Chapter 98: Chapter 98

Eckart frowned and looked back at her.

“Marianne, I never said I didn’t like it.”

“Well, when you looked at me like that, it’s because you didn’t like it. I was wondering why you…” Grabbing his arm, she went down the stairs, kicking the front of her skirt with her shoes as if she complained. She pouted with her eyes closed tight.

Eckart breathed a deep sigh, narrowing his brows. He took the end of her dress to prevent her from getting hurt, and he even got closer to her so she could lean on him as she climbed up the stairs to the main hall.

But his actions didn’t help change her sullen mood.

In the meantime, they arrived at the main hall and waited for the door to open. With her shoulders down, she let out a sigh. She just looked down.

Eckart slowly closed his blue eyes and then opened them.

This was the blatant and obvious demonstration of her anger. He could rebuke her for disturbing his mind over trifling things. He had no obligation to correct her misunderstanding, and it would not be wrong of him to ask her what the big deal was.

“… I thought you were like a picture.”

Even though he knew it all along, he uttered something wrong when he saw her dressed up.

“Pardon?”

“… It’s not because I didn’t like it, but because I felt for a moment that I was looking at a sacred image when I saw you a moment ago.”

He was done with the self-justification. As soon as he said so helplessly, she suddenly raised her head with a happy expression. Her white veil fluttered in the wind.

“Really? Did you feel like you were watching a sacred image?”

“… Yes.”

“Why? Is it because I’m pretty?”

“… Yes.”

“How much?”

“… Very much.”

‘Damn it. What am I talking about?’

While replying to her sudden questions, he doubted whether he was in his right mind. Clearly he replied as if he was enchanted by her. He felt like her clear eyes and kind voice tore apart his judgment.

Meanwhile, she hung onto his left arm and whispered with an eager look, “Now speak again in one sentence. How did I look in your eyes?”

“… Marianne!”

“Quickly. We have to go in soon. Quickly. Please.”

At this point, he should have told her to stop.

While thinking so in his mind, he turned his eyes around and took a look at the people in the back.

‘They shouldn’t hear me…they shouldn’t…’

She laughed happily as if she had the whole world when she heard his short compliment that he expressed with a feeble voice.

“Thank you. I’m most happy when you praise me.”

Eckart let out a sigh with an exhausted look.

Although he was done in by this smart woman, he didn’t feel bad when he looked at her smiling brightly. But he deliberately kept a distance from her by adding curtly, “What is the point of all this? In fact, you’re forcing me to praise you, aren’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter to me. It’s important that you told me what I wanted to hear from you.”

Smiling brightly, she once again broke the wall between him and her. The wall collapsed too easily.

“Well, this is a secret, but I actually thought you were like a picture. Something like a sacred image of our god Airius.”

While she was whispering, the door to the main hall opened.

Siel and Hess stepped aside. Marianne corrected her posture and refined her attitude.

Eckart led her into the temple and was once again convinced that she was too dangerous.

The interior of the temple in the morning was like the exquisite combination of pomp and piety.

Sunlight poured in from the glass windows that led up to the ceiling with the open curtains. The sunlight passing through the nine-colored gems along the ninety-nine pillars created enchanting halo on the floor and walls.

Cardinal Helena waited for Eckart and Marianne with her hands clasped at the small altar in front of a giant nine-god portrait.

On the wooden altar at about the level of her waist were an old, thick book of scripture, a sharp dagger, a silver kettle, and a few youthful green barley stems.

Upon entering the main hall, Eckart and Marianne walked alongside the central corridor past the priests who took their own seats around each pillar.

It was quiet and serene. It was so quiet that the could discern the sound of her dress sweeping over the golden carpet. That strangely heavy atmosphere added to the weight and meaning of this ceremony.

While walking, she looked at the portraits of the gods in the front, which filled her vision.

Among them, the images of Anthea with the golden hair hanging down and Kader with her swept green hair reflected in her eyes first.

The night she cried, wrapped in Hilde and Helena’s arms, she had to admit that the incomprehensible miracles that she experienced were perhaps the results of the gods’ considerations.

The loss of her father, Ober’s betrayal, and her drowning in cold water…

When she looked back, they were all predetermined for her. It was her cruel and brutal guesswork, but she could not find any more convincing answers.

She was Kader, who was resurrected by Anthea, and at the same time, she was Marianne herself who was revived by Kader. Kader’s trial was her own trial. The reason why her second life was the same as the first was probably because of the nature of destiny that Kader presided over.

She was persuaded not because she understood it but because she instinctively realized it.

Even though she didn’t know the exact principle, she found herself convinced of it. She now trusted the priests’ statement that their souls were tightly bound by the deity of the goddess.

And faced with a wonderful and eerie miracle, Marianne boldly found a ray of hope.

‘If the two goddesses are protecting me, I can use their protection in my favor.’

It did not matter whether her life and choices so far, or every moment of the rest of her life were all prepared by God or not. If God decided it for her, nothing would change even if a mere human like her refused it. In that case, she will have been swept to a predetermined place without her knowledge, like her second life right now.

‘This is my choice. I won’t regret it or pull back.’

Yet her current life was still her own. If she did not give up, she might find a way to follow one of the thousand resurrections left by Kader’s fate, and that with the help of Anthea was said to be protecting her instead of Kader.

‘If you think positively, you have two gods on your side…’

She gazed at Eckart walking by her side.

Hilde said he was the master of the twin stars, born with the deity of Airius. If that were the case, perhaps his destiny was connected to hers because of the Divine Providence.

‘Anyway, I’ve got a precious man for me, not the gods. It’s up to me to keep him.’

At this moment, her affection and faith in him up until now was neither a lie nor fake.

It was hers only. Even if she could not be rewarded for that, or even if the results of that were already determined by God, that would be enough.

While Marianne vowed to herself again, she saw the end of the long carpet. A pair of pure white shoes and boots slowly stopped.

“May the glory of Airius, the great god of radiant light, be bestowed upon you!”

Helena offered courteous greetings to the two who reached the altar.

At the same time, the priests lined up all over the temple knelt and bowed in a clean gesture. Dozens of skirts fluttered at once, creating a fascinating vortex-like effect of opening petals.

“On May 26, 1186 by the divine calendar, I will commemorate the engagement ceremony of Frei VII on the occasion of the festive day of Anthea, the great goddess of abundant land.”

In the end, Helena’s pure and clear voice proclaimed the beginning of the ceremony.

Originally, the ceremony was a long ritual that took more than half a day. It was the principle for the participants to repeat dozens of prayers and hymns, as well as masses of communion and scripture responsse. Only after almost all types of holy procedures were reproduced could the engagement vows be made.

But given the difficult situation, Helena decided to skip all of the upfront procedures at Marianne’s request.

So, the final ritual in which the two would swear their union to God, which was the most important of all the procedures, was to take place.

“In the beginning, nine gods blessed the land of Aslan and imparted the Holy Spirit, so that there would be his everlasting protection of the king and his family who will rule the land.”