The Contract Marriage for Attilenta's Revenge - Chapter 6

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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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Atilenta’s Contract Marriage for Revenge · Episode 6
Henrik settled back into the sofa with deliberate ease, his expression turning languid. The taut, frigid atmosphere that had filled the room dissolved in an instant.
“You labor under a misunderstanding. I cannot make such arrangements with a woman who hasn’t come of age.”
“Your Highness……”
A sigh rose in my throat before I could stop it—not that I’d intended to be disrespectful, but it was beyond my control.
“I am twenty-two this year.”
In that moment, I saw it: the knights standing behind Henrik widened their eyes.
“I’ve heard rumors of three princesses in this realm, but I confess I’ve heard little of the youngest.”
I wanted to clear up this serious misunderstanding first.
“Your Majesty will know the truth. I beseech you to deliver my word to him.”
I rose from the sofa and bowed my body as a servant might.
It would have been difficult to claim that Bwendofska in the north held military or any other superiority over this kingdom of Francia. Given my station, there was no reason to grovel as I was doing.
But such an attitude easily stirred compassion and complacency in others.
“Engage me, Your Highness. You will find no woman more suitable than I. I carry the name of the Cal Gauli Royal House of Francia, and I shall never betray you.”
“I won’t deny your usefulness. There’s a reason the southern general has enjoyed such success.”
“Yes, he made full use of my abilities.”
There was no need to maintain such deference for long. I straightened immediately and met Henrik’s gaze with composed dignity. His violet eyes gleamed as he posed his question.
“Yet you’ve been treated so poorly. Could your abilities not discern the reason?”
It was a sharp jab, and it struck home. My regret and resentment did indeed stem from that very foolishness. Henrik had every right to doubt the usefulness of my abilities.
I chose to glide smoothly past the admission of my stupidity with other words instead.
“It was my loyalty, Your Highness.”
I offered him the composed bearing of a knight.
Henrik had seen battlefields and now commanded the trust of his knights. Before them, he could not easily accuse me of disloyalty or hollow devotion.
“So you carry the blood of this royal house, and have served so faithfully beneath a duke, and now offer loyalty to me instead. By what oath do you swear?”
There was, perhaps unsurprisingly, not a trace of pity or carelessness in Henrik’s voice.
This very coldness had surely contributed to his reputation as the Black Dragon of the battlefield.
To this rational question from a man of power, I spoke the words I had prepared—without hesitation.
“Should I betray you, sever my limbs at once and leave only my tongue and my face. For under torture, I would spill everything.”
I spoke with sincerity, and felt Henrik’s gaze move slowly across me once more.
“You’re thin enough to appear younger still.”
I knew well enough how I appeared to him. Henrik was likely thinking that I was so fragile, the merest application of pressure would snap me like a twig.
“Your Highness, use me as a tool for your purposes. I ask only one thing: take me with you to Bwendofska.”
It was easy for me to seem like someone unafraid of death. In truth, I harbored little fear of it.
My life was already ruined, my heart already broken—what difference would one more death make?
I would do my utmost to achieve a single goal, even if this end came in death.
……
Henrik’s silence stretched on.
It felt like a positive sign to me. Since meeting me, he had never hesitated so, weighing his thoughts.
“I shall give this matter some consideration. I will convey my decision tomorrow.”
Excellent.
I did not conceal my smile. He would observe my clenched fists and draw his own conclusions, but it hardly mattered.
A woman of use—I needed only to appear as such, even in the smallest measure.
I had achieved something of my purpose at our first meeting, and I was satisfied. I took my leave with proper courtesy.
“Thank you, Your Highness.”

* * *
Atilenta, who had entered the Annex Pavilion in supplication, withdrew afterward with perfect silence.
“Your Highness. You granted her quite a lengthy audience.”
Krakup’s expression was impassive.
“An assassin would be far less entertaining, wouldn’t you say?”
Henrik leaned back into the sofa, his expression remarkably unburdened—a stark contrast to the deliberation he’d seemed to undergo regarding the foreign princess. He even appeared at leisure.
“You discerned her nature from the beginning, sir.”
“Which is precisely why it was so entertaining.”
Henrik accepted the cigar Krakup offered and brought it naturally to his lips. The cigar rested precariously on his lower lip, at odds with the ease and languor of its owner.
“I allow that it may be coincidence. Yet I cannot dismiss it entirely as falsehood either.”
Henrik regarded Krakup, his capable subordinate who carried private burdens unknown to others, with steady attention.
‘That knight harbors feelings for Your Highness’s sister.’
Henrik knew it as well: the longing his adjutant bore for his betrothed sister.
That a woman—who had never known his sister and had not set foot in the northern kingdom—had pierced this secret at their first meeting was enough to pique Henrik’s curiosity.
Beyond that, it was extraordinary that a princess who had declined to attend the banquet hosted by this realm’s king would knock upon the Annex Pavilion late at night, where a foreign prince was lodged.
A woman unwelcome to anyone in this place was finally reaching out to take the hand of a foreign prince. That too was an interesting turn of events.
“A wise decision, sir. If her words prove true, let her go and prove it. If she proves unnecessary, you can simply send her away.”
Krakup had always known his master to be that way. Even on that brutal battlefield, Henrik had never failed to offer prisoners a chance at defection.
“If someone is useful, you use them. There’s no question that Antonio became famous—”
“Assuming the credit belongs to her.”
Krakup possessed an unshakeable conviction. The woman’s deductions and explanations were certainly remarkable, but Henrik would certainly not have abandoned his suspicions entirely.
Though the woman appeared so frail she could barely grip a sword properly, it was entirely possible that such a trained spy existed.
“We haven’t fully grasped the situation in the south yet.”
This visit had been undertaken precisely to eliminate such unknown variables.
“You’re right. But she’s rather bold, I’d say. Who simply walks into my chambers like that? Hmm?”
Henrik smiled faintly. That she would stride into his private chamber with such a gaunt and skeletal frame.
She was far bolder—incomparably so—than the women back home at court functions who sent forward seductive glances and touches, declaring their intention to seduce the prince.
And yet what she had said.
‘If I betray you, cut off my limbs at once, and leave only my tongue and a mirror.’
In Henrik’s homeland, no woman had ever spoken such words. Neither had the men he’d met at political and social gatherings.
It had been a very long time since Henrik had faced such unyielding, cold resolve.
On the battlefield, rarely, only those prisoners who would never surrender had uttered such things. Kill me instead.
‘That prisoner’s words weren’t a request for torture either. Usually they just want a clean end.’
A light snort escaped him at first.
But eventually a deep laugh spilled from Henrik.
“She moves quickly, it seems.”
Krakup added his own remark. He understood well that what the prince needed was capable talent.
The prince would do anything and use anyone to achieve his aims. Whether that woman was truly worth employing—that could be determined by watching and judging.
Krakup glanced at the local newspaper on the table. Word had spread that this visit was meant to secure a peace accord between the northern Kingdom of Bwendofska and this southern nation. But the truth was the opposite.
Yet one cannot show all one’s cards from the start. The small intelligence gathered from tonight’s gathering and this strange woman’s request—this should be satisfactory progress for his master.
Suddenly Krakup wondered whether that woman would survive in Bwendofska’s social circles.
In a place where succession disputes raged between two princes, those who could not survive had no use.
“She won’t make a bad employee.”
Despite the grueling day, Henrik’s face bore not a trace of disorder. He appraised her in that peculiar tone of his.
Krakup recognized that his master had made a final decision regarding that woman’s future.

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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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