Chapter 35
Chapter 035. People Whose War Has Not Ended (8)
Rosalyn turned to the physician tending to Sionne.
“Your Grace.”
The doctor, who had just applied ointment and was wrapping Sionne’s wound in clean cloth, addressed her.
“Fortunately, the wound isn’t deep. As long as it doesn’t get infected, he should recover quickly.”
“I see.”
“If the bandages are changed regularly and the medicine applied, it’ll heal in no time.”
Rosalyn glanced at the cloth visible beneath Sionne’s opened shirt and nodded. The treatment seemed just about done.
“You’ve done well at this late hour. Stay in the castle for the night.”
She expressed her thanks and dismissed the doctor.
“Thank you for your kindness.”
After ordering a maid to escort the physician to a guest room, Rosalyn found herself alone with Sionne.
“……”
She brushed the back of her neck and let out a quiet sigh.
Truthfully, she wanted to send Sionne away too so she could rest.
But seeing him avoid even meeting her eyes made her feel uneasy.
“Sionne.”
Rosalyn sat beside him on the bed and called out gently.
“Stay here tonight. It’ll take time to clean your room.”
Of course, there were plenty of available rooms in the fully restored Anata Castle. Sionne didn’t need to stay in hers.
Rosalyn knew that—yet for some reason, she felt she shouldn’t leave him alone tonight.
“…Aren’t you going to ask me anything?”
Still avoiding her gaze, Sionne finally spoke.
“As Sir Vanil said, this could all be my own fabrication. I might’ve joined hands with Feitan’s forces.”
“That could be.”
Rosalyn answered calmly.
“But it might not be, either.”
“……”
Sionne was pleased that everything was going according to plan.
‘Too easy… too…’
And yet, something about it left an unpleasant taste in his mouth.
“There’s no concrete evidence yet. That’s why I’m reserving judgment.”
She was clearly saying she didn’t trust him. But her actions told a different story—like she did.
Otherwise, there’d be no reason to hold off on judgment.
“What if I suddenly turn and attack you?”
Sionne tested her, curious just how much she was letting him in.
“What are you trying to hear?”
“I’m asking why you’d keep someone like me close, despite all this suspicion.”
“A reason, huh…”
Rosalyn echoed his words, falling into thought.
“If tomorrow’s plans get delayed, it’ll be a problem. It’s not easy to find an assistant as competent as you.”
She spoke honestly.
They were scheduled to formally establish the Anata Knight Order, and every day counted. With all that Sionne had been handling recently, losing him—even briefly—would disrupt everything.
“Are you serious?”
Sionne asked, a bit incredulous.
“Do I need another reason?”
Her eyes unconsciously drifted to his slumped shoulders.
“It’s just… I knew someone once who stayed by my side when I was upset.”
She thought of Gilbert.
“I didn’t realize it then, but now I think… that helped more than I thought.”
Rosalyn glanced at the darkened window, trying to gauge the time. It bothered her that her carefully scheduled sleep was being pushed back, but she didn’t let it show.
It was her own quiet form of consideration.
“I don’t know how to give comfort with words. And if words were enough, the grief probably wasn’t that deep to begin with.”
She sat on the other side of the bed, leaning against the headboard.
“So don’t overthink it, Prince. I’ve tried that—it’s not a great strategy.”
“……”
Sionne turned his head to look at her.
‘I should say something pitiful here…’
But after seeing this unexpected side of her, he couldn’t come up with a proper response.
Instead, something unplanned slipped out.
“To be honest… it was always overwhelming.”
Sionne Feitan knew this was dangerous territory. But his stirred-up heart and reckless tongue didn’t care.
“What was?”
“My country. Feitan.”
Rosalyn waited quietly for him to continue.
“I was suddenly made a prince, with no education and no clue what I was doing. At first, I dreamed big.”
“A dream?”
“Yes. Since I’d known hunger, I wanted to be a king who’d make sure no one else in my country went hungry.”
