Grant Me Your Grace

Perhaps this night was also a dream.

If it’s not a dream, how could I be so helpless? 

Why am I so lost, and so confused?

How… how come I feel so desperate?

As if I’m finally facing something I’ve forgotten.

“May the Goddess Nuit be with you tonight, Your Highness.”

Kissing the back of Dahlia’s hand, again covered in black silk, Hissin entered the temple first.

Dahlia stood there for a long time, unable to move, as the man vanished like a mirage. Her heartfelt heavy in the center of her chest, as though it were a rock.

Guilt for committing an unholy act in the temple. Or self-pity for not being able to push the Hissin away even though she knew it was wrong.

Or maybe it was pure compassion for Hissin’s smile, which seemed somehow wistful.

Dahlia couldn’t figure out why she was feeling this way, and all she could do was swallow the nameless emotion that was filling her throat.

Pressing hard against her chest, Dahlia gradually realized that something had changed in her body. 

The pain that had been plaguing her for the past month. She couldn’t feel it.

Dahlia hastily untied the laces that Hissin had tied and pulled down the sleeves of her dress. Her eyes widened at the sight of her arm exposed in the dim moonlight.

“No way…”

The red spots that had covered the skin a moment ago were gone.

Clean, without a trace.

The throbbing pain was gone. No matter how much I wiggled, I didn’t feel a single dull ache, not even the sharp pain of crushed bone.

The price of blood was gone.

Contact with Hissin, his warmth seeping into me.

Dahlia’s mouth gaped open, and she stared at the temple where Hissin had vanished.

“Gift of the gods. A gift from the gods!”

She called urgently for him, but there was no sign of his return.

“…Hissin!”

I called his name a little louder, but still no sign of him.

Part of me wanted to go inside the temple to look for him, but it would cause a huge uproar if the priests saw me.

Besides, she had no explanation for meeting with Hissin alone on this night. With her lips locked together, Dahlia clutched her left arm tightly, feeling an indescribable emotion.

Hope. It was a ray of light, something she had never been allowed to feel before.

“The Goddess Nuit will be with me… Manla.”

Dahlia silently thanked the goddess with tears in her eyes.

The moon, peeking through the clouds, watched over her for a long moment.

✨

Standing by the window, Dahlia raised her left arm to the bright sun. The dazzling sunlight pierced through her straight fingers and spilled onto her face.

A smile spread across her face at the sight of her clear skin.

By morning, the red spots hadn’t returned. The pain had disappeared overnight, and her hands felt lighter than they had before the red spots appeared.

I stayed up all night thinking about it, but there was only one answer.

A gift from the gods had quelled the cost of blood.

The circumstances were too exquisite to be a coincidence. 

Unlike the previous red spots, which had gradually faded over time, the spots had disappeared all at once after both encounters with Hissin.

Of course, the previous contact was a dream, but dreams are often used by the gods to communicate much to humans. 

The goddess must have told me this in a dream.

‘Maybe… maybe she came to me in my dreams on purpose.’

A brief moment of amusement.

Dahlia’s smile faded, and she covered her mouth at the thought. A wave of embarrassment washed over her.

The fact that Hissin himself had come to my dreams meant that he must have remembered my bare-chested, scowling behavior.

“No. I don’t think so, then, I hope not.”

Shaking her head, Dahlia muttered to herself, denying the thought. The thought alone was unbearably shameful.

Dahlia exhaled and held her palm out in front of her again. The sunlight glinted off her white palms. She slowly curled her hand into a ball and squeezed it, trapping the sunlight within.

The warmth seemed to flow through her body.

With the gift of the gods, the price of blood no longer frightens her. No matter how excruciating the pain, it would all disappear when I made contact with Hissin.

“Goddess Nuit is finally taking care of me.”

It was the first time I had willpower in my helpless heart.

Just then, Bertha knocked on the door and entered.

“Your Majesty, Lewisia has bloomed again!”

