Chapter 15

Kalion and Erna had been able to increase their powers while their respective countries had been distracted by the war against foreign countries. However, they had now entered a truce and slowly prepared for a peace treaty and the war would most likely be over by the end of the year. If that were to be the case, the two countries would then reach out to Hessenguard, which had been neglected during this time.

We have to finish all of this before that happens, Kalion thought, feeling the pressure.

Suddenly Erna became nervous too, she too was thinking the same as Kalion, and having received confirmation from his lips, she felt that they were pressed for time.

“I hope to make a successor with you as soon as I can. If we do, I think that you can delay your visit to both countries, under the pretext of your stability,” said Kalion.

“Alright. That would be a good idea. It will be hard for me, but you’ll be able to move comfortably and if they complain, I’ll just use my magic to make one of the men pregnant or something,” she said, trying to add a bit of humor to the serious situation.

Kalion’s face remained unchanged at Erna’s attempt to make him smile. Then he said something without thinking, “I’m not sure if someone as tiny and thin as you are can endure pregnancy though.”    Realizing the stupidity of what he’d just said, Kalion quickly shut his mouth. What am I saying? What a ridiculous thing to say. Tiny and thin? Did I say that? Not everyone saw it at first because she had such good body proportions and she was about half a head taller than other women. Rather than thin, her body was more on the shapely side.

On the other hand, Erna thought: Is he saying that I’m weaker than he is? If someone else were to say that, she’d be highly pissed off, but seeing that it’d come from Kalion, she had no choice but to accept his words, since they’d been going at it like this for ten years.

“Anyway, I hope we can finish all of this by the end of the month. So let’s promise to do it to the best of our abilities,” he said.

Erna nodded at Kalion, whose attitude seemed to care less about what she thought. If that kind of a spell were real, she’d use it on him right away.

“Alright, as we agreed to, let’s try to spend more time together. As for the location… I don’t think there’s a more appropriate place than here.”

She didn’t want to go to Kalion’s room and Kalion had no desire to go to Erna’s room, so this was the only place for the two to stay.

They yawned at the same time feeling drained by all the discussions. One hour later they would reach an agreement on a few matters: Firstly, they would stay in their marital bedroom from 10:00 p.m. until 12:00 a.m., (except when they were away on official business); secondly, on the fifth day they would copulate; thirdly, on the seventh day, they would take a break from each other to rejuvenate mental health!

They wondered what the hell they were doing writing these guidelines on an official letterhead, but it was a joint decision to do so, in case one of them tried to back out of the agreement. As soon as the rules were decided they agreed to start the following day and returned to their respective rooms. They buried their faces in the comfort of their soft white fluffy pillows and drifted off to sleep, feeling an underlying sense of shame; neither of them would get a good night’s rest.

* * *

Once they agreed to try to get used to each other’s company, the two kept their promises. At ten o’clock in the evening, Erna walked into their cozy marital bedroom, and Kalion, who normally arrived there first, was sitting on the emerald-green sofa, preoccupied with some work. She went over to the tea-table on the other side of the room, picked up one of his papers, and started looking over it.

Although they were in a position to have a friendly conversation, neither one of them felt like doing so; they were in the same space, but no words were exchanged. This was going to be more difficult than they thought.

The room was silent, with only the sound of the firewood crackling and the pages of the documents moving about on the table. On this first night, watching Kalion sit near her for so long was an eyesore for Erna. Every time he moved, stood up, or stretched, her body jolted with surprise. This was her reaction to the uncomfortable situation. Normally at this time, she would be in her room working alone. But, seeing now that she had to spend time with her big-pain-in-the-ass husband, it was only natural for her to watch his every move. Thankfully, she wasn’t the only one who felt like that. As she was writing down additional instructions on the paper, she accidentally dropped her pen and it rolled toward Kalion, making him flinch. She could tell by his actions that he’d put up a wall. After realizing that she wasn’t the only one on edge, her troubled mind felt a little more at ease.

The next day, Vanessa, the head of the parliament, came looking for Erna. “Here is a copy of what we decided on in the meeting. Since there are a lot of essential things to do, I think it will be good if you went over it carefully.”

