“Where did you say Carina went?”

The emperor, who was gazing out the window with his chin propped up, turned his head abruptly.

“I heard that the Grand Duke and Duchess went on their honeymoon to Colina Rosa.”

Empress Dowager Sophia replied casually as she arranged colorful flowers in a vase on the emperor’s desk.

“The Duchess said she wanted to meet the kind of person she is and hurriedly packed her bags. You know Carina can’t contain her curiosity when she’s interested in something.”

A deep line furrowed between the handsome emperor’s brows.

“Why would she go there of all places…!”

“Where else? It’s a pitiful and wretched land in need of the care of a noble saint candidate. As much as the lord and lady of that land.”

Justin stood up abruptly and strode towards the door.

“You’re calling a meeting of the high nobles. To officially summon the Duchess, not the Duke?”

Justin’s hand paused as he was about to open the door at the Empress Dowager’s definitive question.

He turned around slowly, wearing his usual painted-on smile.

“Me? You know that Solas is the only one I can’t forget.”

“That’s why I can’t help but wonder. You, who never spared a glance for anyone but Solas, stayed in the North for so long to see Duchess Yuriella wake up.”

Her red lips were smiling, but her cold, shimmering purple eyes were sharp, as if piercing through her son’s innermost thoughts.

“Don’t pique my curiosity too. I’m not like Lady Carina who’s satisfied just seeing someone’s face when she’s curious, Your Majesty.”

“Leave the Duchess alone, Mother.”

The emperor no longer tried to hide his thoughts.

“This is not a request, but a warning.”

Tsk tsk. The Empress Dowager shook her golden updo slightly and approached the emperor. She raised her snow-white hand and gently caressed her son’s cheek.

“Does the Duchess resemble Commander Solas? Do her beautiful red eyes, like the finest rubies, remind you of Solas’s fiery red hair?”

It seems the spies planted in the Duke’s estate had reported quite thoroughly to the Empress Dowager before being eliminated by the Duke’s men.

Justin Della Ponti lowered his dazzling golden eyelashes, revealing his discomfort.

“I heard there was an assassination attempt on the Duchess?”

The emperor’s spies in the Duke’s estate had also made their final report before losing their lives.

“Unfortunately, it failed. It seems there are quite a few capable individuals in Angelus that we don’t know about. We’ll have to send more skilled assassins next time.”

Her glass-like purple eyes held a cold smile.

“No. Should I tell Carina to bring Your Majesty the Duchess’s pretty neck as a gift?”

“Mother.”

“Yes, I am your mother. The son cuts off his right arm, and the mother kills the woman her son’s gaze lingers on longingly. Could there be a more fitting mother and son?”

The Empress Dowager gave the emperor a cold glance before turning around and heading for the door.

“I know who’s behind the coma disease rampant in the capital.”

Sophia stopped in her tracks.

“When I cross-referenced the dates of the disease outbreak and the patients’ backgrounds, I could guess the cause. Are you afraid that Solas might have reincarnated?”

Sophia turned around brightly and pulled up the corners of her mouth.

“Our son is truly brilliant. You’ve already figured it out?”

“Not just figured it out. I’ve gathered evidence too. I’m prepared to the point where I could immediately arrest all those involved, torture them, and execute them. You won’t be able to escape.”

Cracks appeared in the Empress Dowager’s mask-like beautiful face.

“Will you cut off your mother’s head and display it on the walls where Solas was hanged?”

“It’s not impossible.”

The beautiful emperor closed his blue eyes charmingly and smiled an enchanting smile.

“This foolish son of yours didn’t realize that what I cut off wasn’t just my right arm, but my life, my soul. Would such a stupid fellow hesitate to touch his mother? So do things in moderation. Even I get tired of playing the good son sometimes.”

Looking at her fragile, precarious son, Sophia Della Ponti inwardly sighed and thought she should order the assassins sent to Colina Rosa to retreat.

It wasn’t because she was afraid of her son.

It was because she felt she needed to see the Duchess for herself before killing her.

The emotion she read in her son’s eyes wasn’t the simple desire of a man coveting his enemy’s woman. There was something more. Something deep and agonizing that even her son didn’t understand the reason for. What could it be?

