After surveying each of their expressions one last time, Itanas lowered his gaze and looked at Riella. A gentle smile already hung on the man’s face.

“I would like to go with you and check whether it is comfortable to stay in, but I must take my leave here.”

A faint, relieved breath rang from the head of the household. To him, Itanas escorting the saintess this far was already a tremendous unforeseen event.

Riella, on the other hand, let a slight regret show on her face. She herself didn’t even realize it.

The man smiled broadly.

“There is a superstition in our old customs that one must not see a bride who has come for marriage before the wedding. You could say the elders insisted on keeping it, even convening an emergency meeting to tie my feet. It was not because I do not welcome you.”

“I see….”

“So your servant earlier was half right. Only the elders stubbornly push it now, a vanished custom.”

Ah, Riella’s eyes went round as a rabbit’s as she listened. Valencio, ‘your servant’? To describe the man who disciplined and scolded her all her life that way was so irreverent it made her nervous just to hear it.

So irreverent that she even felt a faint thrill….

That was why Riella failed to recall that Itanas wasn’t present when Valencio made the remark in question. She also failed to find it odd that he went out of his way to add that the Saranthumians, who couldn’t possibly welcome her, were not refusing to welcome her.

“Well then, rest well from your journey. Please rest as comfortably as you can.”

“Ah, this cloak…!”

“It is still cold.”

As Riella fidgeted, ready to take it off, Itanas grasped the front and fastened it firmly once more.

“Keep wearing it until you warm up, then have it delivered separately.”

The man’s mouth drew a long curve as he said it. Did a faint dark air creep up in the corner of the golden irises that shone with nothing but warmth whenever they faced Riella?

“Please stay like this only until the wedding.”

“…….”

“…Even if it is a little uncomfortable.”

The smile soon vanished from the face of the man continuing his request. No, he did more than simply wipe off his smile. His face looked like he was swallowing something unpleasant.

Now that she thought about it, the air resting in his eyes looked like a kind of sorrow.

Perhaps that was why Riella thought his words sounded like a warning that she would surely be uncomfortable.

Perhaps that was exactly what he worried about.

At last, Itanas raised his gaze and looked around. He took in the Autumn Palace courtiers, the head of the household and guard knights who followed him, and finally even the maids from the Holy Kingdom who followed closest.

Itanas gazed steadily for a while at the two women standing where he would have to deliberately turn around to see them.

He looked like someone who knew a share of that ‘discomfort’ belonged to them too.

* * *

“Now, please step inside.”

After Itanas vanished, leading the head of the household and the knights.

Guided by Madam Otto, Riella went in through the front entrance of the dazzling Autumn Palace.

The interior was another world as well. She was already amazed by the building’s gorgeous exterior, but once she stepped inside, the decoration was so brilliant she wondered whether the exterior was deliberately plain. The ceilings and window moldings were all wrapped in gold, and each corridor and room was papered in silk wallpaper of a different pattern, creating a different mood in every space. A feast of colors, seemingly meant to echo the many-hued autumn leaves of an autumn forest, each as vivid as kneaded gemstones. On top of that, real jewels asserted their presence in the lamps and objects displayed in every corridor and room, so the whole place stirred a sense of ecstasy.

This was a first. It was not because Riella spent her whole life in a cramped back room of the Holy Emperor’s residence, but because the scenery was so sharply different from the Holy Kingdom’s. The Holy Kingdom was also grandly decorated with the faith of the Holy Alliance nations, but what could be seen there was the craft of humans trying to resemble god.

But what filled this place was wealth that bewitched people through the raw materials themselves.

‘They said it developed through trade with the outer regions since the Fifth Holy War….’

That was not all. What exactly were those people looking at when they ranted that these people knew nothing of art? The paintings and objects hung everywhere all drew admiration, like the work of masters. Their painting style simply differed from the continent’s, so it looked somewhat rough.

Everything that passed through her sight caught her eye, so Riella marveled in a hushed breath, trying not to look around carelessly.

‘I’ll have a chance to look carefully later, won’t I?’

Preferably with someone to introduce it to her. After the peace negotiations were completed, the political marriage was settled, and the wedding was safely held. If she truly became the queen of Saranthum.

“Becoming a wife, is it?”

The other party probably didn’t want that…. The moment her thoughts reached that point, her fingertips tingled sharply for no reason. It happened at the same time as the thought that her heart tightened a little.

“This way.”

Then Madam Otto stopped before a large door.

“This is the outer reception room where the palace mistress receives outside guests. If you wait here, we will guide you to your quarters as soon as they are ready.”

Ah, Riella nodded slightly. Speaking like that ‘palace mistress’ was someone other than Riella, and thus treating her as that ‘outside guest,’ were both worth pointing out, but she noticed none of it.

It’s actually better this way. Maybe I can finally rest now.

That was all she thought.

With her body stiff from long tension and wrapped round and round in Itanas’s cloak, the awkward posture on top of the tension left her thoroughly worn out. Having received only paltry treatment in the Holy Kingdom all her life, she also had thick calluses inside, so small contempts meant nothing to her.

Inside the doors flung wide to both sides, a space appeared where the pale sunlight of late autumn poured through a broad glass window opposite. Wood with fine grain was used well on the walls, emphasizing the warmth of welcoming guests like a farmhouse at harvest time with its storehouse full.

Only the fireplace seemed freshly lit, so it was as chilly as outdoors. It was proof that until recently they didn’t expect to use this palace for a while, but this too stirred nothing in Riella. Her gaze was merely seized by the ornaments meant to display the Saranthum queen’s might to the palace’s guests.

The tapestry splendidly decorating one wall, the carpet woven gorgeously in traditional Saranthum patterns, the antique crystal lamps with brass fittings, the furniture decorated with mother-of-pearl and jade, and so on…. Unfamiliar but unmistakably luxurious things filled a space several times the size of the back room she lived in.

“…Ahem.”

“Huh, really.”

If anything, only the Saranthum courtiers were flustered. They said she was the daughter the chief of those fanatics raised so tenderly, afraid she’d break if gripped or fly off if blown upon… and though she looked as delicate as a spring flower grown only in a greenhouse, was she unexpectedly bold? They simply swallowed their assessment of the saintess, tangling gazes with one another.

“Please sit first.”

“Ah, yes.”

Urged by Madam Otto, Riella finally came to her senses and awkwardly sat before the reception table in the middle. With no time to deliberate on where to sit, she sat where she could see the door. Not on the single sofa at the head seat, but on the long sofa with her back to the window. She thought it a spot where she could see the courtiers coming in behind her all at once.

Unfortunately, she had no awareness that she should sit at the head seat. The thought that the courtiers might look down on her for it was likewise absent. She never learned which seat was the head and which the foot.

‘Probably just ill-bred.’

‘A spoiled brat who grew up as she pleased.’

‘That kind of slow girl is supposed to be His Majesty’s match….’

‘Such a blemish on Bakiteus’s glory.’

But contrary to her expectations, no one took a seat, and all merely remained not far from the door. Before Riella’s eyes, the solemn-faced courtiers stood in a row like a wall and quietly looked down at her.