A Letter to Abel
When I sent word that I would be staying at the Donauward estate, the Goddess Church's central headquarters barely seemed to care.
Perhaps they thought it safe enough, since the Saintess would be residing at the Hero's mansion. More likely, though, they were simply too busy broadcasting the Demon King's defeat and pouring themselves into missionary work in the name of the Goddess's grace.
They did make one request of me: living with the Hero's family was fine, but I was to show my face at religious ceremonies and political banquets as the Church's Saintess.
The Demon King was gone. My role as Saintess was not.
Truthfully, I wanted to stop being the Saintess altogether.
I no longer took any joy or pride in the privileges and reverence that came with the title.
"Father. This is Saintess Seraphina, a companion who journeyed with me to defeat the Demon King."
"Oh...! So this is the Saintess. Indeed — one can sense the sacred aura of a holy person about her."
If anything, being the Saintess had become repulsive to me.
It was the way Leon introduced me before Marquis Barok — the head of House Donauward and his own father — not as the woman he was courting, not as the woman who would become his wife and bear his child, but merely as a companion: the "Saintess."
Before I could even open my mouth, Leon seized my wrist hard and shot me a look that said not to utter a single unnecessary word. In the end, I couldn't speak at all.
And so I was treated as nothing more than a visiting Saintess. Instead of a room beside Leon's — or the same room — I was assigned a guest chamber tucked away in a corner...
The room was plain, furnished with only the essentials, as if telling me not to linger and to leave soon.
"Hic... sob...."
That first night, I curled up clutching my belly, wiping away tears, and couldn't sleep at all.
When I first learned I was carrying the Hero's child, I thought he would cherish me. Instead, I felt more ignored than even the household servants.
"Hm? Sera? What's the matter?"
"It's been over a week since I came to this mansion... and you haven't visited me even once. How is that acceptable?"
I caught Leon as he tried to hurry off after finishing a meal together.
"Haha..."
When I pressed him sharply, he averted his gaze and laughed awkwardly...
"...Sera. Why are you acting like a child?"
His red eyes fixed me with a cold stare.
"I just defeated the Demon King. Of course people are calling for me left and right."
"But... would it really be so hard to stop by just once, even if only to see my face?"
"Haa. Why do you always have to be like this..."
Leon let out a deep sigh, turned his head, and muttered under his breath, What do you even think you are to me...
I grabbed him.
"What is that supposed to mean?! I'm carrying your child!"
"Yeah. I know. I know."
As if he couldn't bear to hear another word, the Hero waved his hand dismissively and walked off down the corridor.
Left behind in the dining hall were only me... and the child in my womb.
Even the maids and servants had cleared the empty chairs and leftover food and vanished.
In this entire mansion, there was not a single person on my side. I felt as though I had been abandoned on a deserted island.
"Mama... what should I do...?"
The fact that I was no longer alone only made me feel more wretched.
"Oh! The Saintess herself! I know the Church forbids impure contact with the opposite sex, but... might I at least request a handshake?"
"Saintess, that historic battle — the one that will be remembered for ages! Would you tell us about it? The Hero seems terribly busy, you see."
I attended a banquet hosted by the royal family as a representative of the Goddess Church, alongside the Cardinal.
Nobles crowded in from every direction, speaking to me with the same gawking fascination one might show a circus monkey.
I repeated the same answers so many times I couldn't remember what I'd said, nodding behind a smile as stiff as a mask.
When I first became the Saintess... even a noisy, glittering ballroom like this had felt new and wonderful.
...I'm so tired.
Now everything felt stifling and repulsive.
My belly was swelling day by day as I neared the middle of my pregnancy, so I had to wear a kappa cloak draped over the front to keep it hidden from those around me.
The fabric was heavy. It was stifling and hot.
My body was already uncomfortable enough — and then there was the food covering the banquet tables.
"Urgh...!"
The sharp, pungent smells rising from the dishes triggered my morning sickness and turned my stomach inside out.
Hurry... just make a few perfunctory greetings and get out of here.
Thinking that, I turned my head to look for a place to sit — and then I saw them.
"Oh my...! Hero, you're so dashing!"
"So a man this magnificent is the one who defeated the Demon King and saved us all?"
"Haha. I merely did what needed to be done."
Far across the room, a familiar voice and face.
Surrounded by young noblewomen pressing their ample figures against him, batting their eyes, the blond-haired man laughed and gestured as he chatted away.
The face of the noble daughter in front of him shifted into the face I always saw in the mirror — my own.
That kindly smile that seemed ready to grant any wish, that dazzling appearance — the look of someone gazing up at him as if he were a god.
Creak....
It was the same. Exactly the same as the way the Hero — Leon — had looked when he first met me.
The flushed face of the young lady before him was unmistakably the face I had worn back then.
"Ah, Saintess Seraphina, if I may—"
I didn't answer the person speaking to me. I turned and fled toward the terrace as if running for my life.
With a soft click, the crystal glass doors closed, sealing off the bright banquet hall from the dark outside.
