Chapter 56
But it was not enough. Lekia understood the demand of the priests for more… stimulation. Above all, he desired his own position among them to be unassailable. Thus, he extended his hand, palm open. “Then, will you set the priests’ minds at ease?”
“How do you mean?”
“She is but a lowly thing, destined for the Offering in time. Yet rumors circulate that Your Holiness shows her undue consideration…”
Lekia’s words fell after a measured pause.
“Defile her freely before the others. Until she loses consciousness and collapses.”
Whether or not they knew Delonas was listening, their dialogue continued.
No—the Pope, at least, must know I can hear. This space was not so distant as to be inaudible. Delonas stared, breath held, at the bathroom door he had left slightly ajar.
Meanwhile, their conversation flowed.
“……If it does not contravene the will of Ephina, I shall do so gladly,” came the Pope’s reply.
She had heard Ephina was the God of Dreams. Beakin had no state religion, though some followed individual gods. And those gods mostly loved humanity. What god would claim it was their will for a person to be violated? Was it this sliver of common sense that made it so?
Strangely, to Delonas’s ears, the Pope sounded… reluctant to violate her.
Moreover.
“However, I believe we must observe the Offering a little longer.”
Why did he seem to resist the Offering?
“And why do you think that?” Lekia’s voice held a newly sharpened edge.
The Pope answered immediately. “As you said, she is a lowly thing. It seems incongruous to offer such to a god. Must we not always present the finest, the purest?”
“Hmm.” Lekia released an inscrutable hum at that. “That, too, is correct. But her birth carried the blood of royalty…”
Lekia spoke on a little further, then took his leave. Until the end, the Pope’s stance had been, in essence, ‘opposed to the Offering.’
What is this?
As she listened, the question that floated through Delonas’s mind was from that other day.
‘Do you wish to live?’
What had his expression been then? At a glance, it had seemed cold. But why ask that? If I am here not merely to sate their desires, but as an Offering… the Pope must already know this. Above all.
[The condition for honoring the promise is the princess’s survival.]
That letter, sent flying, had been real.
What exactly is he thinking?
Delonas felt a faint, piercing hope trying to take root in her mind.
‘Just when you think you’ve hit bottom, they show you a lower depth. Just when you think you can endure this, they reveal what lies beneath.’
But then the Pope’s own words surfaced, tangling her thoughts. Would he truly do all that just to give her hope?
It was then.
—Swish.
The slightly open door was pushed wider. The Pope entered. He paused, but he was still fully dressed; he had not come to bathe. Then…
“…….”
“…….”
Their eyes met by accident. In the temple, they had ‘educated’ her—pressured her—to lower her gaze. Yet she could not lower it now. There was nowhere lower to fall, even if she tried.
She did not want to die. But… she held a baseless conviction that this man would not deliver death to her, not now.
Delonas opened her mouth.
“Why…”
Other priests would have raised a hand merely for meeting their eyes and speaking, but this one was different. The Pope merely watched her, still, as if urging her to continue. It was not pressure, but literal waiting.
Thus, Delonas could speak.
“……Why are you kind to me?”
It was a question offered without knowing if it was a delusion or not.
The Pope’s mouth tightened into a rigid, straight line.
……Was the question displeasing? Or was his kindness merely my delusion? A torrent of thoughts crashed through her in an instant.
Then the Pope’s hand moved. Delonas flinched, stepping half a pace back, but his hand only touched the area near his own heart.
“There are two things I can tell you now. The first,” he said, parting his shirtfront as if tearing it. Where his hand rested, a sigil was revealed.
“……!”
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