CHAPTER 07
A few days later, early in the morning, everything was ready for Scarlett to leave for the monastery.
She wrapped Victor in a tight embrace before departing.
“I’m going to miss you, Victor.”
Victor gently brushed back the strands of hair that framed Scarlett’s face as she looked up at him so earnestly in his arms.
“By the time you come back, Father’s anger will probably have cooled.”
Scarlett nodded before resting her head against his chest.
“Will yours cool too?”
“No.”
His matter-of-fact answer wiped the smile from her lips.
“Not even after a month?”
“You betrayed me.”
What was her husband thinking?
During the early days of their marriage, she had spent sleepless nights trying to understand the thoughts of the man she had fallen in love with at first sight.
She had plucked flower petals asking, He loves me, he loves me not. She had searched fields for rare plants that were said to bring love. She had laughed, sulked, and cried.
Victor never changed.
He never caught fire.
Standing beside the ever-calm Victor always made her feel as though she alone was burning.
Sometimes she wondered how she had managed to love a man like him for two whole years.
Then she would remind herself that unrequited love was exactly that.
It meant loving someone who didn’t love you back.
Surely, time would solve everything. One day the fire inside her would burn out, and this love would disappear too.
Stepping back with a smile, Scarlett asked softly,
“What about three months? Will you forgive me after three months?”
…
“Then one hundred days. After one hundred days… forgive me, okay? Any longer than that… I’m afraid you’ll forget me.”
“All right. Let’s do that.”
As soon as he agreed, Scarlett threw her arms around him once more before waving happily.
“See you in a hundred days, my love.”
“All right.”
Would his anger truly be gone after one hundred days?
Would the fire in her own heart finally die after being apart for that long?
Praying desperately for both, Scarlett climbed into the carriage.
The Melin Monastery stood far from the capital.
As Scarlett entered the isolated monastery standing alone in the wilderness, the expressions of her servants darkened.
The room prepared for her was built entirely of stone.
It was as barren as a prison cell.
Candice, the maid carrying Scarlett’s luggage, frowned.
“My goodness. Even if it’s a monastery, shouldn’t there at least be a bed? This isn’t a place for monks—it’s for martyrs.”
Scarlett had expected as much.
She simply smiled quietly and looked up at the tiny window.
The only thing she worried about was how little sunlight reached it.
The servants busied themselves arranging winter bedding and braziers, furnishing the room with everything they had brought. For a family as wealthy as the Dumpfelts, traveling with this much luggage was perfectly ordinary.
Just then, Father Delphio entered the room.
Gregory himself had entrusted Scarlett to his care.
Watching the servants unpacking bedding, he spoke sternly.
“What is the meaning of this? Why does a woman who has come here to repent require so much baggage?”
The servants froze.
“Take everything out immediately. Lord Leskia will be angered.”
“But how can you expect our lady to—”
Candice tried to protest.
Delphio cut her off.
“This is also Sir Gregory’s order.”
…
Hearing Gregory’s name, Candice had no choice but to comply.
Though deeply reluctant, the servants gathered the luggage they had just unpacked.
After they reluctantly left the room, repeatedly looking back, Delphio stood before Scarlett with the holy scriptures in hand.
A nun quietly whispered,
“You should kneel.”
Once the nun had left, Scarlett nervously knelt before the priest.
Turning the pages of the scripture, Delphio declared,
“Lord Leskia has spoken. Every devil resides in the technology created to surpass others. Therefore, as the daughter of watchmakers born into House Crimson, you were born carrying original sin.”
Scarlett’s expression stiffened.
Leskia was the God of Nature, worshipped by Edelroad, Salantier’s state religion.
Centuries earlier, Salantier’s nomadic ancestors had followed a small guiding star to this land and settled here. They came to worship both that guiding star and Leskia, the deity who had created the natural world.
Followers of Leskia did indeed pursue lives close to nature.
