Chapter 8 · The Princess of the Temple (2)

Within a few days, ominous rumors were spreading wildly through both the royal palace and the temple.

The content was that I was the child of a Kalisa mercenary who had killed countless Santrans, and that the temple and the royal family had concealed this horrific truth and accepted me as royalty. There was no need to wonder who had spread it.

‘Perhaps Aquila has grown impatient, now that I’m staying at the temple.’

These were the kinds of sinister rumors that had only emerged four years after I arrived at the royal palace in my previous lives. Of course, even having experienced them before didn’t mean I had any particular countermeasure prepared.

Until my ninth life, I too had believed those rumors to be absolutely true, falling into despair and resenting the world. I was the royal family’s only stain and disgrace.

And how I had pitied my mother, whose face I never knew. My mother surely hadn’t wanted to give birth to me, and in the end, I was a child nobody in the world had wished for—someone who should never have been born. The fact that my mother had left me, a mere infant, with a common family she barely knew also made sense for that reason.

But thanks to the new truth I had accidentally learned in this life, I had cast off that burden from my heart. At the very least, my mother had not given birth to me against her will. The same went for Paeon. Why his attitude was the way it was remained a mystery, but regardless, that fact alone was a great comfort to me.

“How can such a rumor be spreading? The royal family hasn’t even officially announced anything about the princess yet!”

The three priestesses were furious, raising their voices. Sierra had explained the whole situation the moment she came into the room, but she must have been so angry that she forgot I was here.

“That’s what I’m saying. It’s clearly a scheme to slander the princess. But do you know what Sir Parsiel said when he heard about it?!”

Sierra poured it all out without even pausing for breath.

“What did he say? Surely even he would have been angry?”

“No! He just said, ‘It’s a baseless rumor,’ those five syllables, and tried to leave! So I grabbed him and demanded to know if he was just going to stand by and do nothing. And then he said, ‘I don’t see why I should play along with baseless rumors’!”

Aside from the content, Sierra’s impression of him was so funny that I nearly burst out laughing. His flat, emotionless tone was just too mismatched with Sierra’s lark-like voice.

“Do you have any idea how fast such filthy rumors spread? The temple has to take action. Sir Parsiel is one of the very few people who has seen Princess Beatrice’s will. He of all people should step forward…”

Rosa said, genuinely worried.

“There’s no way he would. That man is truly…”

Sierra shook her head, then caught sight of the bed veiled with a thin canopy and froze in shock.

“Oh my! I forgot the princess was here. I must have lost my mind!”

She covered her mouth belatedly and whispered to Yuz and Rosa, but it was already too late.

“What do we do… This time it’s not Sister Sierra’s fault. I should have been the one to snap to my senses!”

“The princess is so clever. She must have understood everything…”

Yuz and Rosa murmured in despair.

“But maybe she was asleep. Let’s check.”

Yuz crept toward the bed and lifted the veil. When she saw my eyes squeezed shut and let out a relieved sigh, I snapped my eyes open.

“Kyaa! P-Princess! You were awake?!”

I nodded slightly. The two priestesses rushed over and poked their heads under the veil.

“Did… did you hear?”

I watched them quietly as they fidgeted, unsure of what to say to me, then carefully sat up and opened my mouth.

“So Asha is a viwwain’s daughter aftew aww…”

The three priestesses’ faces hardened. I felt guilty for hurting the hearts of these kind people, but I continued.

“I’m sowwy, sisters, but Asha won’t go to the gweat dining haww stawting tomowwow. Pwease bwing my food to my woom…”

“Princess! You really love eating in the great dining hall!”

As Rosa said, I did love the great dining hall. Even though I hadn’t been able to run into Paeon there, getting a warm meal right away and eating together in that bustling place was truly a wonderful feeling. Of course, the countless curious stares were a burden. But for someone like me, who had been afraid of crowded places, it was good practice.

“Now evewyone knows Asha is a viwwain’s daughter… I don’t want to go…”

When I muttered with my head bowed low, the three priestesses exchanged glances as if they had made a firm resolution.

◇ ◆ ◇

“Asha can’t go to the gweat dining haww!”

I cried out with a terrified expression, but Rosa did not stop dressing me out of my nightclothes.

“Princess, Sir Parsiel is coming today.”

“…Weally? Papa is weally coming?”

“Yes. You’ve been wanting to see him so much. Let’s go see him quickly!”

The three priestesses had bombarded him with arguments in turns: that it would affect the princess’s emotional development, that the princess was already developing more slowly than her peers and needed proper nutrition, that the princess had trouble keeping food down since she started eating alone in her room—and faced with their endless semi-threats, Paeon had eventually thrown up both hands in surrender.

However, on the way to the great dining hall, I could feel that the curiosity directed at me had turned into hostility. There was not a trace of goodwill in the eyes watching me.

And no wonder—the three-year war had left Santra devastated beyond comparison to before. Countless people had lost precious loved ones to Kalisa. The temple folk were no different. Having lost family, colleagues, teachers, and disciples, it was no wonder their hostility toward Kalisa pierced the heavens.

