Now, She Is Merely Lassen's Wife
The main estate of House Calista stood at the very center of Valerium, the capital of Valerian.
“Unexpected.”
“Indeed. Quite unexpected.”
For a noble family that had once ruled Karlsten, the mansion was surprisingly modest.
Yet modest only in comparison to its reputation.
It was still more than equal to the lords’ residences where we had stayed during the long escort.
The front gates swung open, and the carriage carrying Yuno and me rolled cautiously into the inner courtyard.
The moment we stepped down, a middle-aged noblewoman greeted us with a gentle, warm smile.
“Welcome to Calista Mansion, Sir Lassen. And… Her Majesty Queen Yuno.”
She was Erpe Calista, Sabre’s wife.
With the war now over, the title of general had been set aside.
Yet she still addressed Yuno as queen.
Unlike her stern husband, Erpe Calista was a slender woman with kind, luminous eyes.
The supporting character had left quite an impression in the original story as well.
In the novel she had been a significant figure, the gentle counterweight to her hardline husband.
While Sabre pushed for renewed conflict, she had always mourned the enemies he created.
Later in the original work she had secretly approached Yuno, tearfully revealing that her husband had been sending his own money to the families of fallen Europian commanders.
She had begged Yuno not to hate him too deeply.
But this reality had diverged too far from the book.
Yuno now stood before her not as a queen, but as a prisoner of a defeated nation—and the wife of Lassen, the man who might as well be her mortal enemy.
“I have already read my husband’s letter.”
Erpe Calista approached me with a soft expression.
“Our home may feel inadequate to host a man of your stature, Sir Lassen. Still, in light of the grace you have shown our family, please consider this place your own and rest easy.”
“You are too kind. I can only offer my deepest gratitude to His Grace the Grand Duke and to you, madam, for allowing us to stay in such a splendid residence.”
I bowed with formal courtesy.
Erpe Calista returned the gesture, then beckoned to a small silhouette hiding behind her.
“Come greet them, Celine. This is Sir Lassen, the man who helped your father bring this wretched war to an end.”
She was trying to introduce her daughter.
Sabre’s only child.
But the little girl clinging to her mother’s skirt refused to show her face.
She only gripped the fabric tighter, trembling violently.
“Oh dear… She is usually such a brave child. I suppose the presence of strangers makes her shy.”
Erpe Calista turned her head awkwardly and cleared her throat.
She’s terrified.
The stench of the battlefield still clung to me, impossible to wash away.
The knowledge that I had frightened a child left a bitter taste in my own chest.
Erpe Calista composed herself and bowed to me once more.
“Truly… thank you, Sir Lassen. For fulfilling my husband’s long-cherished wish. And above all, for giving me hope that he will return safely to my side. As one soldier’s wife, I offer you my deepest gratitude for ending this war.”
Sincere tears glistened at the corners of her eyes.
That genuine gratitude left me with nothing but an acrid taste in my mouth.
All I had done was throw myself at the enemy’s feet to survive.
Her gaze soon shifted to Yuno standing behind me.
Deep pity and sorrow crossed her face.
“And… Your Majesty. As a citizen of Valerian, I hardly know what words of comfort I could possibly offer you. Please accept my most sincere apology.”
Erpe Calista bowed low before the defeated queen.
Yuno received the apology with an expressionless face.
“But please believe me, Your Majesty.”
Erpe Calista gently took Yuno’s hands in hers.
“My husband Sabre may be ruthless on the battlefield, but he is not a man without honor. He is not the kind of person who would simply destroy and trample Europia. I beg you to remember that, even if only a little, in the days to come.”
Those were the very lines she had spoken in the original novel.
Yuno offered no reply to the earnest plea.
She simply bit her bloodless lip and lowered her head.
“I am now… merely Sir Lassen’s wife.”
“As one man’s wife… that treatment will be enough.”
After she had killed her own father with her own hands and sold her country, asking her to understand the heart of the man who would now rule it felt impossibly cruel.
Even though she had entrusted Keres to him believing it herself, hearing it from another’s lips made the request sound unbearably harsh.
With that short, heavy greeting concluded, Erpe Calista led us to the guest quarters prepared in the mansion.
“This will be your room. If anything is lacking, please inform the servants at any time.”
She withdrew, and the door closed firmly behind her.
In the center of the bedroom stood a bed large enough for two people.
We were to share a single room.
The realization struck me anew.
Throughout the long and arduous journey to the capital, we had spent twenty-four hours a day in the same room—often clinging to each other in the same bed.
Yet now that the emperor’s decree had made our forced marriage official and we were left alone as husband and wife in truth, the air in the room grew unbearably awkward.
“……”
“……”
I cleared my throat and moved to stand by the window. Yuno sat quietly at the edge of the bed.
“So… when do you plan to take me?”
After a long silence, Yuno was the first to break it.
“Aren’t I the spoils the emperor granted you? Don’t you want to see the pathetic sight of me swelling with your child, just as you boasted in the carriage?”
Her barbed words were meant to provoke me. I turned and let out a short, dry laugh.
“You’re not using crude phrases like ‘violate me’ anymore. It seems stepping into this spacious room has brought some of your reason back.”
At my mocking jest, Yuno’s brow furrowed slightly.
I leaned against the window, arms crossed, and continued in a relaxed tone.
