Chapter 108

The Pope felt wronged.

A pope of an entire temple — naturally he wasn't ignorant of the truth.

He'd taken the role knowing all of it.

The choice had been his.

But now that things had landed where they had, he resented his past self.

"If they find the high priest, what happens then?"

"Then he pays for the sins he committed, I imagine."

"Pays? With what?"

"…The sin of confining the Saintess and deceiving the people, I'd say."

"And the temple? And me?"

"We won't be able to avoid it either."

The priest answered evenly.

The Pope, on the other hand, had gone bone-white and was shaking.

"Why me? I didn't know any of it! I didn't do anything!"

"Calm yourself, Your Holiness."

These days, the priest spent most of his hours soothing a Pope rattled with fear.

He'd fret like a child, then settle, then break into a fit again like someone whose illness had flared up.

The whisper was already going around the priests that the Pope had lost his mind.

The priest thought, with some regret, that the end of the temple was now coming.

Still, he was the only priest who'd stayed at the Pope's side, and his rank wasn't low.

So there were things he came to know whether he wanted to or not.

"Your Holiness. Times like this are exactly when you have to hold steady."

"Easy for you to say — you're only a priest. But you know it too! You're going down with me, with me! I won't go alone!"

The fact that the priest had endured this long was almost admirable.

Only nobles could become priests, and only nobles were allowed at temple mass — that alone wasn't healthy.

The truth had surfaced under shameful circumstances, but the structure was such that resentment could've spilled out anywhere, anytime.

"M-message my father, will you!"

The Pope's father was a marquis.

He didn't enjoy the emperor's favor the way Civelli had, but apart from Duke Cherity, his rank was high, and he'd made his son a pope.

"Ask him for help! Tell him to at least help me run! N-no, no… he'll just lay into me, I know it. What do I do, what do I do… But still — would he turn his back on his own son? Just go and contact my father."

His mind was clearly going back and forth.

"Yes, Your Holiness. I'll go send word — please wait here."

"Mm. Mm."

The priest's expression as he turned away from the Pope, who was nodding like an obedient child, was ice cold.

---

The hottest topic in the capital was, by far, Lecashe.

All those rumors about Lecashe that had wandered around without anchor were now being argued over from the ground up — whether they'd ever been true to begin with.

"Why are you here this early, Duke Cherity…"

"Is this a place I'm not allowed to come?"

"What's all that luggage?"

"I just wanted to heal in a place a little closer to my lady Iberin…"

"To?"

"I've left home."

He'd been showing up uninvited the whole time, despite her open dislike — apparently now he'd decided to drop all pretense.

"Why?"

The moment the word left him, Lyssel let off a downright murderous aura.

"Pardon?"

Cherity, for his part, blinked back at him innocently.

"Why is it that you want to be close to Iberin."

"I told you before. I thought you'd understood?"

"No."

"…Hh. You're pettier than I thought. My lady Iberin already forgave me."

"Yes, I'm petty. So leave."

"Hngh. You're going back to the territory anyway, so just while you're in the capital — wouldn't that be all right?"

"No."

"What if Lady Iberin allows it? Still no?"

"No."

Faced with that flat refusal, Cherity pulled a pitiful face and looked at Iberin imploringly.

But Iberin couldn't handle Cherity any better than Lyssel could, so she just quietly looked away.

"All I want is to feel my lady's pure divine power from a little closer. That's all."

"You some kind of pervert?"

Iberin's expression had gone glacier-cold.

The look she was giving him was the kind reserved for things you don't even want to be in the same room with. Cherity started to scramble for an excuse, but another voice cut in.

"Pure divine power?"

Rozelia, who'd been sitting with them, blinked.

The ones who knew about this were Cherity, Nais, Iberin, and Lyssel.

She'd ended up telling Lyssel naturally while filling him in on everything that had happened.

"Yeah. I didn't not tell you on purpose — I just forgot."

Iberin tacked it on hastily, like she was making an excuse.

"…When? Why?"

Rozelia, more than the others, looked especially shaken.

"Lady Iberin really has holy power too?"

Both Rozelia and Rotte fired back the same question, equally stunned.

"I don't really get it myself, but Duke Cherity says I do."

"The priests didn't say anything like that, did they?"

Rotte hit the same question Iberin had.

That part Cherity explained again, and everyone was floored.

Fake holy power — every single thing the temple stood for had been a lie.

"If that gets out, they don't even need to catch the high priest. The temple's done."

"That's right!"

Cherity laughed brightly, as if it had nothing to do with him, and Iberin landed a verbal jab.

"You were part of their team for a while. If you got hauled off with them, you couldn't really argue, could you?"

"You'd just let me get hauled off…?"

"What do you want me to say."

"That's cruel…"

Iberin brushed Cherity off and turned to look at Lyssel. She'd felt his eyes on her.

"Why are you looking at me like that…?"

