I reached out and held my little aunt’s hand. This blonde and blue-eyed lady saw my actions and her eyes curled. She carefully placed her thumb in my small palm. I clasped her thumb and waved it around as my way of shaking hands.
Will my aunt be like this when she grows up? This noble lady, who is dignified with every action, was my amazing aunt. In the future, we saw each other ever since she was deported, so it had been a very long time since we met.
“Jen, say hi.”
“Hello⋯⋯.”
My cousin, who hid behind my aunt’s skirt, said hello with hesitation.
It’s been two months since I’ve been to the Imperial Palace, this means I’ve met all of my family. I haven’t seen my ill grandfather for a long time, but coming back to the past was the first time I’ve seen him in person, so it was strange and pleasant. He had an intense and intelligent impression.
“By the way, where is Fariel? I haven’t seen him.”
At my aunt’s question, the surroundings became quiet. I showed her an awkward smile.
Fariel has been confused since the day I met him a month ago because I mistakenly went into his room. The servants murmured about the Prince, who used to constantly come in and out of the palace, that from that day on, he didn’t even come near the Sun Palace. Perhaps, he was banned from entering, or he couldn’t come see my Dad.
‘I can’t do anything because I can’t meet you.’
For a moment, I was amazed at myself as I thought I had found a clue in the way, which Sophia baptized. I haven’t even seen a single strand of Fariel’s hair in the past month. I didn’t know when I would meet Fariel, so I beat 10 days and worked hard to recover my divine power. Maybe the day will come when I will be able to use it.
“Why is everyone quiet?”
My aunt raised one eyebrow. Her gaze was on my father, the most influential person in the room.
Dad was sitting at an angle on the sofa and looking at his documents with his secretary. Raising his head slowly with a stinging gaze, he said in an insensitive voice,
“Come.”
And a moment later, I heard a knock.
I flinched and raised my head. People in the room also looked at the door in unison. When a servant opened the door to my dad’s beckoning, I saw a face I haven’t seen in nearly a month.
“Our youngest.”
My aunt welcomed him. No matter how I looked at it, her attitude wasn’t like one persecuting an illegitimate child. My dad was soft, my young aunt, and my family seemed to care about Fariel quite a bit. Well, he didn’t leave any evidence of being an illegitimate child, so I didn’t know he was one until I heard it from my aunt back before time leap.
Fariel, who was walking in, approached my aunt, but his gaze turned to my Dad. Dad set his documents on the table and got up.
“Fariel.”
“⋯⋯ Brother.”
“You didn’t forget what I said.”
Fariel nodded with a determined look. I looked at them and the atmosphere alternately.
I don’t know what’s going on, but it seems like they had a conversation without me knowing. Did Fariel give a heartfelt apology to my Dad about me?
‘He seems so confident.’
When we first met, he was rude to me, a babbling baby, plus, he even threw me to a servant once, I never thought he was a normal person.
However, I was the person that understood him the most.
In the Holy Union, divine power was more important than status. Everyone knew who was a lower priest and who was a higher priest. Fariel had to bow his head to those whose rank in the temple was higher than his, even though they have a lower rank in the noble hierarchy than him. It was considered a law. Living as an Imperial family member without divinity in the Holy Empire might be similar to living as a Holy Emperor suspected of being a witch.
The label of being a broken human would follow him like a shadow and drive him into a deep pit of deprivation and a sense of entitlement. Didn’t these feelings cause him to join the Holy Knights, which he wouldn’t have entered if he was treated well, and die on the battlefield?
If Fariel had lived a little longer, he might’ve met Sophia, gained stigma, and become one of her followers. Unfortunately, however, he died at the young age of 19 before Sophia had appeared. My uncle doesn’t seem to like me⋯⋯, but he’s still a family, and I couldn’t let him die so sadly and easily.
I waved my hand towards Fariel.
“Kkyaa!”
“Eoeo.”
Aunt Viola, who was holding me, held me tighter, as if embarrassed. But I didn’t give in.
“Ppyaaaa!”
We haven’t seen each other in a long time, and if I miss this opportunity, I don’t know when we will meet again. I can’t even go find Fariel so I struggled with discomfort.
“Why is the quiet baby suddenly doing this?”
My aunt looked at me, bewildered. My little aunt hugged me tightly and said to Fariel,
“I think she’s calling for you”.
“Me?”
Fariel pointed a finger at himself, confused, then looked back at my dad reflexively. Dad, who looked at me with shaky eyes, when I started to riot, hesitated for a moment at Fariel’s gaze, and then nodded without saying a word.
“Umm⋯⋯.”
Fariel approached me with a puzzled expression. I wiggled my arm at Fariel, who stood with a stiff posture. Fariel slowly crouches to me, understanding my gesture.
“Like this?”
I reached out to his forehead.
I’ve only seen Sophia baptize twice, but she put her hand on the foreheads like this. When John was baptized, the divinity gathered on his forehead. The stigma and divinity cannot be seen with the naked eye, but perhaps it is located nearby there.
My fingertips touched Fariel’s forehead. When my eyes met with the bewildered Fariel, I closed his eyes and gathered divinity at my fingertips.
This wasn’t difficult because I do it very often. Every time I entered the secret passage’s entrance, I made the divine pattern.
Divinity was originally invisible to the naked eye, but when a lot of divinity was used at once, it gave off a white light, and if it went one step higher, it gave off a golden light. I remembered the pattern I saw the other day when John was baptized.
