The Contract Marriage for Attilenta's Revenge - Chapter 76

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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 76
I dreamed.
Alone in a forest so thick with trees that they seemed to stretch all the way to the edge of heaven.
Yet it was a familiar place.
To encounter the trees of Teresia Forest even in a dream — I felt an odd gladness at it.
Slender, elongated branches and vines held me close again, cradling me gently.
It’s all right now.
A tender whisper reached my ears.
As I stopped weeping and looked around, curiosity suddenly surged through me.
What lay beyond those trees?
What stood at the end of this forest?
The trees drew me softly toward them, but I shook myself free, unwilling to rest in their embrace, and broke away.
The moment I took my first deliberate step forward.
You may go.
That permission came through clearly.
Yes, I know this place. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid.
Let me see.
“……Gasp.”
I woke with a sharp exhalation.
Sweat clung to me so thoroughly it felt sticky—a discomfort I hadn’t known in a long time.
“What on earth…….”
An inexplicable premonition seized me, and I hurried straight to the bathroom.
“Has the time come already?”
I rushed to check, though there was no particular sign.
Suddenly, a green light flashed from the mirror I’d brought into this bathroom.
An indescribable sensation swept through me.
It felt as though something were confirming that my judgment was right.
Was it Andy, whom I’d met in Teresia Forest, speaking through the mirror? Or Tanya and her sister? Or perhaps that mystical elder, Lizena.
“This is something I never expected…….”
Could my health truly be recovering as much as the words I’d heard in that forest had promised?
I swallowed.
I’d taken the medicine Andy gave me for several days. Separate from my resignation about my body’s condition, I didn’t want to neglect a gift given so thoughtfully.
“I suppose it helps that I’ve been eating well and sleeping well lately……?”
Whatever the reason, it was a good thing. As I stepped out of the bathroom, Henrik was waiting, leaning against the wall.
“Atilenta, is something the matter?”
Morning sunlight streamed through the transparent window. Within that yellow glow, he asked without hesitation.
He was someone who always noticed at once when something was wrong with my complexion.
I shook my head and approached him.
“I’ve wanted to ask for a while—you have people at the Temple, don’t you?”
I posed a question I’d been carrying in my heart since returning from Teresia Forest, or rather something I half believed I already knew the answer to.
Henrik had said that no one would know we’d gone to Teresia Forest.
I wasn’t doubting him. Yet Lesha’s betrothed, Kirchya, even if not a priest, would surely be well-informed about that place.
Barsha had also said they were ones traditionally prepared for the Temple’s purposes.
There had to be a reason Henrik spoke with such conviction about the matter of requesting Protective Magic from the Temple.
“I offer prayers at every important moment.”
True to form, he didn’t deny it.
“Did you perhaps do the same regarding my health?”
“Is that what you were hoping for?”
I hesitated for a moment.
On that day when I finally accepted Henrik’s heart, which had knocked upon mine relentlessly.
Had I wished for the fatal flaw that had tormented me for so long to be miraculously, cleanly resolved?
……I’m not sure.
Even as I looked at him, unwilling to avoid his frank gaze, I let my words shift slightly.
“The medicine I brought back from the forest…… it just feels right, somehow. It’s hard to explain.”
“I’m glad it’s proving effective.”
He didn’t press further, yet I found myself elaborating unprompted.
“Yes, fortunately. I’d been deeply worried about it—I’d even thought of it as my disgrace.”
“You seem all the more satisfied with having gone to Teresia Forest with me. Whatever your worry was, I never once considered it a disgrace.”
I studied Henrik’s expression carefully.
As the pale yellow sunlight illuminated him, he seemed naturally to wear a glimmering crown.
As always, he wore an expression of untroubled ease, tender and composed without the slightest crack in his manner.
If I knew him at all, he would be genuinely relieved right now. Of nothing else.
……But I wasn’t.
For fear I might blurt something out, I swallowed the impulse rising in my throat.

* * *
A few days later.
“Your Highness. An invitation has arrived from House Bvaubia.”
Poznan, who had finished my morning preparations, extended an invitation card gilded in brilliant gold leaf—a fit ornament for this season of flamboyant autumn colors.
“A gathering hosted by someone else. It’s been a while.”
“Indeed, Your Highness. Should you attend not only royal functions but also the soirées of illustrious noble houses, it would redound greatly to your benefit.”
I scanned the invitation without expression. From the moment it arrived, I had anticipated the formal courtesies and stiff language that now filled it.
Recently, I had returned from an ostentatiously celebrated wedding anniversary journey. With the man this house’s daughter so desperately admired.
She wanted to see it for herself, through her own eyes.
Our bond, again, needlessly paraded?
My brow furrowed without my consent.
Why?
That night, in the bedchamber.
I watched Henrik, still occupied with the dispatch of documents, and spoke.
“About House Bvaubia—how did they petition you for this invitation?”
His voice was low and gentle as always.
“They simply asked me to come. The usual refrain.”
There was no need to hear more. That single sentence painted the picture complete.
Their daughter’s admiration for him hung in that utterance as well.
Before I knew it, one corner of my mouth had lifted. Twisted, slightly.
What he had been before marriage and what he was now were plainly different. He was my husband now.
How could she have thought such a thing?
Would that daughter—beautiful as the very emblem of high society—have even beseeched her own father?
That Prince Henrik, of all men, must be the one invited.
“I have a thought.”
He set down the documents and sat beside me. Drawing close at once, I looked directly at him and spoke.
“That house lord always tries to pair you with his daughter. Even while planning to make you a puppet.”
“It’s been that way for some time.”
“Were others…… the same? You said there was no scandal, but——”
“Each of them wanted something from me. Especially after I returned from the campaign.”
Yet even so, before his marriage to me, he would not have taken any particular measures at those gatherings here.
He had always offered similar answers. That he was waiting for the right moment and the right person.
“Would it be the same if that daughter married another man?”
I asked in a tone of deliberate gentleness.
Or would you ensure she never married at all?
Henrik’s lips parted at once. There was no trace of hesitation in him.
“If it is not her true desire.”
Without thinking, I clenched my fist.
“You said that both husband and wife must appear together here and everywhere else, didn’t you?”
“Yes. In public settings and private ones alike. It is a virtue, too.”
In essence, a man and woman alone together in society was understood in only one manner.
That time I had been alone with Antonio—fortunately, no scandal had spread. Henrik had handled it well.
Then what if Henrik himself were to create such a rumor?
I chose my words slowly, then put forth my proposal to him.
“I mean to use it to ruin the daughter of House Bvaubia.”
I knew it was immoral, and as a woman, I understood how fatal such a thing could be.
But I had no intention of letting this irritating thorn remain.
Henrik answered without the slightest hint of reproach.
“That is also a good idea.”
Also? I tilted my head.
Henrik, who had been watching my hair slip smoothly over my shoulders, spoke very softly.
“That servant of House Iasha you mentioned before—she’s been moving about suspicious places.”

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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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