I had two strange dreams, and I believed that the girl in those dreams was the maid I had been searching for.
In my desperate search, I met a woman who might miraculously be her.
The emotions I felt in that moment were indescribable with just a few words.
“She might not be the saint’s daughter? Are you saying you met someone else besides the saint? Who exactly? Was it a priest? Did a mere priest do such a thing?”
I knew I had to explain. But the words wouldn’t come easily.
To say that the reason I was drawn to that unfamiliar woman was because she resembled someone from my dreams…
Even to me, it didn’t make sense. What significance could that dream possibly hold? Unless Gilead’s power had returned, and I had received a special dream.
“It wasn’t a priest. She appeared before me as Josephina’s daughter.”
“Appeared as Josephina’s daughter? What do you mean by that? Are you saying a priest showed up instead of Leticia? In Leticia’s name?”
“Perhaps. That’s likely.”
Yulken stared at me in disbelief. I understood how he felt. I, the one directly involved, was equally confused, so Yulken must have been even more baffled.
“Could it be that you saw wrong?”
I shook my head silently. On the way back, I had replayed the scene in my mind countless times.
That woman was clearly terrified of something. If she truly was Leticia, the saint’s daughter, what could she have been so scared of?
“Could she have been threatened?”
“Excuse me?”
“She seemed terrified, as if she were being strangled. Or like someone about to be killed…”
It was then that I realized why I had been so anxious earlier. It was because she seemed so fragile, as if she would fall off a cliff if I didn’t extend my hand to her.
“Are you saying the saint threatened another woman to take her daughter’s place before you, Your Majesty? But why would she do such a thing…”
Yulken, looking more confused, ran his hands through his hair.
“Well, I suppose it’s possible. After all, the saint’s daughter has always been reluctant about the royal marriage. If the arrangements were made but she suddenly refused to meet Your Majesty, the saint might have had no choice but to send a stand-in… perhaps?”
Yulken furrowed his brow as he tried to make sense of my explanation.
“But still, that doesn’t seem right. If the saint’s daughter had rejected you, she could have simply canceled the meeting, like she’s done before. There are plenty of ways to avoid the meeting—having you wait in an empty room, breaking the promise and humiliating you. Why go through the trouble of using a stand-in?”
“The saint must have had her reasons. Reasons I can’t yet fathom.”
“Your Majesty, you said she seemed like she was being threatened, but couldn’t she have just been throwing a tantrum? People say the saint’s daughter has fits of madness. That she goes wild unless she sees blood.”
I clenched my jaw without realizing it, bothered by the deep disdain in Yulken’s voice.
“I’m sorry to say this, but I think Your Majesty might be trying too hard to see the saint’s daughter in a positive light.”
The anger that had welled up inside me subsided, and I remained silent. The girl from my dream, the shock of seeing her after waiting for so long, her trembling, her tears, the confusion from our brief encounter.
I couldn’t explain any of it. Nor did I want to. I couldn’t bear the thought of her suffering being dismissed as a misunderstanding after some feeble explanation.
I decided to bring the conversation to a close.
“We’ll find out when we meet her again. Whether she was afraid of Josephina or not.”
Despite Yulken’s continued attempts to persuade me, he eventually gave up.
Left alone in the room, I thought of her again.
I replayed the image of her from earlier in my mind.
The more I mulled it over, the more certain I became.
She was definitely afraid of Josephina.
She is not Josephina’s daughter.
* * *
When my attendants learned that I had been doused with tea, they were outraged. They believed that as their king, I was living as a target, enduring such humiliation for their sake. They couldn’t bear to see me, their protector, subjected to such disgrace.
On the other hand, despite how much I hated my own powerlessness, I didn’t feel the same fury they did.
The difference in our perspectives had always been there, but this time, it felt strange. While my attendants despised her, I found myself feeling something special toward her.
The ever-perceptive Yulken quickly noticed that something was off about me. I had intended to stay silent until I met her again, but Yulken’s persuasion finally made me confess everything.