Sophia’s heart pounded loudly with a heat it hadn’t felt in a long time. Her blood instinctively boiled, pulsing as if she had met a worthy opponent.

Perhaps Yuriella Ielheim was an even more dangerous woman than she had imagined.

*

“Your Grace, you’re truly amazing!”

The saint candidate in white priestly robes clapped enthusiastically while cheering for me.

Then she personally removed the silver needles I had inserted around the patients’ wounds, burst forth with pure white holy power to sterilize the needles, and put them back in the case.

The doctors and patients in the makeshift treatment tent also applauded me until their palms were on fire, joining in Carina’s cheers.

If anyone deserved applause, it was her. Nine out of ten patients were treated with the saint candidate’s overflowing holy power.

Worried that Carina might notice if I used Aerie’s power, I only gave minor acupuncture treatments to patients with mild symptoms, but Carina exclaimed in admiration every time I inserted a needle.

“You learned this treatment method from a wandering doctor from the Eastern Continent? It’s truly marvelous and mysterious, Your Grace.”

Carina approached me, familiarly linking her arm with mine and gently resting her head on my shoulder. A fragrant lavender scent wafted from her long, flowing black hair.

“I find your holy power even more amazing and marvelous.”

I successfully pushed Carina’s head away with my index finger, but the leech-like girl spun her head around and attached herself to my shoulder again.

“You flatter me, Your Grace.”

The small, slender fingers gripping my arm kneaded my flesh insistently.

What’s with her?

‘Look at this! A saint candidate tainted by black magic! It’s creepy, so get away from me!’

I kept my mouth shut for the sake of the Duchess’s dignity and only shouted fiercely in my mind.

Unfortunately, Yuriella’s large, round, cute eyes didn’t seem to effectively convey my fierce internal shouts.

“I’ve been wanting to meet you for so long, Your Grace. There were so many rumors about how you melted the heart of the icy Grand Duke, and I was so curious about what kind of person you might be. Now that I’ve met you in person, I’ve fallen for you too!”

Her clear green eyes, which looked not just harmless but even sacred, curved charmingly towards me. Perhaps it was because she was tainted by black magic, but the ends of her eye-smile seemed terribly bewitching.

“You shouldn’t go around falling for just anyone.”

The Grand Duke strode over and peeled off Carina’s fingers one by one from where they were clinging to me.

Then he spun me around by the shoulders and held me tightly against his broad chest, my back pressed to him.

“We’re newlyweds, you know, Saint.”

“Saint candidate, Your Grace. I haven’t been officially appointed by the Grand Temple yet.”

Carina lowered her eyelashes gracefully and clasped her hands politely.

Despite possessing unprecedented holy power and having the strong support of the Empress Dowager, Carina has not yet been officially appointed as a saint.

I heard it was because the faction waiting for the return of the Pope, who has been missing for several years, has a stronger voice.

The Empress Dowager has tried to push it through a few times, but she seems to be postponing it repeatedly, unable to ignore the influence of the priests spread throughout the empire.

“So you’re performing illegal treatments without being officially appointed as a saint. On ‘my land’. To ‘my people’.”

Carina flinched as the Grand Duke’s blue eyes gazed at her coldly.

I turned in surprise to look up at the Grand Duke. Are you picking a fight with the saint candidate right now?

In front of your people who are being treated for wounds inflicted by the subjugation army with her tremendous holy power?

Carina’s delicate eyebrows, which had been wearing an angelic expression as if she might ascend to heaven on a fluffy cloud at any moment, tilted crookedly.

“I apologize for visiting without prior notice. The groans of the people of the North seemed to reach all the way to the Grand Temple in the capital, and I couldn’t bear it.”

“Hmph. It took quite a long time for those groans to reach the Grand Temple, didn’t it? Isn’t that right, Grand Priest Comboni?”

The orange eyes of the Grand Priest, who had been watching the saint candidate’s treatment with a proud expression all along, shaking his shoulders and puffing out his chest, trembled like an earthquake.

“Well… you know… administration involves many people and takes time for approvals…”

“I don’t know. What I do know is that after the subjugation army withdrew, official letters requesting help were sent to the Grand Temple multiple times. And you never once replied.”

“Then shall we take our leave, Your Grace?”

Carina interjected.