Sighing at what appeared to be ten times more documents than usual, Erna arrived at the couple’s bedroom that evening hugging them in her arms. Could it be? The same documents she’d just received were stacked in front of Kalion. They started reading them together, silently. Like Vanessa had said, there were lots of important things to do. While flipping through the pages, Erna took notes on the parts she wasn’t sure about or things she needed to remember. Then, her eyes stopped on something peculiar. ‘… as a result, we would like to request a review of Ilgees.’

“Where is Ilgees?” she mumbled to herself.

Mumbling to herself was an old habit. At night, she sat in her room and worked alone, so because she never had to care whether someone heard her or not, she was unaware that she was mumbling to herself while reading the documents in front of Kalion.

The moment she said the name of the area, she heard Kalion’s voice. “It’s the name of a forest northwest of the capital.”

Not expecting an answer to her question, she was startled and dropped her pen again. “What are you doing, surprising me like that?”

“Didn’t you ask where Ilgees is?” Kalion stared at her as if he was annoyed when she’d asked.

“I was talking to myself. You don’t have to pay attention, it’s just a habit of mine.”

“Is that so?” Kalion, who knew the question hadn’t been for him, nodded indifferently and immersed himself in the documents. Erna was also about to do the same but a huge map of Hessenguard hanging on one side of the room caught her attention.

When something sparked her interest she was the type who usually didn’t stop until her curiosity was satisfied, and she was now curious about the exact location of Ilgees. She’d been thinking about going back to her room and bringing her map but instead got up and approached this one.

Where is this forest northwest of the capital? she wondered.

Erna had almost all of the names of Hessenguard’s areas memorized, so her confidence was shattered at the fact that a place unknown to her had come up. And it was all the more embarrassing now that Kalion knew that too.

She scanned the northwestern region of the capital. The map had lots of forests, many of them named by region, and their names were tightly written in a box on the map. On top of that, the map had been made quite a long time ago, and the names were written in exaggerated cursive which wasn’t easy to read and so she spent a long time looking for Ilgees, but it was to no avail. Erna looked closely at the map, squinting her eyes to find the damn forest. All of a sudden a big shadow appeared from behind, enveloping her.

Shocked–once again–she was about to turn around when a rough arm shot out over her shoulder and pointed to one part of the map.

“It’s here.”

Erna looked at where Kalion’s finger pressed. Written in very tiny letters was the name ‘Ilgees’. She should thank him for finding the place she’d been looking for, however, those words could not escape her mouth so easily.

‘Thank you,’ the two words she never, ever wanted to say to Kalion. While Erna stood with a mouth full of teeth, Kalion returned to his seat and sank into the soft cushion.

“If you’re done, hurry and get back to your seat. You’re making me nervous wandering around like that.”

Erna felt discomfort in his words. Thank goodness she hadn’t thanked him. After Kalion let her know where Ilgees was, they didn’t converse anymore. When midnight came around, they jumped up from their seats, took their documents, and returned to their respective rooms.

The next day, Erna left earlier and headed down the long hall towards their marital bedroom. She clutched the documents in her hands and thought to herself confidently, the sofa is mine today.

The only large table in the couple’s bedroom was in front of the emerald-green sofa. For Erna, who always used a big table because she liked to look at documents set out with the pages next to each other, the small table hadn’t worked at all yesterday.

At 9:30 p.m., she opened the door of the shared bedroom. He’s not here. Kalion had always arrived before she did, and he seemed to arrive half an hour early. Erna hurriedly rushed in and threw her documents down on the table in front of the large sofa. I should have done this last time, she told herself.

Looking down at her documents adorning the spacious wooden table, she felt satisfied and a smile spread across her face. The table wasn’t the only comfortable thing, she also stretched out on the sofa and took her slippers off. When she worked alone in her room, she often looked through documents while laying like this but she had to cover the chandelier and dim the lights to keep from squinting, and so, she had used a magic spell to create better lighting instead. She used the same spell now, in the hopes of making this room more like her own.