“So, Josephina really substituted another woman in her daughter’s place? And you believe this woman is the maid you’ve been searching for?”
I avoided Yulken’s gaze. While there was some basis for the first part, I had no concrete evidence for the second.
“In any case, I’m certain she isn’t Josephina’s daughter. I’ll decide who she is once I meet her again. I plan to ask her about my brother and see how she reacts.”
Yulken stared at me, speechless. The wait for his response felt agonizingly long. It was then that I realized how anxious I had been. Despite my certainty that she wasn’t the saint’s daughter, I couldn’t shake the fear that I might be wrong.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty…”
“You want to say it’s just another one of my delusions, don’t you?”
“To be honest, yes.”
“I also find the idea that she might be the maid my brother met far-fetched.”
“No. That’s not what I meant. In fact, I think that’s more likely.”
Surprised, I paused before asking.
“Why?”
“If she truly isn’t the saint’s daughter, then there must be a reason why she was chosen as a substitute. Considering Josephina’s personality, presenting a woman connected to Prince Julius as her daughter seems fitting.”
“Fitting?”
“She probably assumes you despise her daughter and wants to redirect that hatred toward the substitute. If you failed to recognize her and ended up mistreating her, it would suit Josephina’s twisted nature perfectly.”
I took a deep breath. Yulken’s rational analysis quickly dispelled the doubt that had been weighing on my heart, replacing it with a sense of relief. Yulken continued cautiously.
“However, all of this hinges on the assumption that Josephina brought in a fake.”
“You seem to think she’s the real daughter of Josephina.”
“Yes, especially after what she did to you.”
Yulken was clearly still upset about her throwing the tea at me.
Now free of my earlier uncertainty, I responded confidently.
“I’m not worried. I saw with my own eyes how Josephina treated her. If she threw the tea at me, there must have been a reason. As I mentioned before, Josephina must have threatened her.”
“If Your Majesty is so sure, then she’s likely the substitute.”
At this point, Yulken backed off.
Not because I was the king, but because he trusted me. It was the kind of trust built over the years we’d spent together.
I felt immense gratitude toward Yulken for that.
If our roles were reversed, I wouldn’t have believed myself either. I would’ve thought I was simply trying to escape the reality of marrying Josephina’s daughter.
With a much calmer heart, I awaited the day of the royal wedding.
Now, my only concern was the possibility of the royal marriage falling apart.
* * *
My fears proved unfounded as Josephina did nothing further to obstruct the marriage. The tense atmosphere among the envoys following the tea incident gradually settled.
Though not perfect, the days passed in relative calm and peace.
During that time, I found myself constantly thinking about her again.
I recalled the way her blonde hair sparkled in the light, her small, pale hands trembling slightly, and the way her green eyes filled with tears.
When the image of the girl from my dream overlapped with hers, my chest ached unbearably.
Since becoming king, I had always suppressed my desires for the sake of Genos and its people.
Though I had grown accustomed to it, there were times when the weight of that burden felt overwhelming.
The desire to protect her, however, was different from that burden. It wasn’t born from the obligations of a king, but from the simple human longing of Dietrian, the man. I yearned for her happiness. This unfamiliar feeling gave me a strange sense of joy.
It felt as though I, too, had finally found a space to live as a twenty-three-year-old, ordinary young man.
“Blonde hair and green eyes? The saint’s daughter has those features?”
My brief moment of happiness was shattered the day before the royal wedding.
Yulken spoke with a troubled expression.
“Yes. I’ve confirmed it through at least three sources. She’s about 6 *rit* in height, slim, with long blonde hair that reaches her waist, and green eyes.”
Yulken carefully relayed the other details he had uncovered about the saint’s daughter: the shape of her face, the traits that appeared when her madness surfaced, and her typical behavior toward her servants. Apparently, she had an extreme aversion to being touched, and it was common for her to throw tea or cups at others.
Most of what Yulken described matched the woman I had seen.
I suddenly felt wide awake.