But using that doctrine to claim Scarlett herself was born sinful was nothing more than Delphio’s own twisted interpretation.
“My parents didn’t make clocks to surpass other people.”
“Time is revealed naturally by the world itself. Creating artificial devices to tell time and filling people’s hearts with haste—that is the work of the devil.”
“That makes no sense…”
“And that is why you betrayed your husband.”
Delphio ordered the monks to force her to kneel on the floor.
Then he proudly proclaimed,
“You may not yet understand your sins, but soon you will. Here, you shall find both repentance and purification.”
One hundred days turned out to be much longer than Scarlett had imagined.
The harshest part of winter passed, giving way to the bitter chill that lingered before spring.
Heavy snow blanketed Salantier throughout December and January.
February and March brought endless rain and cold winds.
While his wife remained at the monastery, Victor endured interview after interview with reporters—a task completely unsuited to his temperament.
He gazed silently out the carriage window at the pouring rain.
Blight carefully adjusted the countless medals pinned to Victor’s military uniform, making sure not a single one sat crooked. Unsatisfied, he frowned slightly.
Victor himself had hired Blight precisely because of that near-obsessive attention to detail.
Though often exhausted by it, he never complained.
After painstakingly finishing Victor’s appearance, Blight removed the wilted petals from the bouquet he had brought.
He carefully handed the flowers over.
“Will you really be all right meeting Lady Marina?”
“I visit her often.”
“But this time the reporters are coming with us.”
“It can’t be helped.”
He had wanted to avoid this method until the very end.
But the Royal Police and the newspapers had relentlessly attacked Victor, accusing him of being an unfilial son.
Soon Blight opened the carriage door and held up an umbrella.
Victor stepped out into the rain holding the bouquet.
The moment reporters saw the young officer’s strikingly handsome face, they momentarily forgot the aggressive questions they had prepared.
It was hard to believe this commanding figure was only twenty-six years old.
He entered Oslit Monastery, the wealthiest monastery in the capital, where his mother Marina Dumpfelt lived.
Oslit was famous for its chapel filled with magnificent stained-glass windows.
Beautiful though it was, only a privileged few were ever permitted inside.
Marina Dumpfelt sat in a cushioned chair beneath the porch overlooking the garden—a garden Victor himself had funded with enormous donations.
When he approached, she looked at him.
“Victor.”
“Mother.”
Victor smiled warmly as he knelt beside her chair on the polished wooden floor.
Marina gently stroked his hair for a moment.
Then she suddenly sprang to her feet.
Her expression twisted.
She seized him by the throat.
“If only… if only you hadn’t been born…!”
“…I would still have lived as royalty. Yes. I know.”
“You should never have been born! You ruined my life!”
“You’ve told me that many times.”
Victor made no attempt to stop her as her frail hands clawed at his neck and shoulders.
It was nothing new.
Eventually she exhausted herself.
Breathing heavily, she seemed to regain a little clarity.
“How is your wife?”
“She is well.”
“Does she still love you that much?”
A faint smile appeared on Victor’s lips.
“She does.
Almost more than I can bear.”
Marina nodded absentmindedly.
“Did I ever tell you about the slide in the royal palace when I was little?”
“…No.”
He had heard the story a thousand times.
The slide with golden handrails.
The jade cradle every royal child inherited.
She spoke at length about her childhood in the palace.
Eventually, as always, the conversation returned to blaming Victor.
The bouquet he had brought had already been torn apart in one of her fits of anger and thrown into the rain.
Victor listened quietly until she finally grew tired and began drifting toward sleep.
As he rose to leave, Marina grabbed his arm.
“My son…
One day, take me back to the royal palace.”
Her face held a hope so desperate it bordered on madness.
“My beloved son.
You’re the only one I believe in.
Do you understand?”
“Of course.”
Victor straightened the blanket over her shoulders.
“One day…
I’ll take you back to the palace.”
