Aya Ran Away - Chapter 34

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 34
Nahal shook his head.
He recalled Aya’s face, weary from the brief visit he’d just paid her.
She was already unwell, and dragging her about like this made him uneasy.
“That’s not what I meant…….”
Knock, knock.
He had no chance to say more.
The attendants arrived to escort him away.
“Look after the princess in my stead.”
With that, Nahal vanished in a blur.
Bardal raised one eyebrow.
There was only one person Nahal called “the princess.”
That mute princess from the Separate Palace.
The ill-fated woman about whom rumors of lameness and clumsiness had spread.
At Nahal’s request, Bardal had visited her several times of late.
He’d never worried over a treasure the way Nahal worried over her.
The princess had round, bright eyes that belied the ugly rumors, though she kept her lower face veiled.
Not that he particularly yearned to see beneath it, yet he suspected Nahal’s obsession had something to do with what lay hidden there.
Beyond her almost endearing appearance, there was something in her faltering, fragile gait and slender frame that captured the eye.
Pity.
Bardal suspected that was the feeling Nahal harbored toward the princess.
* * *
That Bardal was assigned a seat behind the other princesses at the Coronation Ceremony was likely Nahal’s intention.
‘Playing nursemaid, then.’
Even as he grumbled, watching Aya tremble before things even began tugged at his heart.
He’d considered offering her some reassurance, but her half-sister sitting beside her seemed to be looking after her instead.
Yet rumor had it they despised each other.
Word in the marketplace spoke of two princesses in the Royal Palace—one unfortunate, one of exceptional virtue.
‘Rumors are worthless.’
Muffled beneath her veil, their hushed conversation was difficult to make out entirely, though she was clearly explaining something with earnest attention.
She handled her younger sister clumsily, yet the effort was plain.
“……The men seated behind us belong to the Twelve Houses and serve as Nahal’s instruments. You remember that, don’t you—Bardal?”
At the sound of his own name in that conversation, Bardal felt oddly self-conscious and rolled his eyes without purpose.
‘Sharp tongue.’
Chipor continued her explanation, indifferent to the gaze upon her back.
She recited the names and basic details of the visible nobles to Aya, who had no connection to aristocratic society.
She spoke like someone who’d endured scolding from the budget administrator after hosting dozens of tea gatherings with court noblewomen.
Aya listened intently, nodding along to Chipor’s account.
Nahal’s instruments proved to be quite considerable personages, many of them from distinguished families.
Though the precise reasons for their ties to him remained unclear, seeing him command such people anew impressed Bardal with Nahal’s stature.
“It begins.”
Someone whispered as the priests filed in.
Chipor straightened her posture.
The High Priest’s Blessing Prayer was tedious beyond measure, though Aya was pleased to have a clear view of Nahal.
Temple-led ceremonies were invariably complex and elaborate, whatever their nature.
Originally, the Coronation Ceremony was said to have lasted ten days.
With no surviving records, none could verify the truth of it.
When that span was mentioned, Nahal and his subordinates blanched.
They eventually agreed on three days, citing costs and time.
The curtains on the dais parted, revealing two Crowns borne upon deep crimson cloth as they were brought forward.
The High Priest stepped forward.
“I address Your Highness Nahal of House Poros!”
The wrinkled old man appeared so frail he might collapse at any moment, yet his voice rang out with unexpected clarity.
“The King chosen by the Divine—the King who shall receive the eternal loyalty of all Levar—come forward and stand before the Crown.”
Nahal, standing before the dais, lifted the Crown from the crimson cloth.
The High Priest spoke in a low voice.
“From the moment the Crown rests upon Your Highness’s head, so too shall the eye of the Divine remain ever upon it.”
Was this a Blessing or a curse?
Nahal gazed quietly into the High Priest’s eyes at words whose meaning eluded him.
Between those wrinkled lids lay eyes deep and inscrutable.
‘A command to walk the straight path from here on.’
Or was it a warning not to suppress the Temple, as Agan’s royal house had done before?
Turning such thoughts over in his mind, Nahal faced the crowd once more.
All of it was hollow.
For Nahal, the divine was not the god of Levar.
It was the young priest he had met in childhood.
Without a word, Nahal lifted the Crown and placed it slowly upon his own head.
The circlet, wrought of gold and jewels, proved heavier than he had anticipated.
That weight traveled gradually from his head and neck down through his shoulders and spine.
The uncomfortable pressure felt like a rehearsal of all that he would come to bear.
Standing with his jaw set firm, Nahal received the thunder of applause.
Had sound been visible to the eye, the wave crashing before him would have seemed vast enough to turn the world black.
‘Ah…….’
Aya drew in a soft breath of wonder.
As Nahal rose to his feet with the Crown upon his head, light streaming through the window washed over him, and his entire form seemed to shimmer with an ethereal glow.
A radiance as bright as his own hair poured down upon him.
It was as though the divine itself was pointing directly to Nahal, announcing: here is the one I have blessed.
The sunlight embraced him from crown to sole.
Aya was not alone in feeling overwhelmed.
Every person in that hall drew in a gasp of involuntary admiration.
Even Chipor, standing at her side, breathed in sharply with surprise.
Aya stood transfixed, drinking in every moment with her eyes and ears alike.
She thought she heard something like murmuring from behind her.
[……Blessed is he……Called forth for his sake.]
Aya turned her head.
Those seated in the rows behind her had their jaws slack, their flushed faces fixed on Nahal.
Yet the degree to which their mouths hung open suggested they could not have been the ones whispering.
‘Surely no malevolent spirit would dare breach the Temple……Is it only in my head?’
Aya returned her attention to the Coronation Ceremony.
The High Priest was intoning the Blessing Prayer over the king.
As the final words fell from his lips, the High Priest raised both arms high.
“……And thus do I joyfully proclaim that the promised King of Levar has come into his throne!”
At the High Priest’s proclamation, all present rose as one from their seats and bowed deeply before their new king.
Only when Nahal permitted it could they straighten again.
Priests waiting on the upper levels of the Coronation Hall released a cascade of Flower Petals.
Blue and gold and crimson petals tumbled through the air, falling upon his head.
A dizzying sweetness rose like the perfume of sitting in a flower garden.
Cheers and applause tangled together in a cacophony.
Cries of “Long live” the “great” and “new” “king” pierced the ears.
All were seized with excitement.
Though not loud enough to be truly deafening, the fact that most of those seated in the Coronation Hall were nobility made such raised voices extraordinarily rare.
Aya turned her gaze toward Nahal.
Nahal was undoubtedly the centerpiece of this day, and for an ordinary person, this would surely be the most glorious moment of their entire life.
After all, one does not become king of a nation every day.
Yet in the moment Nahal drew in a deep breath and released it again, Aya felt his ennui with a clarity so sharp she could grasp it in her palm.
In a world so radiant, his expression alone seemed to her like something rendered in grayscale.
Perhaps this was only her delusion.
She was not close enough to him to distinguish such things.
‘And yet.’
And yet Aya felt certain that he had not wished to become king.
Irrational as it was, she felt as though she had glimpsed this same expression somewhere before.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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