Adelaide took one more sip of tea. Her crime hadn’t been revealed, and Erna and Kalion had begun to veer apart. Moreover, she had been released from detention.
“Milena.” Adelaide called the name of the chief maid.
“At your service,” curtsied the maid.
“Send flowers and a letter to the knights’ quarters under my name. To congratulate my release from detention and Lord Kalion’s recovery. And I hope that there will be no misunderstanding between Haband and Lord Kalion.”
There really was no need to bring up what Kalion had done to Erna. Or was it better to just pretend not to know?
He must feel disgraceful, thought Adelaide.
To a strong night like him, it would be an unbearable shame to be hurt by Erna with magic. On top of that, hadn’t the news about that spread around the entire castle? But rather than trying to bring it up and add unnecessary comfort, it was Adelaide’s position as a wise woman to ignore it.
She intended to obey him. With an attitude completely different from Erna’s, she would behave politely and inflate his ego.
Because men like that kind of woman.
* * *
The doctors bowed after wrapping a bandage around Kalion’s arm.
“While it is fortunate that it isn’t broken, I can’t say that it is a light crack in the bone, so please try your best not to move it too much. You’re still…”
“I got it. We’re done. You can leave.”
At his cold, blunt voice, the doctors said no more and left Kalion’s office. They could feel his discomfort and irritation just by hearing his voice. They understood why. For him, a knight, having his arm nearly broken by his wife was not something to be proud of. On top of that, wasn’t his mood even more sour due to his having eaten poison?
Kalion exhaled deeply when the doctors closed the door behind them.
The office of the knights’ building was not an unfamiliar place to him. His office was more familiar to him than to his bedroom, as he spent all day glued to the knights. On days when had plenty of work going on he often slept in his office.
He went to the bed and sprawled his body over it. Lying on the mattress felt much different than what he’d felt in the couple’s bedroom over the past few months. He looked at his bandaged arm, feeling strange. No one had touched him, but there was a heavy feeling on his fingertips.
Kalion shook his hand to erase the feeling, but he grimaced at the pain of the cracked bone.
“Shit…”
He had hit Erna. So powerfully that she’d bled from the cut on her lip and couldn’t stand properly.
They had practiced their act together the day before. But after a few times, Erna had become angry.
“You can’t do it the right way? How are we supposed to trick the others if I can see all of your flinches?”
At Erna’s glaring gaze, Kalion gathered strength again and swung his hand, but again, it was not to Erna’s liking. But it was inevitable. How could he hit Erna?
Then he made a really strong decision to swing his fist right where Erna stopped, and Erna visibly flinched. Seeing the fear in her eyes for a moment, he hurriedly pulled his arm back. His heart raced more than Erna’s heart.
“Good. Do it in this position,” Erna had said.
Unlike the startled Kalion, Erna looked satisfied after a while. Kalion should have noticed the weirdness when she had asked him to stop practicing even though he hadn’t been able to hit her naturally yet.
But Erna had approached him faster than they had promised, and his hand, which he was unable to control the strength, hit Erna in the face.
At the same time he felt a dull sensation in his hand, he wanted to die. Even more when Erna started spitting out blood. The moment he thought about whether he should tell her to stop before he killed her, his body flew up in the air.
It didn’t stop there. His body slammed into the wall several times before falling to the floor. The spell continued to attack so much that he couldn’t even let a single word out.
While Erna was dragged away by servants, the nearby knights quickly held Kalion back and surrounded him as if defending Erna.
Their loyalty was very tearful, but Kalion was annoyed at that moment. He wanted to rush to Erna. To see if she was okay.
Thankfully, he hadn’t done that.
From then, he came to the knights’ building and said he would stay here.
Kalion rose and felt around the bed he was sitting on. The number of days he had slept here in the last ten years would be ten times that of the number he had slept in the couple’s bedroom. But why… did this place feel so empty and unfamiliar?
Kalion closed his eyes.
It was barely the first day they were separated, and he already missed Erna.
While he thought deeply about that, there was a knock at the door.
“It is me, sir. Cedric.”
“…come in.”
He ordered him to enter while secretly cursing Cedric in his head—“senseless bastard.” Anyway, if Cedric had come, it was clear that he had something to report.
“What is it?”
“The royal knights just delivered this, and…”
“And?”
Cedric’s eyes rolled as if he were hesitant, and he continued carefully.
“Lady Erna called Ruben Aether to her room”
Kalion looked around the room here and there and saw a wooden rod that Cedric had placed at the training grounds, saying it was a sample of a new wooden post. He approached it and picked it up, gritting his teeth as he held it strong, despite only with one hand. The wooden rod cracked with a loud sound.
Behind him, Cedric held his breath as his body flinched. He had served Kalion for many years, and he had never seen him so angry.
“Find out.”
“Huh? Find out what…”
“Find out what that bastard is… discussing with Erna and where he is going.”
Kalion cursed Ruben and resented Erna in his head. He knew that she would call Ruben. Because that’s what they had decided to do. However…
You didn’t say you would call him tonight!
Kalion threw a slew of curse words at the innocent night sky.