things?”

“I was grateful that you didn’t consummate our marriage on the wedding night. I, I… have the blood of a witch. If I dared to indulge in lust, the Lord would punish me…”

Startled again by her words, Edarson loosened his arms around her. Ellenia chuckled, finding the innocent look of her husband, who had always seemed like a big mountain, endearing.

Tears that had welled up again flowed down her folded eyes.

“But whether I do something or not, I’m going mad.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Tarnu is a family of unbelievers, so whatever happens under this roof… wouldn’t the Lord turn a blind eye?”

Saying so, Ellenia lifted her chin. Her soft yet chapped lips touched his chin.

Startled by the sudden kiss, Edarson looked down at her, and the kiss fell again on the hollow below his lips.

“…Madam.”

“I might have already sinned.”

“…”

“…You know.”

Edarson’s green eyes took in his wife’s face for a while. Her cheeks were as flushed as the red marks he had left under her eyes.

Could it be what I’m thinking?

Could what I’ve been contemplating since the knights returned from Nux be what she also desires…?

Reading the hesitation in his eyes, Ellenia’s fingertips gently touched his thick chest. Her thin fingers touched the firm muscles right under the skin. As her fingers gently brushed along the tightly packed muscles of his side, she thought:

Already receiving divine punishment, how much worse could it get?

Rather, it was more comforting for her husband to only look at her.

“You can pity me.”

“…That’s not it.”

“You can comfort me too.”

No, that’s not it either. 

Edarson’s head lowered towards Ellenia’s face as he gently lifted his upper body. His firm jaw engulfed her mouth.

So, it was to protect his wife in another way.

So she would never have to return.

So she wouldn’t have to leave his castle.

‘If she were to carry the seed of Tarnu, she could stay forever.’

The first kiss was suffocating.

Her husband was large and firm, but his kiss was gentle. As if soothing, he nibbled her lips, then showered tiny kisses below her chin, as if he wanted to take back the marks he had left.

His large hand supported her head while his other arm embraced her waist, and soon her small mouth was filled with his thick tongue.

He licked the inside of her cheek, then scratched her palate with the tip of his tongue, and finally entangled her soft tongue. Just as he had tightly bound her when she struggled with hallucinations on those many nights.

At such times, Ellenia was mostly out of her mind, but sometimes she was conscious. Feeling repeated self-loathing as she babbled nonsense, she would think:

If I’m going to go mad like this, then…

Wouldn’t it be better to give my insignificant body to my kind husband, who suffers so much because of it?

Thinking such thoughts might be because of the harlot’s blood in her, but…

If I’m going to go mad anyway, it wouldn’t be bad to go mad after giving pl*asure to my husband. If I really am a harlot, then that pl*asure would be my duty.

Ellenia tightly closed her eyes and desperately clung to the flesh of her husband that had entered her mouth. She pressed her body, her gr*in, as close to his body as possible. She wrapped her always sluggish legs around him, not wanting to be separated from him at all.

Even if I receive divine punishment… if I cling to my husband’s firm embrace, maybe I can barely struggle without falling into hellfire.

Ellenia’s thin arms wrapped around his thick neck.