Rosalyn listened as he spoke of his past.
The path of rulership she had learned wasn’t built on altruism. It demanded coldness, discipline, and selfish clarity.
“A noble dream.”
Even so, his goal wasn’t a bad one. A well-fed people were the foundation of any strong nation.
If…
Rosalyn imagined Sionne as the king of Feitan.
He said he was uneducated, but he was naturally intelligent. She believed he would’ve done well.
“You’d have been a king loved by the people. Unlike me.”
Her thoughts kept stretching.
As she imagined Sionne as the king of Feitan, she began to imagine herself as the emperor of Hernia.
If they had met that way…
What if she, as the Emperor of Hernia, had met Sionne, the King of Feitan?
They probably wouldn’t be having this conversation now.
It was strange and almost laughable, really. How did she become the Grand Duke of the North, and how did Sionne become her consort from an enemy nation?
Pfft.
The soft sound of air escaping her lips snapped her out of her thoughts.
“No.”
“?”
“I could never have become king. The former king never intended to pass the throne to me in the first place.”
Sionne rubbed his face as he thought of Feitan’s last king. He couldn’t recall the faces of his fellow soldiers, but somehow, that greedy face was etched in his memory.
“I was nothing more than a puppet—just a means to buy time.”
The last king of Feitan had a dysfunction that made it impossible for him to father children, but he clung to the belief that he would eventually produce an heir.
Around the start of the war, one of his many courtesans bore a child, and so the delusion wasn’t entirely baseless.
Though hardly anyone actually believed the child was his.
Even so, the king publicly claimed the child as his own. Whether he truly believed it, or just desperately wanted to, no one could say.
From that point on, I was just a chess piece—someone to be thrown into the war.
“I only realized it after being pushed onto the battlefield. That there was nothing I could actually do.”
Sionne sighed deeply at the bitter memories.
“Honestly, from the very moment I became a prince, I wanted to run away every day.”
At some point, he found himself speaking more and more honestly. What started as impulsive confessions kept flowing without filter.
“Each time, I had to keep telling myself I had something I needed to do here.”
Maybe the dream had been another form of escape. A kind of self-inflicted delusion that everything would be okay, even with no real future.
But soon, the dream became a suffocating burden—one too large for him to carry.
“Feitan was…”
The countless responsibilities he was forced to carry without understanding why.
The gazes of admiration and resentment that followed his every step.
A kingdom so rotten that even cutting away at it did nothing—the decay had reached the roots.
“…always overwhelming.”
He loved his country, but not fully. Could there be a more painful contradiction than that?
“Maybe… it was me who abandoned Feitan first.”
Sionne clenched his teeth and closed his eyes.
If I had saved Merilyn and Anna… would I have gone back to Feitan?
No. The answer was clear.
Feitan had never truly been part of his plan. That’s probably why, instead of feeling relieved when someone came from Feitan, he had felt suffocated.
“Feitan abandoning me… maybe that’s only fair.”
That was when Rosalyn said something he never expected.
“It was overwhelming because you loved it that deeply.”
“!”
“Loyalty to one’s country is often praised as a universal virtue. People start believing it’s natural—but it’s not.”
Rosalyn reached out and gently tapped her hand over his.
“Willingly risking your life for something isn’t something anyone can do.”
“……”
“Carrying that kind of feeling for seven years? Of course it’s going to feel overwhelming.”
Sionne stared, almost entranced, at her hand resting atop his left one.
A woman who had never fought in war was far kinder than he expected.
She, who hadn’t been broken, was far more human than he’d imagined.
Maybe now I understand why people follow her.
Sionne had never understood why her knights were so loyal to her. But now… it started to make sense.
At the same time, he furrowed his brow, feeling a faint sting of guilt still lingering in his chest.
-
🌸 Hello, lovely! If you’d like to support me, feel free to check out my Ko-fi and donation link🌷💕 https://ko-fi.com/breeree https://bree-zxt-shop.fourthwall.com/
View all posts