"Hah... hah..."
Feeling the quiet settle around me, I gripped the railing and gasped for breath.
"Kh... hhk... hhhk...!!"
But no matter how hard I tried to hold it in, my throat burned and tears welled up and spilled over.
I was fooled... completely fooled...!
Leon's smile, dressed up as kindness. His noble-looking exterior.
The expensive gifts he gave me. The glamorous cultural life of the capital we shared.
I had looked only at his title as Hero and his birth as a noble.
I thought he was the finest man alive. I convinced myself that if I didn't take him then, I would never meet a man like him again in my entire life.
"...He wasn't. He wasn't at all!"
He was not a good man in the slightest.
No — the devoted things Abel had always done for me, the gentle way he always tried to protect me... that had been true love all along.
For a woman... for me... to be happy, I should never have stood at Leon's side. I should have stayed beside Abel, who truly treasured me.
"Abel... Abel..."
Luxury and everything that glittered were nothing more than fleeting pleasures.
The only thing of real worth was Abel alone.
But... could I even go back to him?
I was already carrying the Hero's child, my belly swelling — and I had chosen the Hero right in front of Abel's eyes.
Even if I had been deceived by everything the Hero showed me, I couldn't blame anyone else.
In that moment, the one who chose the Hero had clearly been me.
Before, I had only felt guilt toward Abel. But now — now that I had come to love the child in my womb, now that the Hero had cast me aside — I finally understood.
How much Abel must have suffered. That someone like me had no right to stand at his side.
"Abel, I'm sorry... I... I was wrong...!"
...But I was far too wretched a person to ever let Abel go.
I kept crying, calling his name, and when the banquet hall grew loud with music, I slipped out of the building.
"Where shall I take you, my lady?"
Looking at the coachman waiting at the entrance, I hesitated over the destination for a moment.
"To House Donauward, please."
The words left my reluctant lips. As long as the child carrying Leon's blood was inside me, there was nowhere else I could go.
But from that day on, I stopped obsessing over seeing Leon.
I stopped deliberately joining the Donauward family's mealtimes, took my meals in my room instead, and quit wandering the mansion just to make my presence known.
"...."
I simply sat on the bed in a darkened room, staring blankly out the window, or stroking my belly and speaking to the baby — over and over.
"Could you bring me some letter paper...?"
"Pardon? Letter paper?"
And then there I was, asking a maid I happened to meet for stationery.
I sat not on the bed but in the chair at the desk, took up a quill, and brought it to a sheet of pure white paper.
To Abel...
The first sentence I wrote in a daze carried Abel's name.
The moment I recognized it—
Drip... drip...
Tear stains marked the letter paper.
Emotions that had been hollow as an empty shell until now filled entirely with sorrow and grief.
Why had I become the Saintess? Why, on the day Abel asked me to leave the village with him, had I not taken his hand?
Why, when Abel sent me letters, had I forgotten how precious they were?
Why, after becoming the Hero's lover, had I given everything I should have given to Abel to a man like that instead?
If I had never forgotten Abel for even a single moment, I would be at his side right now, with the Demon King defeated.
"I have to apologize... to Abel... I have to apologize..."
I crumpled the first sheet and wrote Abel's name again on the next.
There was so much I wanted to say, but the tip of the quill would not move easily.
What am I supposed to write...?
In my head, I sorted through the words I should write and the ones I must not.
I must not mention the moment Abel saw me with the Hero, or the time I looked away when the Hero stabbed him with a sword.
I was terrified that if Abel remembered those moments, he would hate me even more.
And I shouldn't write about the child either...
....Abel, I'm sorry...
The first thing to write was an apology.
That I had been so stupid, such a complete fool who knew nothing...
That I had failed to understand the value of everything Abel had done for me, and fallen for a man like the Hero — I would apologize for that.
I would write about the joyful, happy days I spent playing and living with Abel back in Magiavell.
About how, when Abel sent letters to me at the Church, they truly gave me strength.
About how, even throughout the journey to defeat the Demon King, I never forgot him for a single moment...
And that if I could see Abel again, from then on I would think only of him — and treasure him as much as he had treasured me. No, far more than that.
Scritch. Scratch.
Even as I kept moving the quill across the page, a voice inside kept asking what good any of this would do.
If I sent this letter, could I go to Abel?
Having given everything to the Hero, pregnant with his child — could I go to Abel like this?
But... if... truly, if...
If Abel wrote back saying he wanted to see me again. That he still loved me.
Then... then....
"...."
I folded the finished letter, slipped it into an envelope, and sealed it with a wax stamp.
Where to send it...? Where was Abel?
Tracing back through my memories, the border city of Paparn had been our last meeting, and after that...
Right. In the letters Abel used to send me, he always wrote that he traveled through various regions as a postman, but that Magiavell was still the place where he felt most at ease.
He might be away for a while, but he would have returned to Magiavell in the end.
Magiavell, Avalanche Mountain Range — the eastern edge.
In the space for the letter's destination, I wrote the name of the village.