The Maid With a Child - Chapter 73

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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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73. Are we really nothing to each other?
Adlen, accustomed to the familiar softness, rolled this way and that even in her half-sleep, drowsy and restless.
Had the blanket folded over itself, doubling in thickness?
In any case, the sensation against her skin felt pleasant.
Yet something seemed off. No matter how much she rolled, there was no edge to find.
The sofa was comfortable, but not broad enough for this kind of movement.
“……?”
Troubled by the strangeness, Adlen cracked her eyes open—only to blink at the peculiar sight before her.
It was still deep night.
In the chamber, curtains drawn tight against every wall to shut out even moonlight, a single lamp burned softly, its light serene and steady.
And in that gentle glow, she made out the profile of a figure beside her.
It was Racalte.
This was strange. Why could she see him?
More than that—he lay with his eyes open, looking down at her.
“Racalte……?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, the bed is quite comfortable, thank you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“?”
Still foggy with sleep, Adlen struggled to make sense of his words.
She stared blankly at Racalte’s face, blinked slowly, and only after a long moment did her eyes widen in realization.
She’d been rolling around in his bed. His actual bed.
“?! Did I—did I sleepwalk all the way here?”
Adlen’s voice rose with alarm.
“I carried you. You looked far too uncomfortable where you were sleeping.”
“I’m sorry? What? You—you carried me here? Sir?”
In sharp contrast to Adlen’s alarm, Racalte nodded calmly, as though he’d simply performed a routine task.
“Yesterday held more than its share of trials. When the mind is startled, the body follows suit. In times like this, you need rest more than anything.”
“…….”
Until a moment ago, she’d been comfortable.
But now that she knew this was his bed, how on earth was she supposed to relax?
Adlen went rigid as a wooden plank.
“Knights often find their sleep disturbed after attacks or serious wounds. Tension does that.”
Racalte spoke softly, as though recounting an old tale.
His voice already low, now hushed further, seemed to vibrate through her—a ticklish sensation that ran along her nerves.
Adlen wrinkled her nose once and wiggled her fingers, trying to focus on what he was saying.
“I’ve experienced it myself, more than once.”
“You have, sir?”
“When I was young.”
She’d have thought him the sort who’d face a sword to the throat and simply think, ‘Well, that’s a sword.’
It was surprising to learn he was so human after all. ……Though of course, he was always human.
“Sleep wouldn’t come at all, and if it did, I’d wake again within moments.”
“That must have been dreadful…….”
“And even when I finally slipped into deep sleep, nightmares would torment me. After days of that cycle, I thought I’d lose my mind.”
Adlen, who had been listening as to someone else’s hardship, stilled at the word ‘nightmare.’
She too had been suffering nightmares.
The nightmare of returning to the Lakeside and finding no one there to save her.
“So what did you do?”
“I left the Barracks and slept outside.”
“Outside?”
“The silence seemed to be the problem, so I found myself lying on the ground near the soldiers’ tents instead—where I could hear snoring and teeth grinding. That did the trick.”
She understood his reasoning, yet it moved her to pity.
How desperate must things have been.
That in all those long nights, there had been no one beside him to hold his hand.
All those hours, stretching on and on—how many nights had he endured alone?
“So I brought you here instead. Won’t it be at least a little better if I’m beside you?”
“It makes all the difference. All the difference in the world.”
On the sofa, Habel had been nearby, true enough—but the Baby’s warmth alone could not quite soothe what needed soothing.
Some instinct had always reminded her that she was the protector, the one who must keep that small creature safe.
“Then sleep now.”
Racalte covered Adlen’s eyes with his hand.
She had felt it many times before—this hand of his, callused and scarred, was immense. And warm.
Adlen placed her own hand over his.
The contact sent a deeper warmth through her.
But she prayed that her own heat might reach him as well.
Perhaps not needed now, but for the man he had been long ago—afraid to sleep alone, lying on the ground beside the soldiers’ tents.
Racalte simply held her hand, without a word.
Soon, Adlen sank into a deep sleep.
This time, so deep she dreamed not at all.
* * *
A man and woman sharing a bed carried many implications.