“It seems our help isn’t needed, so I don’t see any reason for us to stay.”

“Then go.”

This time, an earthquake occurred in the saint candidate’s green eyes.

Carina bit her lip hard, then quickly backed down.

“I apologize, Your Grace. I spoke rashly out of narrow-mindedness because you didn’t welcome us. Please allow us to treat the patients here.”

The saint candidate gracefully knelt on one knee, holding the hem of her pure white priestly robes.

‘Tell her to leave. She’s tainted by black magic! We don’t know what orders she’s received from the emperor to harm you again!’

I blinked my eyes hard, signaling for him to send the saint candidate away immediately.

I regretted not having reported that it was this evil saint candidate who turned Flamma into a demon sword, due to various incidents that had occurred in the meantime.

“Do as you wish.”

My eye signals didn’t work. The Grand Duke gave permission indifferently.

“Then may I request a bit more demonstration of Your Grace’s marvelous acupuncture? It’s truly an amazing treatment method.”

Carina pulled me close with a smile all over her face, linking arms and leaning her body against mine.

Goosebumps rose all over my body again.

This woman Carina, the more I look at her, the more she resembles the carnivorous plant Nepenthes.

The long pouch’s opening emits a sweet scent to lure insects. Once an insect enters the pouch, it’s paralyzed by the anesthetic liquid pooled inside, then slowly dissolved and thoroughly consumed by that creepy plant.

If the Imperial Knights under me hadn’t been thoroughly beaten by me, they would have almost become a tasty morsel for Carina Pioni.

It wasn’t that I had recognized Carina Pioni’s harmfulness and tried to stop it. In fact, I was fooled too.

Wanting to protect the pretty and innocent saint candidate from the clutches of dark wolves, I had issued an order prohibiting approach, telling them not to go anywhere near Lady Carina. I dared them to try if they wanted to die by my hand.

Fortunately, none of my subordinates wanted to die.

So no one was tainted, and no one betrayed me.

Except for that traitor Aaron Pioni, the current captain of the Imperial Knights and Carina’s elder brother.

Tsk. If there weren’t so many eyes watching, I’d cut down that bewitching saint candidate in one stroke right now.

I wanted to bury with death the crimes of turning Flamma into a demon sword and making the Grand Duke terminally ill, but I gritted my teeth and endured.

That pretty head of hers must contain the method to free Flamma from the curse of black magic. Until I extract that, I regrettably have to keep her alive.

‘But don’t I just need to keep her neck and limbs attached? Ah, and her tongue too.’

Various torture devices from the underground dungeon of the Duke’s estate, which Commander Leo had boasted about to threaten me, flashed through my mind.

As I was deeply considering dozens of ways to torture Carina,

The Grand Duke’s large hand once again peeled off the saint candidate’s slender fingers from me one by one.

Then he wrapped his thick arm around my waist, pulling me close, and whispered softly while pretending to kiss my ear.

“Be careful. Carina Pioni is probably the one who turned Flamma into a demon sword.”

Huh? How did you know that when I hadn’t even reported it?

“Grand Priest Grato is just greedy, his holy power is only average. Most of those currently occupying the temple are like that. The saint candidate must have been the one who cooperated with the emperor and empress dowager from the Grand Temple.”

The Grand Duke is truly amazing. He is amazing, but…

Ugh. What am I going to do about this ticklishness…

The longer the information delivery time, the longer the Grand Duke’s lips naturally lingered on my ear and cheek. I had to clench my fists so tightly my nails dug into my palms to suppress my body’s involuntary twitching.

“My goodness! I thought it was just a baseless rumor. You two are truly smitten with each other!”

Carina, who had been staring at us intently, clasped her hands to her chest and exclaimed with twinkling eyes.

“I sincerely congratulate you both on your marriage! May you love each other beautifully for a long, long time!”

The saint candidate burst into laughter and even bounced up and down.

Oh dear. It seems the child has been damaged from dabbling in black magic. Very much so.

“Your Grace, I really like you. I keep falling for you!”

Carina firmly gripped the hem of my apron and rubbed her round head against it.

What is this? Why?

I thought she came all this way targeting the Grand Duke.

‘Hey, saint candidate! Why are you so fixated on me?’