"It bothers me."

"What does?"

"You and Duke Cherity seem to have gotten pretty close while I was away."

"Huh? No way."

When Iberin shot it down with open disgust, Cherity made a wounded face.

"That's a bit harsh, isn't it…"

"I'd rather be friends with a stray mutt off the street than get close to this guy."

"So I'm worth less than a stray off the street…"

"Yes."

"Hk."

Cherity tried to mumble a comeback, but he wasn't entirely without fault, so under everyone's icy looks he wilted and dropped his eyes.

Rotte had been ready to start hurling Cherity's luggage out the door from the moment he'd walked in, and she jumped in:

"Your Highness, shall I throw him out?"

"Would you?"

"Yes. I'll toss his bags first."

Rotte didn't pull her punches.

---

In the quiet of night, when everyone was asleep.

Lyssel was turning over what he'd heard that morning.

The divine power Cherity claimed to sense around Iberin.

He'd been chewing on it for a while, but no real answer had surfaced.

Before leaving for the west, Lyssel had quietly briefed the attendants closest to Iberin about her illness. But Rotte had had no idea.

About Iberin's sleepwalking.

Rotte had managed the estate since before Iberin lost her memory.

She'd even taken over the household for an Iberin who couldn't do her part.

And she said she'd never once seen Iberin wandering the halls at night before.

Whatever had happened, the illness had clearly come on after the memory loss.

"Your Highness. I've come."

While he sat in thought, Rotte arrived.

"And Iberin?"

"I left her with Tami for the moment. With Your Highness here, she's been falling asleep right away these days, though."

"And when I'm not here?"

"She'd toss and turn for a while. She'd gotten so used to falling asleep next to you that she said it felt empty without anyone there."

His face went faintly red.

Hearing his own story from someone else carried a small embarrassment.

Knowing it had come from Iberin's mouth made it worse.

Even so, he couldn't quite keep the corners of his mouth from rising.

Rotte caught the change in the man Lyssel had become and didn't bother hiding her own pleased smile, then asked:

"You called for me — is this about what came up this morning?"

"It is."

"Do you think the divine power and the lady's illness are connected?"

"I'd already talked through the possibility with the physician. The moment I heard about the divine power, I was certain."

"Then why is Lady Iberin still in poor health? It doesn't add up."

"That's the part I can't figure out either."

"Honestly, when I heard him this morning, I had a small doubt myself. So would it help if we stopped having Rozelia share her holy power with her?"

"No idea. It could just as easily make things worse."

Iberin's life was on the line.

He wasn't going to gamble.

The sleepwalking was a nuisance, but stopping the holy power transfers outright didn't sit right with him either.

"But none of this is settled. Let's not say any of it to Iberin yet."

Iberin was quick on the uptake, but when it came to things about herself, she had a blind spot.

Even today, she clearly hadn't thought about this part at all.

"Has she been all right, then?"

"Yes. She still doesn't remember any of it the next morning, but we've kept a close watch."

"She wasn't anxious?"

"No. She said she trusted us."

It was such an Iberin thing to say.

The thought drew a small smile to the corner of his mouth.

Everything was still a puzzle, but at the very least, he didn't think any of it was bad news for Lecashe.

He'd lived his whole life under the stain of being a cursed house — maybe this would be the line where everything began to change. He let himself, just barely, hope.

---

Near dawn, Iberin woke and looked over at Lyssel asleep beside her.

He was curled up, her hand clutched in his.

She'd hogged the blanket too — he looked a little pitiful.

"Pft."

The sight was funny enough that a laugh slipped out.

People said cursed, people said hero — right now, here, Lyssel was neither of those things, just a perfectly ordinary man.

Iberin watched him for a long while, then slowly reached out.

Just before her hand touched his hair, his eyes snapped open and he caught her wrist.

"Ah!"

Iberin yelped, and Lyssel — who'd been the one to grab her — looked down at whose wrist he was holding and went wide-eyed himself.

"H-Iberin, did I grab too hard? It was just a reflex —"

He let go in a hurry and immediately checked her wrist.

A red mark had already bloomed there, and his hand trembled.

"I-I'm sorry. Does it hurt, how —"

"It startled me, but it doesn't really hurt. But you woke up because of me — I'm the sorry one."

"No, no. I'm the sorry one…"

Watching Lyssel feel sorry made Iberin feel sorrier.

And then Lyssel, watching Iberin feel sorrier, felt sorrier still — it was a bizarre standoff.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm the sorrier one, really."

"I told you, I'm the sorrier one."

"I just woke up. You're the one with a mark on you. I was more in the wrong, clearly."

"Lyssel, it takes you forever to fall asleep. Now that you're up, you won't get back down for ages… I'm the sorrier one."

Both of them sat there, eyes drooping at the corners, apologizing back and forth in a fluster — until at last the absurdity of it caught up to them, and they ended up laughing.