Bertha held up a potted plant. Five pink flowers bloomed in a cluster at the end of a plant that resembled a small palm tree covered in green leaves.

The flowers had fallen off last fall, and I hadn’t seen them for a while, wondering if they’d stopped blooming. After a long sleep, they seemed to have reappeared.

“They’re so pretty and cute, aren’t they? I thought you’d like them, so I brought them right away. They need lots of sunlight to grow, so I’ll leave them here.”

With a chattering, Bertha placed the pot on the window sill.

Dahlia put her nose close to the lewisia flower and inhaled its scent. A faint scent wafted from the plump, watered petals on the long, stretched stalk.

“It’s quite high up on the stalk. I’ll be able to see these flowers for a long time.”

Looking at Dahlia, who seemed to be in such high spirits, Bertha smiled even more brightly.

“Yes, it’s a pretty flower, just like its name.”

“Does this flower have a flower meaning?”

“Yes. Every flower has a meaning.”

The poor gardener’s eldest daughter, Bertha, ran her fingertips across the pink petals of the lewisia and giggled.

“Pink Lewisia’s flower language is angel tears, and healing.”

“Angel tears, healing…”

Dahlia muttered the flower language that Bertha had taught her. It was somehow noble.

“Your Majesty, Priest Hovan is here.”

Just then, another maid came to announce Hovan’s visit. Dahlia asked Bertha for tea and refreshments, then invited Hovan in.

“May I see the Princess?”

Hovan bowed politely to Dahlia. Rising from his seat to take a seat at the table, Hovan smiled at the sight of Lewisia by the window.

“I see, Lewisia has bloomed again.”

“Yes. Bertha saw it and brought some back.”

“The roots are excellent for curing sore throats.”

At Hovan’s words, Dahlia looked enlightened.

“So the flower’s meaning is healing.”

“It is a useful plant in many ways.”

The mention of healing suddenly reminded her of the price of blood, and Hovan looked at Dahlia’s left arm and asked cautiously.

“Are you feeling any better?”

“What? Uh, yeah… much better.”

Dahlia smiled awkwardly and pulled down her sleeve, worried that Hovan would think it was weird to see that the spot was gone.

The only way she could tell him that the spot was gone was if she told him about Hissin kissing her hand, and that was something she could never reveal.

Even if the act was to erase the mark, it was still the same as a chaste, unmarried maiden giving herself to a stranger.

Even if he was a gift from the goddess.

“I’m glad to hear that the Princess has recovered so quickly.”

Fortunately, Hovan seemed to believe her without question. Rising from her seat, Dahlia changed the subject, grabbing a set of math books from the bookshelf.

“Today we’re going to work on math. I think we even learned the formula for calculating the volume of a prism last time…”

“Good, then let’s do some application problems today.”

While Hovan’s reason for coming to the Princess’s palace was ‘administrative’, the real reason was to provide Dahlia with a quality education.

The clergy of Baran are trained in many disciplines, not just theology. Philosophy, politics, languages, and the arts, including musical instruments and archery, make up the clerics, and they are arguably the best intellectuals in the country.

Therefore, Hovan taught Dahlia a variety of subjects for the sake of Dahlia, who was not allowed to leave the palace or meet outsiders.

In a sense, Hovan became Dahlia’s mentor.

He told her stories of other countries she didn’t know, and taught her how to see the world through her mind and heart instead of her eyes.

In particular, Hovan was skilled at predicting the weather through nature, literature, and archery. 

Through mystical tales of nature, deep literary works, and archery lessons, she taught Dalia how to control the mind.

Once in the Princess’s Palace, it was the lake that connected her to the world and trained her body and mind. Dahlia followed him closely.

One day, while she was working on a problem, she suddenly remembered something and asked.

“By the way, Priest Hovan. When will I be able to read Philosephone’s next novel?”

At her question, Hovan blinked at her, puzzled.