Chapter 181
After finishing dinner, Nerys asked Father Adams about Ren’s whereabouts.
Father Adams told her, as if reminding her of something obvious, that Ren personally tidied the chapel every evening. Nerys realized he was mindful of his image even before the pious worshippers offering evening prayers, and she admired his thoroughness.
‘Well, that’s exactly why he’s risen so high at his age.’
According to Cledwyn, Ren did have a patron supporting him. But that patron had retired long ago, so rising this high on such a small foothold was surely Ren’s own ability.
‘Certainly, he looks like an angel from the outside.’
For Nerys, who remembered him as a delinquent in his youth, the phrase still sounded absurd at times. A pious and humble Father Ren.
Of course, if she were to form an alliance, it would be best to ally with someone this thorough.
Nerys walked through the now quiet first floor, silence settling over the city streets with the evening curfew. When she reached the firmly closed chapel door, she heard an odd sound inside.
It sounded like the wind, or water flowing, low and intermittent yet unceasing…
Sobbing.
Nerys froze, her mind racing. She hesitated, then very, very quietly pushed the chapel door open.
Indeed, the sound came from inside.
The holy painting, warped by the shadows of night, looked eerie. Behind it stood the gold-trimmed pulpit where priests preached, above which a short candle flickered so violently it seemed ready to die out.
The chapel was nearly empty. Only one person remained.
Ren sat hunched forward in the middle row of pews.
Nerys hesitated again. Ren was clearly weeping. She wasn’t sure if she should speak.
After a moment’s struggle, she began to retreat. But as she tried to close the door, it creaked—echoing loudly through the chapel.
“Who’s there?”
Ren jerked his head up. The anger and embarrassment on his face made Nerys uncomfortable. Anyone would hate to be caught weeping like this.
“…Nerys.”
When he realized who it was, Ren’s expression grew bleak, his youthful face glistening with tears. Nerys cautiously approached and sat beside him.
“Why are you crying? Did something happen?”
Ren glanced at her, then nodded, looking like a puppy abandoned by its master.
“What happened?”
At this moment, the long-standing tension between him and the Pope was reaching its conclusion. Perhaps the Pope had made a move, Nerys thought, and she asked seriously.
But the emotion in Ren’s eyes was nothing like that. Instead, it was…
The same blind longing and despair she had seen in the prayer room days ago.
Nerys’s heart lurched. She knew this look. She herself had lived that life in her past—suffocated by feelings of a love that could never be returned, but unable to stop.
And days ago in the prayer room… yes. She stared at Ren for a long while. He met her gaze.
Finally, more clumsily than she intended, she asked:
“Do you love me?”
Ren’s eyes trembled. He blinked several times, then rested his arms on the pew in front of him. After a long sigh, he pressed his cheek to his arm and looked up at her.
“What do you want me to say?”
So it was true.
Nerys felt awkward—love, for her? A man in love with her? She had never imagined such a thing, and now this was the second time.
Even one was too much to handle.
When she gave no reply, Ren asked again. Tears welled from his large eyes, streaking his angelic face.
“What can I say to stop you from turning away from me? How can I keep you from abandoning me?”
His voice was calm, steady, but to Nerys it sounded like the desperate cry of a helpless creature.
Though he feared rejection, though he knew silence would be wiser, the feelings he had buried too long burst forth uncontrollably.
It sounded like, ‘What must I do to survive?’
“Why would I abandon you? You’re not a puppy, and you don’t belong to me.”
“I know. I know I don’t belong to you. But I wanted to belong to you.”
His flushed lips whispered.
“I had no one. No one I could trust. No one to tell me how to live.”
As if stating a law of the world:
“There was only you. Only you I could trust. I nearly died more times than I can count, but I kept thinking only of you. You, who first reached out when everyone else left me to die.”
As though she alone had been his faith.
Nerys was startled. Indeed, in their school days he had sent her strange letters. Back then she was too young to understand, and perhaps he hadn’t meant them that way, but…
Ren was like a bucket with a hole in its side—appearing intact as long as water kept pouring in, but never truly functioning.
Always pressured, always on the verge of bursting, yet barely holding together. That was his life.
Nerys had thought the force keeping him upright was his faith in God. Perhaps not.
“I want my care for you to be natural. I want to be someone who matters to you.”
“Ren.”
But this was not something to say to a woman still wearing a ring on her left hand. Nerys gently admonished him.
Ren lowered his gaze, sniffing, his beautiful brow furrowed.
“I won’t ask for your love. If I asked you to stay by my side, you’d only become a cleric’s mistress, scorned by the world.”
