The Contract Marriage for Attilenta's Revenge - Chapter 74

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

Atilenta’s Revenge: A Contract Marriage 074
I stepped closer to Henrik, whose raised eyebrow posed a question about what I meant.
“There’s something I’d like to tell you. Your Highness.”
I knew it might sound strange, but I needed to speak now.
“I’m listening.”
“I’ve been curious about my mother, and yet I never wanted to leave Francia, never wanted to escape that place even after meeting you, never wanted to come here…… until now.”
Before this embarrassing confession, I drew a long breath. Henrik waited for me in silence.
“……I suppose I was very afraid. It shames me to admit it, but I resented her too—for leaving me alone.”
“That’s understandable.”
Henrik extended a large, warm hand toward me, and I took it without hesitation.
“It’s all because of you. That I came here, that I learned things to help with my Magic, everything…….”
Henrik smiled faintly and drew an Enchanted Leaf from his breast, showing it to me.
“This arrived some time ago.”
I narrowed my brow and gazed down at the leaf. Unlike the ones the nameless Demi-humans I’d met here had given me, this one seemed to bear something written upon it.
“Is it perhaps a letter……?”
“Yes. It carried a peculiar Magic. When I examined it, I found it had been sent from this place. I thought that while you hadn’t said much, you might secretly wish to come here.”
So Andy had invited us? Had Henrik already known most of this? I had no chance to voice my surprise and curiosity.
“Now that I’ve come in person, I see there’s no hostility whatsoever.”
Henrik shrugged and glanced around. Following his gaze, I saw nothing in particular that caught the eye. It was as if my conversation with Andy and her sisters had been a dream.
“The place is as quiet as if no living soul dwelt here. And yet they do exist—the Demi-humans. The Spirits too, which lie at the very root of your Magic.”
The Enchanted Leaf resting in Henrik’s hand still exhaled a fresh, green scent.
“So this is for your sake as much as for mine.”
He truly was……. I swallowed an involuntary exclamation. He was yearning even for the world beyond his homeland’s continent.
How far did his dreams extend? Consumed as I was by revenge alone, I could scarcely guess.
“For now, we are simply resting at a villa near the harbor. No investigation could uncover anything more.”
He was not merely ambitious. He was a man of remarkable foresight.
Whether from the swelling of my heart or from what Andy had told me……
“Your Highness, I—there’s something more I wish to tell you.”
It felt right, somehow, to address him this way.
“Then speak. There’s no one here to be wary of.”
Henrik answered with a faint, gentle smile, as if he’d been waiting for me to use that warmer tone.
“……I lied to you. I don’t foresee the future. I see guidance for the future I dream of.”
Like one making confession, I hardened my expression and withdrew the weapon I had always treasured and kept close.
Henrik caught sight of the Mirror and fixed his gaze on me once more.
“It’s merely a map of my own. One that others don’t possess…….”
Though my ability was still limited and there were things I could not yet read, if Andy spoke truly, greater Magic was possible. I swallowed only that weakness.
My hand trembled slightly. It seemed I still didn’t truly know Henrik. I couldn’t tell if he would be angry, or if he’d think me a liar.
“I failed to give you enough trust.”
He eased my doubt and fear at once. He always did.
“Though in fairness, you couldn’t have spoken of it on first meeting.”
“……I couldn’t say anything.”
Because everyone had tried to use me.
Henrik, reading the words I had swallowed, drew me gently into his arms.
“I benefited from your ability too. And I know the price of it.”
I still didn’t believe him. Even now, held in his embrace, my eyes must have held disbelief.
“As I told you before. It will be the same going forward. Even now, I can only say the same thing.”
Henrik lifted my hand and brushed his lips briefly against the Ring. Then he whispered, barely audible.
“I will always give the same answer.”
His voice was scarcely louder than silence, though no one was near.
“Bwendia’s guarantee wasn’t enough to reassure you.”
“……I couldn’t help it. It’s an excuse, but…… I found it difficult to say anything else.”
“I understand. I’m not reproaching you. I’m simply saying again that I’ve already taken you within my circle.”
The forest had felt so peaceful until now, but standing this close to him, a sudden tension rose in me. My fluttering heart would not settle.
“I have no intention of letting you go. ……If you were to wish it, then perhaps.”
His expression sank at once into something dark and cold as a bitter sea, and I shook my head firmly in strong denial.
“That’s not what I meant to say. You’ve shown me such consideration. You’ve given me reward each time I use my ability.”
I deliberately closed my eyes and fully felt his warm breath. Even as darkness closed in, it was the way to truly sense his gentle voice and warmth.
“I’m glad you feel that way. ……To be honest, I didn’t fully understand your worth from the beginning.”
He seemed to recall something from the battlefield. Had he then failed to give people proper compensation?
But I could never know his ‘beginning’.
None of that mattered now.
“I know well enough that you mean it.”
With a heart reduced to nothing but ash, unable even to lay a single foundation stone, I couldn’t dare use the word “trust”—and yet, surely I could speak of hope, couldn’t I?
I slowly reached out and caught hold of his collar.
Then I looked directly into his luminous eyes, close enough that I could see every strand of his neat dark hair and each individual eyelash with perfect clarity.
So close that if I tilted my head just slightly, our lips would touch.
“What do you mean?”
When his voice came low and deep, tickling my ear, I found myself squeezing my eyes shut without meaning to.
“…To be honest, a kiss is just something people do like anyone else, but I…”
I didn’t even want to imagine how twisted my expression must look.
“Are you afraid I might change?”
I felt heat rising to my face at once. I could neither confirm nor deny it.
“If you wanted to, you would say so.”
“But that day, you said you wanted to…”
“And I told you not to force yourself. Yet that was…”
Henrik exhaled softly. Perhaps he was blaming himself, thinking he had broken his own word.
…I didn’t think such regret was necessary, but it wasn’t my place to say so.
“…I’ve said it many times now, but we made a promise. It’s all right if it takes time.”
“No, my expression wasn’t good back then. At that time…”
I was about to say that things were different now—though even I wasn’t certain of those words—when—
“I remember.”
Henrik spoke with quiet certainty.
“You were trembling. Your brow was knitted tight. As for holding you close or taking your hand the way I do now…you’ve done that in front of others before, so though you found it strange, you didn’t seem to dislike it.”
There was no reason his touch should have left any mark, yet I found my hand drifting to my neck anyway. I pressed weakly at the skin, feeling the warmth there.
“That night when you first asked for the wedding night…but kissing…”
Only now did I become aware of something I hadn’t understood before.
“…You were clearly reluctant. And it doesn’t seem much different now.”
My face flushed so intensely it felt like it might burn.
I wondered just how much meaning Henrik attached to a kiss with me, to endure this way for so long.
But it wasn’t only that.
I too had come to attach great meaning to such intimacy with him.

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