But Adlen’s servant nature and sense of comradeship blocked them all at the source.
“I slept so well thanks to you!”
Cheerful and bright, Adlen woke face to face with him and bowed with perfect propriety.
There was no awkwardness, no embarrassment at having shared the bed.
Racalte stared at her face.
She had wept all night in her sleep—silent tears that soaked through the front of his chest.
And now she smiled at him as though nothing had happened. Though yesterday, something certainly had.
It unsettled him. More than that, it displeased him.
Had she wept openly and clung to him as she did yesterday, he wouldn’t feel this way.
“……I’m glad, then.”
But he could not rake open memories she herself chose to leave buried.
For now, it was better that he simply endure.
If she laid bare her wounds and reached for him, he would gather her in; if she walked past as though nothing were wrong, he would stand firm so she would not stumble alone. For as long as it took.
* * *
“His Majesty commands your presence at the Palace Summons.”
A messenger arrived from the Royal Palace at first light.
Adlen recognized the familiar seal on the letter before hearing the words, and accepted it as inevitable.
“It seems urgent. You should prepare quickly.”
“You too.”
“Me?”
Racalte held the letter before her eyes.
“But I can’t read most things……”
Though there were words she could not read, there were those she could.
And there, she found her own name.
Adlen.
The King had summoned three of them: Racalte, Adlen, and Habel, the Crown Prince.
* * *
“I wonder what it’s about.”
“We’ll have to go and see.”
But Racalte was already forming a suspicion.
It had to be connected to Kias’s appearance.
Last time, he had not anticipated that Kias would come directly; he had nearly been caught off guard. But now they both saw through each other’s moves.
This waiting game was suffocating in its intensity.
The King could not remain idle.
Though no spears or swords had been drawn, true war had begun.
“Could it be that I’m not qualified anymore, and he wants me to step down……?”
“?”
But Adlen was voicing a concern that came out of nowhere.
No matter how unpredictable the King’s strategies might be, there was no scenario in which Adlen would be removed.
The Crown Prince would weep himself to death through the night without her.
Age had not brought him independence—only deeper obsession.
“Don’t worry yourself with that. Even if His Majesty ordered it, I need you here, so you’ll stay at my side.”
“……Ah, well then, that’s settled.”
“Yes. And this summons is more likely about General Kias.”
“Ah……!”
That made far more sense.
There was no reason for the King to send a messenger in such urgent haste this morning just to discuss her work performance.
Adlen believed his words absolutely. Believing him cost her nothing.
And Racalte fully expected his own reasoning to be correct.
The carriage came to a halt, and the feeling persisted even as the Chief Chamberlain greeted the two of them with formal courtesy.
“Welcome, Count Sigellion, and Miss Adlen.”
Adlen’s name had just come from the Chief Chamberlain’s lips.
Adlen, who had been mere furniture in the Royal Palace, flinched at this sudden recognition as a person, her eyes widening in surprise.
Racalte, too, sensed something amiss in that same instant and turned to look at the Chief Chamberlain.
And he quickly understood why.
“This time, you were also summoned.”
“Ah…!”
Before, she had come as part of Habel’s retinue—both times she’d first entered the palace, for the King’s birthday on each occasion.
But this time, the letter had explicitly written her name: “Adlen.”
Which meant she had entered the Royal Palace not as furniture attached to someone else, but as the person Adlen.
Only then did Adlen begin to grasp that her summons was no ordinary matter.
“I… why would he call for me?”
“…We’ll have to see.”
Racalte found he couldn’t ease the tension that had seized Adlen again—not this time.
A creeping anxiety had taken hold of him as well.
The King’s Chamber, which they reached following the Chief Chamberlain’s guidance, felt far more imposing than it had during their first visit.
The King, still bearing the pallor of illness, received them both, and his gaze alone was enough to make one’s knees weak with dread.
The King seated the two of them side by side before him and regarded them in silence for a long moment.
When Adlen could no longer bear the trembling and had bitten away the skin beside her nails, the King at last spoke, dropping a single sentence into the silence.
“You two—are you really nothing to each other?”

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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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