A door that opens when you create a specific pattern with divinity. Ink sepia, used to draw a magic circle, with their property of ‘condensed magic’. Maybe the principles of these two were similar? There were no magic circles in the temple, so no one noticed.
‘To create the pattern, I have to condense a lot of divinity to the point of visibility.’
Probably something only divine beings can do.
Even Sophia, a real saint, was exhausted on the day she baptized. Since I’m not a saint, I think I’ll have to work even harder than that, so I poured all the divinity I had accumulated over the years into Fariel.
“Uh, what⋯⋯.”
Aunt Viola sounded shocked. I could feel people’s eyes turn towards us. When I slowly opened my eyes, a golden divinity was twinkling at my fingertips.
My eyes widened when I realized this.
The only thing I was anxious about was whether I could draw the divinity pattern I only had a glimpse of, over the Pope’s shoulder. However, when the golden divinity was on Fariel’s forehead, the divinity naturally formed the pattern.
‘Oh.’
Feeling like something was going to happen, I squeezed the last of my divinity. Then, the pattern of light became clearer and began to seep into Fariel’s forehead.
“That ⋯⋯.”
Dad looked surprised when he saw the pattern on his forehead.
It was yesterday that we all watched John’s baptism together, so everyone will remember that pattern.
“Ah.”
As the light on his forehead faded, Fariel fell backward like a man whose legs lost all their strength. My startled aunt took his arm.
“Fariel! Are you okay?”
“What?”
Fariel blinked blankly and patted his forehead. He didn’t seem to understand what had happened to him.
“Viola.”
“Yes?”
Then my dad came up to my young aunt and reached out to me. My aunt handed me over to my Dad. As he lowered his head in bewilderment, his eyes met mine as if he was looking at an alien.
“⋯⋯.”
“⋯⋯.”
I love my dad, but him looking at me with his sharp eyes made me tremble a little.
Dad raised his hand and it on my forehead as he looked at me. I looked at my father with serious and nervous eyes. His long fingers traced my face and grabbed my cheek lightly, and pulled it.
“Eh.”
I frowned and turned my face to the other side. My cheeks stretched even more. I was a little shocked.
When my father, who is a saint, realized something and took me, I didn’t realize that he wanted to play with my face. I felt nervous for no reason.
‘Now that my father is 18, so he’s not yet mature.’
I was trying my best to understand his actions, but my dad suddenly opened his mouth.
“Fariel.”
Fariel, who got up after being supported by my aunt, was called and looked back at us.
“Come here.”
Fariel still looked confused but obeyed my dad. Fariel, who approached us with nervous steps, stood awkwardly and looked up at my dad.
“You said you wanted to hug the baby.”
“Yes? No, that’s⋯⋯.”
“Hug her.”
“What?”
After the uproar a month ago, my dad bestowed me a holy relic of protection. So no one without stigma dared touch me. If Fariel was the same as before, he wouldn’t be able to touch me.
But my dad just pushed me into his arms without saying a word. At that moment, Fariel slowly reached out to me. With a face full of anxiety and strange anticipation, the protection relic wasn’t activated until he embraced me.
“How⋯⋯.”
There were sounds of startled voices and gasps coming from everywhere. The secretary who was organizing the papers and the servants stopped what they were doing and watched us with surprised eyes.
“How the hell did this happen?”
“I think, maybe⋯⋯.”
My nanny stuttered in response to the servants’ murmur.
“I think the baby baptized His Highness.”
“What? That is impossible.”
“But earlier, that’s what happens when you get stigma.”
My aunt came to Fariel with a look of bewilderment and grabbed his shoulder.
“Fariel, is that true?”
While people were talking in an exasperated voice or urged him, Fariel Fariel took turns looking at me and the relic hanging from my neck with a puzzled look.
At that moment, my dad quietly reached out and grabbed the relic on the end of my necklace, and handed it to Fariel.
“Remember what you saw in the gift textbook?“
Dad’s quiet voice reached my ear. He said this quietly because the gift textbook is a book that only official priests use when they receive education about holy relics and holy swords. Fariel, who has no stigma, read that book?
Fariel hesitated, and as if made up his mind, he took the holy relic of protection in his hand. He made eye contact with my dad and narrowed his forehead as if concentrating. I immediately realized
‘He’s infusing his divinity.’
Soon, the holy relic vibrated slightly and gave off a white light, and my aunt covered her mouth and stepped back. There was no evidence as convincing as divinity and stigma appearing to prove the baptism.
“Am I dreaming right now?”
“I don’t think so, your highness.”
‘Thank god.’
I looked up at Fariel with a mixture of surprise and pride. Fariel’s green eyes gleamed white, reflecting the sparkling holy relic.
My aunt lost her composure and shouted to summon the priest, and the servants opened the door in confusion and began to run out. Fariel, who I thought would be most agitated, was surprisingly calm.
Just then, Fariel turned to me. When our eyes met, I flinched and averted my gaze.
“⋯⋯ Heuk.”
I lifted my head at the sobbing I heard near me.
Fariel was crying.
“Heueug, kkeug.”
I didn’t know he was going to burst into tears.
Seeing that, somehow the tip of my nose wrinkled.
How desperate he must’ve wanted this.
Our first meeting was the worst, but the boy in front of me was just full of anxiety because of how different he was from everyone.
‘Dad, am I really a witch?’
Just like me in the past.
I felt like I could understand the alienation and fear he must have felt, so I hugged him tightly in my heart.