In the soft glow of the Glintstone lamp, Nolan's figure seemed especially tall.
He slowly pushed open the door, every movement practiced and graceful, as if he had opened this door countless times before.
The Cleanrot Knights stood silently to the side, their eyes fixed on Nolan without making a sound.
There was no woman's cry, no guardian's drawn blade... the entire process remained peacefully calm, almost ceremonial.
The knights stood far around them like silent statues. Their presence was neither obtrusive nor did it interfere with Nolan's movements.
The more they watched, the more startled they became, until they could not help feeling genuine admiration from the bottom of their hearts.
What Nolan was doing was clearly not something they should be watching. More precisely, it was something they had never even imagined.
The relationship between Nolan and Malenia seemed completely different from the Lord and blade the knights understood.
Finlay, meanwhile, was busy helping her two lords and friends preserve their dignity and order.
With the respect of a subject facing her lord, she respectfully closed the door. A single glare from her made everyone afraid to look any further, deepening the knights' impression of her ferocity.
This had to be done. Subjects should not pry into their lord's private affairs without permission. Otherwise, if word spread, it would easily lead to ugly rumors and speculation.
Malenia sat quietly on the broad bed, her body leaning slightly forward, her blank gaze resting on the Glintstone lamp in the distance.
Beneath the Glintstone lamp stood a man. The light stretched his figure long across the floor, casting a blurred shadow.
At this moment, he stood far away, yet the two of them felt close enough to touch.
Malenia could not help taking a deep breath, but she still remained silent.
Her feelings were unusually complicated. There was a sense of satisfaction, mixed with an indescribable irritation.
She wanted to say, "You finally became mine." The words circled in her throat, yet she never spoke them.
Because she realized that the truth was exactly the opposite.
Originally, she should have been that sharp blade, cutting open his flesh countless times, binding herself closely to his blood and bones.
She wanted to see everything about him clearly, both outside and inside. She wanted to feel it all for herself and claim it as her own.
But now, the blade had been firmly grasped by someone else, and she herself had become his possession, just like any sword hanging at his waist or held in his hand.
The beginning of all this could be traced back to their meeting decades ago among the roots of the Haligtree. Back then, in everyone else's eyes, Nolan had seemed lonely and distant.
Only Malenia did not think so. Malenia's birth had made her life slightly different from others. Her life had never lacked pain.
At the time, Nolan had been gently held in her sister's arms, while Malenia stood alone ten meters away.
She quietly stared at Nolan, and Nolan's gaze also fell on her. Their eyes met, like two people from completely different worlds encountering each other by chance in that instant.
Kindred spirits.
That was what Malenia felt back then. She knew far too well what it looked like to be soaked in pain.
But after that brief instant of resonance, Malenia shook her head.
Faced with the child her sister held out to her, the Blade of Miquella showed hesitation for the first time and withdrew her hand.
Because that child's eyes looked over at her. That gaze made Malenia feel inferior, as if even her pain could not compare to his.
But that was not the true reason for Malenia's sense of inferiority. It was because, aside from the familiar things in those eyes, pain and numbness, there also seemed to be love and compassion.
She could not understand how those things could exist together. She had only ever seen such love in her father's eyes in the past, and even then, it had been charity hidden beneath authority.
But that kind of father had only been temporary. In the end, he too had become a cold monster completely unlike her mother, like a part in the great machine of the dynasty.
Trina walked past the Valkyrie with the child in her arms, looking puzzled. Malenia, who had not felt lost in a very long time, froze in place.
She turned her head to look in the direction the child had gone. Amid the twisted roots, the child in the gentle Saintess's arms was still looking at her.
So pained, so deathly still, so sorrowful, and yet so compassionate...
For a long time after that, she would often see those eyes. That dignified yet weary, silent yet compassionate gaze rested on the man she had always watched.
Whenever she looked at him, Malenia would wonder for no reason what had turned him into such a monster.
Yes, a monster. In Malenia's eyes, someone so complicated could only be a monster.
Even walking beneath the light of the Erdtree, he seemed to be alone in the darkness.
Even though he was filled with sorrow and deathly stillness inside, one still wanted to approach and embrace him, to feel the warmth outside him and calm one's restless heart.
During the decades this man spent at the Haligtree, the time they spent together might not even have amounted to two-thirds of it. But if their meetings in dreams counted, then they had seen each other almost every day.
What they did together was nothing more than talk of her sister, swordsmanship, and a kiss that always came every few years.
But what of it? He was the destined Lord chosen by her sister, and the blade would always remain by their side.
Until that night, when the Lord named Nolan came before Malenia leading ten thousand troops.
At that moment, she realized the man's eyes had changed, as if someone had awakened from years of deep sleep.
Those eyes were dazzlingly beautiful. The sorrow and deathly stillness were dimming, covered over by some unknown radiance.
Under the clouded moon, Malenia's heart beat restlessly. There was only one thought in her mind.
My kindred spirit is gone...
That was why Malenia ignored Trina's kind warning glance and issued her challenge. Why she rejected the man's offer to heal her. Why she set aside her dignity and went to him that night to ask for that kiss.
She would stop at nothing to crush that man and turn him back into someone like herself again.
She had never told anyone this, not even her brother or sister. Only Nolan knew, and he was willing to indulge her.
He could always see through other people's thoughts, though his habit of pretending to be stupid sometimes made Malenia furious.
"How do you feel? If you're uncomfortable, tell me directly. You've already experienced what the fire can do." Nolan stood by the bed, looking at Malenia's hands resting on her lap.
Malenia sat there quietly like a statue, neither speaking nor raising her head.
Her gaze fell unconsciously on her own perfectly whole right hand. This hand had once been corroded by corruption and left incomplete.
The Golden Order Dynasty's techniques were not incapable of regenerating severed limbs, but an arm eroded by corruption could not be restored no matter what.
Yet the Flame of Life had ignored corruption's final resistance. She had witnessed with her own eyes how this hand had grown from nothing.
"All right, let's get straight to the point. Trina and I discussed having you remain at the Haligtree. I came here now to convince you." Nolan sat down by the bed.
Malenia's body moved slightly, as if reacting to Nolan's words.
Just as Nolan was a little surprised by how strongly she reacted, Malenia suddenly raised her head, her burning gaze staring straight at him.
Before Nolan could make sense of it, Malenia had already seized that brief moment of distraction, reached out, grabbed his collar, and pulled him over.
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