Chapter 8
He took a decisive breath. Without answering, he shook off Arzeletta and walked away. The moment his cloak slipped softly from her fingers felt long.
Arzeletta stood for a long time, watching the youth’s retreating back.
She lifted the cloak covering her body and buried her face in it. It smelled clean and kind.
She took a deep breath.
If someone saw this cloak, she might be in quite an awkward situation…
Still, it was fine. She wanted to remember this moment as long as possible. She would cherish it dearly.
Arzeletta smiled happily within the fabric.
“Lord.”
Ragnar, who had been looking out the window, turned around at the sound of being called. The priest was watching me.
Long, small pupils, eyes like a cunning snake. Those eyes, as if piercing everything, always made Ragnar uncomfortable, but Ragnar was not one to show that discomfort easily.
“The time for the ritual is soon.”
The ‘Purification Time’ held every night. It was an important ritual to purify the soul before the god every night, conducted according to Impellias’s strict law.
The ‘purification’ performed directly by Ragnar was the imprinting of human sins onto Theogrim’s body. To purify Theogrim’s soul even further.
Ragnar slowly opened his mouth, recalling the heir who covered my clothes for a lowly maid.
“I will begin the ritual.”
His precious heir must have many sins to be purified today. For his own territory, for the god, for the soul of Theogrim who would soon become the god’s proxy, he had to purify Theogrim.
That was the mission of Ragnar, the god’s proxy.
Ragnar walked slowly and took the whip hanging on the wall.
The thick whip was long and heavy. On the handle, Impellias’s noble crest was engraved in gold leaf and jewels.
Suddenly, he turned his gaze to the window. The shadow cast by the moonlight was darker than the light itself. Ragnar, who had been watching the fluttering laundry, turned his body.
Slowly, he passed the stone stairs and walked toward the place where Theogrim was waiting.
Several days passed.
“Why are you smiling so unpleasantly?!”
When the steward spoke harshly, Arzeletta firmly closed her mouth. He handed Arzeletta a bundle of heavily soiled laundry with a displeased expression.
Despite carrying laundry filled with sweat, filth, and blood, Arzeletta did not change her expression even a little.
Since the night she met Theogrim, several days had passed, but Arzeletta was still immersed in happy feelings.
Even though they had met only once, for such a brief moment…
The place caring for injured knights. The knights’ ward, located in the most remote part of the castle, was Arzeletta’s workplace. Arzeletta, who did not receive treatment equal to the formal maids working inside the castle, cautiously came and went through the back door used to carry laundry and take out trash.
“Is something good happening?”
“No, no.”
“Well, what good could possibly happen to you? Just be glad you don’t end up dunked in water like last time.”
The man twisted his lips into a smile, revealing yellowed teeth from tobacco. Arzeletta shrugged her shoulders.
“Be careful how you carry your face around. No one likes seeing you smile.”
“…Yes.”
“Hurry up and get going! Don’t be late like last time! If you’re late again, I’ll sell you to the hunchback Yoseph!”
Dodging the steward’s face, which snarled while teasing her, Arzeletta hurriedly picked up the basket and turned around. She scurried away as if escaping the man who chuckled and chewed on leaf tobacco.
“Hey, you there!”
Startled by the sudden shout, Arzeletta stopped. Inside the ward, the four men lying in separate beds beckoned her with nods.
The men holding cards put down the cigarettes in their mouths. They looked like they had found an entertaining toy. Arzeletta set down the basket and hesitantly stepped inside the ward.
With sleeves rolled up for laundry and her skirt tied up, Arzeletta’s slender arms and legs were exposed. The whistles followed the gazes that swept her up and down.
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