Chapter 257

By the time the doctor arrived, several people were already gathered in Nerys’s room.

It wasn’t planned. Nerys was always busy, and her mother and Ellen assumed she would never return to her bedroom in the middle of the day without a good reason. The moment Dora bravely announced she had called a doctor, everyone’s faces stiffened, and Nerys quickly abandoned any hope of keeping the examination secret.

The doctor Dora had called was an elderly man who had served White Swan Castle for a long time. For some reason, Joan was clinging to his side as well.

“Your Highness, I heard you sent for me.”

“Your Highness the Grand Duchess! Your Highness the Grand Duchess, are you unwell?”

Joan blurted it out with a tearful face before the doctor could even finish. Nerys sighed.

“I’ve just been tired lately, so I wanted to check if I’m okay. It’s probably nothing, so everyone calm down.”

Even as she said it, Nerys knew she was excited too. ‘Don’t expect too much. Don’t get your hopes up. What will you do if it’s not?’ She kept whispering it to herself, but her heart wouldn’t settle.

Just the fact that she didn’t have to convince herself ‘it can’t be pregnancy’ while calling a doctor made her feel strangely giddy.

The old doctor smiled and nodded as if he understood even what she hadn’t said. Under the watchful eyes of five women, he calmly took out his tools and examined her.

Each time blood welled from her fingertip after a needle prick, each time the magical paper he produced shifted into an incomprehensible color, each time she answered his questions… Nerys’s heart swelled, and her anxiety grew right alongside it.

What if it isn’t, even after I’ve been hoping this much? What if it isn’t again?

After a while, the doctor’s wise eyes crinkled beneath his white brows, and he spoke with a smile.

“Hehe. The heir of Maindulante has arrived.”

(T/N: LETSSSS GOOOOOOOOOO!!!)

Gasp!

Joan almost shouted, but stopped after the first sound and clamped a hand over her mouth. She must have decided she shouldn’t startle a pregnant woman.

“Riz! My daughter!”

“Congratulations, Madam.”

“This is truly wonderful news, Your Highness the Grand Dutchess.”

Her mother, Dora, then Ellen offered their congratulations in order. Nerys couldn’t respond. Her mind went blank. It felt unreal, like a wish granted in the middle of a dream.

Then tears spilled from her eyes. She quickly covered her face with both hands to hide them.

“Baby.”

Her mother gently wrapped an arm around Nerys’s shoulders and whispered.

“Once I have a grandchild, I won’t be able to call you that anymore. The grandchild will get confused about which baby I mean.”

Nerys bowed her head, shoulders trembling. Sobs slipped through her slender fingers. Joan clapped a few times, deliberately muffling the sound.

“Well, from now on, Your Highness the Grand Dutchess will be reducing her workload.”

“Huh?”

At the unexpected words, Nerys lowered one hand. Joan beamed at her reddened eyes, wet with joy.

“I already asked the doctor. Since Your Highness the Grand Dutchess works too hard, I asked if there was food or medicine to help her feel better. We were going to mobilize all the technology of the Morier Trading Company’s pharmaceutical department, but now we also have a reason to reduce the work itself.”

Everyone was busy because of the war. How could only one person reduce their workload? The thought surfaced automatically, but Nerys still nodded.

It was a child she’d wanted for so long. And she knew from books that the early stages required caution. At least until things were clearly stable, she should be as comfortable as possible.

“And you have to eat Pantraiu twice a day—one spoonful in the morning and evening. Avoid buckwheat. Dry the stems of the flower chandelier and put them under your pillow…”

Joan’s list went on and on. Names of strange foods and wild grasses poured out without end, and the faces around her gradually went pale.

Ellen spoke for everyone.

“Is that… a prescription pregnant women follow in your hometown, Lady Morier?”

“Yes! My mother had six healthy children this way.”

The doctor chuckled and said most of it was superstition, but the words ‘six healthy children’ gave Joan’s claims a sudden, overwhelming credibility. And really, it couldn’t hurt to try.

Ellen hurriedly brought pen and paper, asking Joan to repeat what she’d said. Nerys’s mother held her hand and told her how she’d felt the first time she learned she was pregnant. Dora was so excited she spun around the room, as if she didn’t know what else to do with herself.

Before long, Nerys was helped onto the bed as carefully as if she were already a patient. Staring up at the ornate canopy, she felt a little dizzy.

She felt sorry for the child. If she’d known the baby would come like this—if she’d known the baby was already here—she never would have overdone it. Not even a little.

Ellen ushered everyone out, telling them to let Nerys rest. Alone in the quiet room, Nerys placed both hands over her still-flat stomach. Even though it was impossible, it felt as if she could sense a tiny heartbeat.

It still didn’t feel real. She whispered softly, like a sigh.

“Hello, baby.”

It will be a long time before I see your face.

I’m already wondering if you look like me or your father.

“When you come into this world, I’ll make sure only good things happen.”

I’ll treat you very well.

“Thank you for choosing me as your mother.”

I’ll let you hear the waves that come and go without end.

I’ll show you daffodils swaying beneath a blue sky.

I’ll let you eat sweet pie baked with crushed strawberries.

And I’ll give you a love that makes all of it feel beautiful, and makes you glad to be alive.

“I love you.”

Nerys whispered, then slowly closed her eyes.

❖ ❖ ❖

The late heat was oppressive.

