Your Highness, The Lady You’ve Abandoned IS the Saintess!

Oh, Firman. Your disheveled bed head looked quite wonderful too, but your primped and polished well-ordered self is even more lovely.

The knight stood right at the dining room’s doorway, and his gaze, likely in trying to make sense of the situation before him, busily alternated between Maynard, Selma, and my way.

‘Aileen.’

The prince spoke, seemingly displeased by my enamored gaze towards Firman.

His hands outstretched towards my cheek and forcefully aligned my eyes in his direction.

Hey! It snapped just now! That was my neck snapping just now!

‘Aileen, we really need to carefully talk things out. Let’s take our time until we come to a resolution.’

But we have already arrived at one, sir!

The resolution that you speak of is the kind that goes your way anyway, right? That will never come, even if all my hair turns white!

‘Your highness, why don’t you try to seek happiness with Lina, instead? I shall be pursuing mine together with another splendid gentleman!’

When I gave emphasis to the word “another”, Maynard gazed upon me like an abandoned little puppy.

‘How could you suggest something so cruel?’

Do you see him, dearest readers!?

This man just audaciously shifted all the blame back at me!

Annoyed, I pinched the back of his hands firmly.

‘Your highness, listen. It WAS HIS HIGHNESS who wished to annul our engagement. That holds true, does it not? Pray tell, where does the cruelty lie in suggesting that you seek happiness with your newly attained fiancee?’

‘That’s a misunderstanding.’

‘Where in heavens is the misunderstanding there!!?’

I went ahead and discarded my maiden’s mask.

Huh? I wasn’t acting like one in the first place, you say? You’re all wrong, readers. It may look like so to you, but I’ve been holding out my anger the entire time. The company is still a prince after all.

When I pinched his hands even more strongly, Maynard’s face grimaced, and finally took his hands off my face.

‘Your highness, the both of us may have spent eighteen years of our lives engaged but—’

‘That’s right! Do you understand now?’

Stop speaking over me, you silly prince!

When I gave him a rigid reproachful stare, the prince closed his mouth firm.

I coughed to clear my throat and thrust my pointing finger right at him.

‘With our engagement annulled, you and I are unrelated to one another, sir! We are not lovers, nor friends, nor of any blood relation—or perhaps some—but anyway, his highness does not have even the slightest speck of any moral entitlement to delay my happiness. I wish to seek it in a man other than you, sir Maynard! Do cease your euphemistic play on your own past deeds in order to circumvent things to your convenience.’

This time I vigorously fired my words one after another without leaving any leeway for him cut to in.

Ah, I feel cathartic.

Now that I feel satisfied, I waved my hands towards him like I was shooing a mongrel.

‘If you understand, please do leave. I wish to partake my breakfast with pea—’

‘Aileen!’

‘…Your highness, please!’

Maynard grasped my hand tightly.

Let-go-of-me!

I shook my hands repeatedly to be freed from his grasps, but his hands kept a firm hold and were glued to mine like octopus’ tentacle suction pads.

Furthermore, there was an impressed look in his teary eyes as though they were overcome with emotions.

‘Aileen! I was wrong! I didn’t think that you would be hurt that much. I did not know that you loved me so much. Worry not, this time I will never let you—buhh!’

I summoned the strength to my free hand to push his face away.

‘Just how did you even possibly arrive at that conclusion, sir!?’

As for being hurt, that was quite true though!

But I said those things not because I was still bitter, but only to state facts; he and I are of no relations anymore!

Is his head connected to some otherworldly dimension where it’s reasonable!? This is beyond loose screws, I’d say quite a number of them are already unscrewed and flown away!

I was about to go mad due to anger and mental fatigue and saw Firman looking back.

Would I be a bother to him if I ask for his help?

I do not know what rank Firman holds in the knight order, but no mere knight could ever hope to oppose a prince.

But I do not know what kind of political influence a saintess holds either so he can do everything in my name and jump away at the prince!—That is how I would’ve gone about it, but no threat could ever hope to fuel me to do that.

Looks like I have to send away this moronic prince with my own strength. I’m so exhausted. It’s way too early but I feel like I’ve already used today’s worth of stamina and willpower to their last drop.

‘Your highness, would you please…’

Why is this person so fixated on saintesses anyway?

They are important beings for sure. But going to such lengths as to courting the woman you’ve abandoned before is just tantamount to discarding your pride altogether.

He has always been foolish, and although he was never the prideful kind, I don’t think this calm and proper prince by the name of Maynard was the sort to not mind appearances.

Sir, you may call me a saintess or whatnots, but nothing has changed in me since my declaration as one, you know? My healing prowess is the same as ever, and the title did not come with any sort of invincible skill either.

The label was just attached to my name, that is all. Just like a marriage changing one’s surname.

Frankly speaking, I do not know what saintesses are, but what makes you so desperate to obtain a powerless doll whose only benefit to the kingdom is ‘existing’.

Sooner or later, I may be hard-pressed to learn about saintesses with having declared one myself, but right now, the label is all there is to me, sir. That’s as far as my awareness about it goes.

Even the previous saintess, the late wife of his majesty’s younger brother only makes an appearance at parties, and I have not heard of her doing anything that involves the title either. Rather, I feel like she had only done her best to never rise to the surface world and live her life within the confines of the castle walls. Well, that’s probably a measure to prevent her from being snatched by foreign powers though.

What I’m trying to say here, sir, is that even if I marry you—which of course, I won’t—I will be nothing but a living doll within the castle walls.

Would the idea of such a saintess be so much agreeable to you, sir, that you would go to such lengths to acquire it and protect it on your own?

The undertaking has not dawned upon me yet sir, and although I do think that the label of a saintess would likely bring so much change to my life, as of now, it only made my shoulder feel slightly heavier.

‘This is for your sake too, Aileen.’

Prince Maynard says as he grasped my hand tightly.

I was about to take a deep breathe out of disdain but suddenly—

‘With all due respect, highness—’

Firman who was standing at the doorway all this time, was suddenly right next to me before I even noticed, and held me by the shoulders as if to protect me from harm.

‘I will not hand Miss Aileen to you, sir.’

His declarations are made plain and clear, and I stare at him in sheer amazement.