“And a child? No matter how rotten my conscience may be after selling out a nation, I still have some sense of shame.”
I shrugged.
“We’ve come here as guests of the Grand Duke of Calista. I can’t burden him with not only a wife but a pregnant one and then a newborn on top of it all.”
Yuno drew in a sharp, incredulous breath.
The reason I refused to touch her had nothing to do with imperial pressure; I simply didn’t want to impose on our hosts.
“For tonight, I’m completely drained. I want to wash up and rest properly.”
I stretched and walked toward the bed.
Yuno sat there dazed for a moment, then her pale lips moved.
“After you wash…”
Her gaze stayed fixed on the floor.
“You won’t… use me as your blanket anymore?”
I paused at the question.
Throughout the journey, to prevent her from harming herself, I had always held her tightly around the waist and covered her like a living blanket.
But the situation had changed.
“There’s no reason to do that now.”
I answered calmly.
“If there’s no reason, why would I?”
Yet Yuno shook her head.
“Do it.”
“Pardon?”
“There is a reason… so do it.”
“What reason could there possibly—”
“I… I want it. It has become a habit.”
Her voice was painfully small and trembling.
“During the entire journey… I was trapped in your arms, unable to breathe properly or sleep soundly even once.”
She was right.
Every night we had lain rigid with mutual hatred and wariness, as if strangling each other until dawn.
Neither of us had ever slept peacefully.
“So… even on this night that marks the end of the war, I don’t want to be left alone. You created this habit. Take responsibility for it until the end.”
It was a contradictory demand, laced with hatred for me and a deep fear of being abandoned.
The bitter complaint of a defeated queen.
I looked down at her unsteady eyes for a moment, then let out a deep sigh and nodded.
“…Do as you wish. I have no reason to stop you.”
After washing thoroughly, we lay down together on the bed.
Just as I had done for the past several days, I wrapped my arms around her slender waist and pressed our chests together.
In this wide bed, the sight of us clinging to each other looked utterly ridiculous.
“All this time… whenever we lay like this, my chest felt like it would burst from the pressure.”
Yuno’s low murmur drifted through the darkness.
“It felt as if you were gripping my windpipe… every breath was a struggle.”
“It was the same for me.”
I loosened my arms around her waist just a fraction.
“I never knew when you might leap up like a wild animal and shatter my peace. I couldn’t let my guard down for a single moment.”
The embrace that had suffocated both our hearts.
At my dry reply, Yuno let out a short, bitter laugh.
“Tonight will be the last.”
She whispered.
“This absurd imitation of a blanket… after tonight, it will truly be over.”
From tomorrow we would live in these guest quarters as the emperor’s bestowed dependents, bound by a new set of chains.
Under the watchful eyes of the palace and the swirling vortex of political strife.
Yet strangely, the anxiety over that exhausting future felt distant.
Right now, only a sense of relief washed over me.
“Maybe that’s why… I feel like I’ll sleep unusually well tonight.”
I rested my forehead against her shoulder and muttered.
“This kind of shitty experience is new to me too, so don’t ask why. I don’t know either.”
At my absurd confession, Yuno’s body shook with silent laughter in my arms.
“Ha…”
She let out a deflated chuckle in the dark.
“What part of this miserable act—where I can’t even laugh properly—could possibly be comforting…”
Her grumpy complaint trailed off and gradually faded.
Our heartbeats slowly fell into a steady rhythm.
In the quiet night, hatred, madness, and cold political calculations all grew faint.
We accepted each other’s warmth in a completely different way, becoming blankets for one another as we sank into deep sleep.
The queen of a defeated nation and the traitor who had sold his homeland.
The man and woman who had once tried to drag each other into ruin now, paradoxically, used each other’s breathing as a lullaby and for the first time…
fell into a profound, exhausted slumber.
“Hic… sob…”
The sound of a little girl’s weeping leaked from the room.
It was the same child who had hidden behind Erpe Calista’s skirt earlier that day, refusing to show her face to Lassen.
Sabre’s only daughter, Celine.
Curled up in the corner of her bed, her small hands clutched tightly to the blunt wooden doll her father had carved for her before leaving for the front.
I thought… Daddy was coming home.
They had said the war was over.
Valerian had won, and her father had become a great hero who ended the long and terrifying conflict. The entire mansion had buzzed with the news.
So when the carriage entered the courtyard today, Celine had naturally believed she would be swept up into her big, warm father’s arms.
But her father’s face had not appeared.
Instead there was only a frightening stranger who reeked of blood that would not wash away, and a sad-looking older sister.
Moreover, Celine had clearly overheard the words her mother whispered to the servants after escorting the guests to their room, wiping away secret tears.
His Grace the Grand Duke… because of the need to stabilize the new territory he has been given, may not return to this mansion for a time even longer than the war itself. We must endure here in the capital without becoming a burden to him.
Her father might never come back.
She and her mother would be left in this large, cold mansion, forced to live with the terrifying stranger who had come in his place.
“Daddy… waaah…”
Little Celine could hold back no longer. She buried her face in her knees and wept bitterly.
The glorious victory of the war and the lofty title of Grand Duke meant nothing to a girl of barely ten years.
She only missed her big father, Sabre, who used to lift her high, rub his cheek against hers, and laugh.
Thus began the lonely days of those left behind in the glittering aftermath of victory.