It was a route that passed through only a few large territories before reaching the Imperial Capital. Cledwyn sat alone in a chair inside the barracks, leisurely organizing what remained to be done.

By now, the nobles in the Imperial Capital must be in chaos. The Maindulante army they had assumed would be suppressed quickly would soon be holding a knife to their throats. If the Imperial Family had swiftly reorganized and rallied their subordinate nobles, they would not have been pushed back so easily.

But Abelus had wasted that precious window, using it to antagonize the nobility—obsessed with the delusion that his authority was being challenged.

‘Useless bastard.’

Abelus believed he could read the nobles’ hearts and incite them as he pleased. But it was only an illusion, created by a life in which everyone around him had always catered to his desires.

An illusion Camille, Nellusion, and Megara had cultivated so they could use Abelus’s name however they wanted.

There wasn’t much time left. With clever Nerys tying the enemy’s hands and feet, Cledwyn planned to end the war without dragging it out. He would enter Maindulante before winter.

And he would never be separated from his wife again.

He had been sick of this war from the very first day. He hadn’t slept properly since he left. He could only start the day comfortably after seeing her face in the morning, and he could only look forward to tomorrow after holding her at night. Tedious battles, faces he didn’t welcome, the death throes of those who cursed him… he wanted it all to end quickly.

He wanted to go home.

At that moment, a brief light flickered from the magical device attached to the chair. Cledwyn immediately grabbed it and infused mana.

Click, click. After the soft sound of mechanisms meshing, the voice he’d been longing to hear came through.

[Hello.]

“Hello.”

It was strange. The crushing boredom that had plagued him vanished in an instant with a single greeting. Cledwyn smiled and spoke with genuine warmth.

“I love you today too.”

[…Me too.]

His wife, who usually avoided answering or grew embarrassed whenever he said those words, replied in a small voice today. Cledwyn’s smile brightened—so much that his subordinates would have yelped if they walked in and saw it.

“I must be lucky today. I even heard you say you love me.”

[Anyone hearing that would think I never say it. Don’t I say it often, in my own way?]

“Say it more. So I can think I’m loved by you at least one-hundredth as much as I love you.”

[What are you talking about.]Nerys sounded dumbfounded.

[I love you very much. I know you love me too, but saying it’s not even one-hundredth is a gross exaggeration. I might love you more.]

“That’s impossible.”

[Why? Do you think my love is too small?]

“No. I think my love is too big.”

In truth, he was provoking her because he wanted to hear her say it again. Cledwyn chuckled, and Nerys seemed about to argue logically, but she ended it with a sigh.

[I told Talfrin to stop lingering near the Imperial Capital and come up. It’s time for Her Majesty the Empress to step forward one more time.]

Neither Nerys nor Cledwyn had interfered with the Empress directly. The Empress lacked political ability, and as long as she was treated well enough, she wasn’t interested in much. The only time she had tried to act was when she sent that letter to Dianne.

In truth, Empresses and Crown Princess Consorts of Bistor had been like that for generations—women who entered marriage with dreams, only to slowly bury them in a world where they were treated worse than their far less capable husbands simply because they were not Ja’an. The same went for royal consorts and sons-in-law.

And the current Empress was among those most indifferent to politics. You could tell from the fact that Abelus began acting as though he’d taken the throne the moment the Emperor collapsed.

“Right. The nobles, terrified with a knife at their throats, will all rush there. In name, the Empress is stepping forward, but in reality…”

[Camille is coming back.]Cledwyn and Nerys did not believe the rumor that Camille had tried to assassinate the Emperor. If Camille had truly intended to kill him, he would already be dead. And Abelus’s sudden ascent to the throne, while Megara ran wild, would not have benefited Camille.

Still, it was possible she had attempted something other than assassination. Perhaps a play to escape a rotting court for a time, while forcing the nobles to witness Abelus’s incompetence firsthand…

“She anticipated the downpour and escaped in time. Knowing Abelus would ruin everything, she must have been fed up enough to step aside… to the point she wanted to flip the whole table.”

[Camille has always equated the glory of the Imperial Family with her own. Aside from using dirty tricks, it’s true she devoted her full strength to the Imperial Family. It would be infuriating, if she decided all of that was meaningless.]

[I know that feeling well.]Nerys added mockingly, and Cledwyn closed his eyes and smiled, as if he could see her expression. She was probably wearing an even more perfectly elegant smile than usual to hide her bitterness.

“The Empress knows she can’t overcome this situation. The only answer is to bring Camille back. So she’ll return quietly. She can’t appear openly because she’s a traitor. It’s getting a little more interesting now. The ones Abelus sends are so pathetic I can’t even be bothered.”

[I know you’ll do well, but don’t let your guard down and get hurt. I’m ready to tell our child a hundred times, when he/she grows up, that his/her father was careless and got stupidly hurt.]

“I haven’t even been hurt yet…”

Cledwyn cut himself off. He replayed what he’d just heard, then stood up without realizing it.

“I’ll turn the army back.”

Nerys’s laughter rang through the device like a clear bubble.

[I was worried you’d say that, so I hesitated about telling you now. Finish what you have to do properly and come, Cledwyn Maindulante. And show our child a cleanly organized world.]

As if it were a lie that he’d sprung to his feet, Cledwyn dropped back into the chair. He could hear undisguised joy in his wife’s voice.

Slowly, a smile formed on his lips as well.

“I certainly must.”