“I’ll get your portion too, Princess. Just sit down.”

Yuz said as we entered the great dining hall.

“No, Asha wants to do it.”

I had always tried to be treated the same as everyone else here, and if I suddenly started being treated like a princess now, the rumors would only worsen. Even with stinging gazes pouring down on the back of my head, I stood in line to receive my food, but the server ladled it out carelessly, and hot soup splashed onto my hand.

“Ow, hot!”

Yet the server didn’t apologize and just looked at me as if I were a nuisance. Just days ago, he had received my greetings warmly—now he had completely changed.

Just then, Paeon’s cold voice came from beside me.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

The server looked at him in surprise, but the one more surprised was actually me.

“I asked what you think you’re doing.”

“I… Commander, I apologize. It was a mistake.”

He spoke in a cowering voice.

“You should be apologizing to the princess, not to me.”

At his高压 tone, cold enough to freeze the air around us, the server’s face went white in an instant. He threw down the ladle and prostrated himself at my feet.

“I-I’ve committed a crime worthy of death. Princess!”

“It’s okay.”

I answered hastily, flustered, but the man showed no sign of getting up. Paeon was still glaring at him. I tugged at the hem of his clothes and whispered.

“Papa, let’s go quickwy… Asha is hungwy.”

Only then did Paeon, still looking displeased, tell the server to get up, but he was in no state to ladle more soup, so someone else came rushing over to take his place.

The three priestesses, who had stopped walking to the table and were watching with their mouths wide open, thanked him simultaneously as he approached.

“I only did what I had to do.”

He answered in a businesslike tone and sat down at the table, quietly beginning the pre-meal prayer. I sat down and pretended to say a silent prayer, but I couldn’t stop my thoughts. My heart was pounding wildly at his unexpected action and wouldn’t calm down. He had openly taken my side! I had to bring my praying hands to my mouth to hide my splitting grin.

The three priestesses also began eating with lighter expressions, and the gloomy atmosphere from when we entered the dining hall quickly dissipated. I seized the momentum and chattered away.

“Papa, yestewday Siewwa bwought me the woyal geneawogy. Asha memowized aww of it!”

“You have no idea how brilliant the princess is. I really think she might be a genius. Who memorizes the names of every king from the first to the sixteenth, plus countless royals, in just two days? Not even adults can do that!”

He seemed a little surprised, but didn’t offer any particular praise.

“But Asha has a question…”

“What is it, Princess?”

“Evewyone in the geneawogy has a middwe name… Why doesn’t Asha have one?”

Rosa spat out the juice she was drinking the moment she heard me. Royalty receive their middle names at a grand ceremony at the temple within a month of birth. A kind of investiture, you could say. But I had been born without anyone knowing, so I had never received a middle name.

A name I had never once received in my past lives either, dragged out until I was twelve. Even when the temple insisted I should receive one, it was always thwarted by the royal family’s response that the time was not yet right.

“…Is it because Asha is a viwwain’s daughter that I can’t get a middwe name?”

At that moment, Paeon’s hand, which had been moving his spoon, stopped. He looked troubled. If only I could look inside his head and see what he was thinking.

“We’ll petition for it. So you can receive it right away.”

Sierra said with blazing eyes.

“Sir Parsiel will join us too, won’t you?”

“…”

“Won’t. You. Do. It?”

When Sierra repeated, enunciating each word, Paeon, who had been hesitating, answered quietly.

“…I don’t know if my word will be accepted, but I’ll try.”

I had thought he would refuse outright, so this was truly remarkable progress. I even felt a little grateful for the rumors I had always resented.

◇ ◆ ◇

After the meal, just before parting from him at the back door of the great dining hall, I called out to him.

“Papa, sit down fow a moment, pwease.”

“…?”

When he knelt before me, I spread my arms and hugged his neck tightly. He was greatly shaken and tried to pull away, but soon grew still.

“Thank you fow today… Asha thought Papa hated Asha.”

I was curious about his expression, but I was holding him so tightly that I couldn’t see it.

“…I do not hate anyone. Holding any particular emotion toward a person… is something a servant of God must not do.”

Was it just my imagination? His emotionless voice sounded somehow painful. The brief hug ended, and watching his retreating figure disappear with quick steps, I thought,

‘I must not grow attached to him.’

Even if that man takes my side, I must never forgive him.

‘Don’t get carried away just because he sided with me once.’

◇ ◆ ◇

I wasn’t sure whether he had actively petitioned, but the opinion that I should be granted a middle name was accepted. However, the king worried about the rumors spreading about me and agonized over how to conduct the ceremony. In the end, it was decided that rather than holding a separate ceremony, it would be held together with the grand prayer meeting at the end of the year, when all royalty and nobles would gather.

That was enough for me, so I wrote and delivered a letter of thanks to the king. For days, he praised me in a voice wet with tears, saying how perfect my sentences were, how elegant my handwriting was, exactly like Princess Beatrice’s.

Time passed quickly, and the last day of the year arrived. The morning of the Oratio Fidelium (the year-end grand prayer meeting) dawned.