At first, I thought Yulken might be lying to me, but I quickly dismissed that thought. Yulken had no reason to deceive me.
“It seems the woman truly is the saint’s daughter.”
I felt something inside me crumble. I couldn’t understand why I was reacting this way. Since I was sixteen, I had grown used to loss, to having things taken from me. Yet this time, I was shaken by something so small.
“…I see.”
I answered as casually as I could. Yulken, clearly sensing my shock, looked at me with pity. I forced a smile, pretending I was fine.
“From the beginning, I came here to marry the saint’s daughter. This is simply a return to the original plan. In fact, this may even be for the best. If she is truly the saint’s daughter, she could be a powerful ally for Genos as queen.”
“Your Majesty…”
“I’m sorry, Yulken. I troubled you with my foolish delusions.”
“Troubled? Not at all.”
“It was my mistake not to even verify the appearance of the woman I’m to marry. I nearly made a grave error. If I had confused her with someone else in front of her, what would she have thought of me? She would have resented me deeply as her husband.”
I chuckled lightly.
“So don’t worry about me, Yulken.”
* * *
Damn it, though.
That night, I had another dream.
Despite acting calm in front of Yulken, the shock lingered. As always, I tried to ignore the emotional wound. Covering a pile of rotting garbage with dirt may make the surface look fine, after all.
Conveniently, there were tasks that needed my attention. As soon as the royal marriage was over, I was set to return to the principality. Along the way was the Gravel Desert. Walking through the sharp, rocky terrain under the scorching sun was a challenge even for seasoned travelers. I needed to make thorough preparations to avoid any accidents.
I reviewed my preparations countless times until dawn broke. As I mentally traced the route back to the principality, I considered every potential obstacle. Perhaps it was because I had something to focus on, but for a while, I managed to forget about her.
At least until I had that dream.
「It hurts…」
Once again, I had that strange dream.
No, it was even stranger than before.
This time, the protagonist wasn’t the young girl—it was her.
The one who threw tea at me, Josephina’s daughter.
She was lying on the ground, bleeding. Her dress, worn and torn, as though she had been whipped, clung to her wounded body.
I was so horrified that I forgot she was Josephina’s daughter and tried to run to her, to help her up.
But for some reason, I couldn’t move. Dark vines had wrapped around me, binding me completely.
I struggled, shouting at her, begging her to wake up, to hold on.
Her eyelids fluttered at the sound of my voice, and those empty green eyes finally opened.
They were filled with all the despair in the world. I felt my breath catch in my throat. A single transparent tear ran down the bridge of her nose.
That was all.
I had no choice but to watch as she slowly died.
When I woke up, the heavy sorrow from the dream lingered. My eyes stung with unshed tears, and I felt the dampness as they slid down my temples. I shut my eyes tightly.
“Damn it.”
I couldn’t believe I was still having such foolish dreams. What was worse was that my heart still ached because of it.
I cursed myself in every way I could.
“You idiot. You absolute fool.”
In truth, I had probably known all along. That my hope that she might not be the saint’s daughter was incredibly thin. I just couldn’t let go of that sliver of hope.
I clung to it because I had no other choice.
I had stubbornly insisted on this royal marriage, despite everyone’s objections. I smiled at those who worried about me, assuring them that I would be fine.
But I wasn’t fine.
I wasn’t fine at all.
Though I hadn’t shown it to anyone, I had felt lonely all this time.
I wanted someone to lean on.
Like everyone else, I wanted a harmonious family. I had hoped, however faintly, that this marriage might give me some small refuge in my otherwise desolate life. But with this royal marriage, that dream was completely shattered.
I could never love Josephina’s daughter. And she would undoubtedly spend her life hating and despising me, ensuring I would never be happy. Every time I thought about it, it felt like half of my life was crumbling.
I couldn’t bear that reality, so I clung to a foolish hope.
Curling up, I covered my eyes with my arms and gritted my teeth.
Damn it, I’m just an ordinary person. I want to throw away all these royal duties. I just… I just want…
I just want to be happy.
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