And yet, being the young and handsome cardinal’s mistress was a position many coveted. They could not marry, and people would brand her a temptress who corrupted a priest, but she’d wield wealth and influence greater than most noblewomen.
Still, that was not what Nerys wanted.
Nor was it what Ren wished to give her.
He whispered softly:
“If you can be happy, and if I am not turned away from that happiness, that’s enough for me.”
“…Ren.”
She didn’t know what to say. Only that she felt heavy… and sorry.
Sorry for one who loved alone and resolved his feelings alone.
The fact she thought that first meant she was already wrong somehow.
A strange smile appeared on Nerys’s face—not joy, not sorrow, but a mask to shield herself from whatever expression might otherwise escape.
Before she could speak, Ren sighed and smiled sadly.
“…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to trouble you with all this.”
He kissed her forehead. Not like Cledwyn, who these days was desperate to kiss her hand, but gently, kindly, cleanly.
A kiss too pure to refuse.
Blushing, he lowered his head.
“I’m really sorry. I was selfish. I know opposing what you want won’t change anything, but I was too jealous and stubborn. Please don’t feel uncomfortable with me. I’m fine being nothing more than someone you know. Someone you can call when you need help. Like a distant older cousin—if you think of me that way, I’ll be content.”
“Don’t belittle yourself like that.”
“Nerys.”
Ren spoke firmly, as if nothing she said could sway him.
“I wish you could be safe. But if you can’t, then at least—you must have it all.”
❖ ❖ ❖
On the first day the massive stone blocks were left abandoned in the avenue, the citizens of Ullevis ignored the ugly obstruction.
On the second day, when half-hewn columns remained in the street, they gathered in angry groups, only to disperse under threats from the Holy Knights.
On the third day, when a broken cart was left in the avenue, not a single citizen attended the morning prayer at the Lily Palace in the First District.
“Funding has dried up. Even the nobles who frequented the Lily Palace have stopped. The Pope seems to have offered to marry off his bastard daughter to Count Barom in exchange for money and soldiers. His last resort, it seems.”
Hearing Talfrin’s report, Nerys lost her appetite. When she set down her fork, Cledwyn pushed beans from his own plate to hers with a clean fork. Her dish was already empty.
“Why? Isn’t it good news?”
Nerys hesitated, then ate the beans. Here, beans were cooked especially tender—just to her taste. Too good to refuse under the guise of manners.
And Cledwyn was not the sort to take back something he’d already given.
“It’s the temple that condemns children born outside of wedlock. Yet the moment he faces crisis, he parades his bastard as if bestowing grace. That’s what I find amusing.”
Cledwyn seemed unsure why she cared, but he nodded seriously, as he always did these days.
“Truly ridiculous. If it’s one of Omnitus’s daughters, then it must be Brigid?”
This last was directed at Talfrin, who nodded.
“Yes. The younger one is still an infant. Her two older brothers dined with Count Barom while discussing the marriage contract.”
The Pope was known to have four illegitimate children: two sons, two daughters. Brigid was the third, once the youngest until his new mistress bore another child last year. Naturally, Nerys expected Talfrin’s answer.
Brigid. In her past life, Valentin had called her ‘sister-in-law.’ The girl deemed worthy to marry Nellusion.
Nerys quietly chewed and swallowed the beans, then said calmly:
“Delay Brigid’s departure. If the Pope is desperate enough to request both money and soldiers, then even he must realize how unstable things are. Give Count Barom reason to suspect the Pope has other motives.”
“Genius.”
It wasn’t much, but Cledwyn beamed at her words. Then he gestured to Talfrin.
“Bring it.”
Talfrin left silently. Nerys set down her utensils and asked:
“What is it?”
“The latest delivery.”
“And what is that?”
The answer came soon enough, when Talfrin returned with a heavy chest.
As it opened, the small dining room was bathed in the prismatic gleam of countless jewels.
The dress within shimmered as if woven with moonlight, white as snow, its bodice and waist set with hundreds of tiny white gems forming a long triangle down the front.
The lower hem, a hand’s breadth above the floor, was likewise encrusted with white stones, as though one stood on starlight itself.
It was, unmistakably, a wedding dress—the most elegant and beautiful she had ever seen.
“I thought it would suit you. Because you’re dazzlingly beautiful.”
Cledwyn said it so easily.
In her past life, the dress she wore had been chosen offhand by the Duchess of Elandria. It was meant only as a declaration of alliance between house and crown—an unnecessarily heavy and solemn garment, not even pretty.
She had never imagined she would wear a wedding dress she truly liked.
“…It’s beautiful.”
More beautiful than herself, perhaps too beautiful for her. But Nerys hesitated, then nodded.
(T/N: I feel bad for Ren…)