Lovers Beyond the Mirror

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Chapter 9 – Desert Bride (4)

After Anulla left, Seriana continued to fault herself for her stupidity.

Yes, she was the spoil of war.

She wasn’t great enough to be treated like this.

Ashamed, Seriana could not lift her head, as Anulla’s scorn reminded her of the status that Chiarin’s favor had allowed her to forget.

‘Like my mother said, I must be a fool. I couldn’t think of anything but the idea of ​​being the bride of Vaisha.’

She had to quickly figure out what could and should not be done.

Her mistakes will harm herself as well as Rajen.

In addition, if she repeats that mistake, she will not be able to be with him.

“Ranua? Are you okay? Cold sweat……!”

“No, no……. I’m, I’m tired.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. I will prepare bathwater! If you wash thoroughly and get a massage, it will relieve your fatigue quickly.”

“…… thank you.”

Chiarin’s anger at Anulla was quickly overwhelmed by her concern for Seriana, so with two brief claps she summoned maids who rushed through the room’s right side door.

Unlike the others, the black-veiled followed Chiarin’s small hand signal and skillfully began preparing a bath.

The bathwater, which was neither cold nor hot, was prepared for immersing her body, and undressed by the maids, Seriana stepped to the side of the tub.

There was a nice scent in the water, sprinkled with red petals.

“The petals of Larman. If you inhale deeply, it helps to relieve fatigue.”

Chiarin continued her words, passing a thin white robe to the maid.

The maid assisted Seriana with the robe while Seriana listened to Chiarin.

“In Chaitun, it is common to wear a bathrobe so that the petals or herbs floating in the bathwater do not damage the skin. Things that grow in the desert are beautiful, but they have thorns.”

“Do they all have thorns?”

“It’s also good to be careful and to think it’s everything. In fact, most plants are covered in thorns.”

“I see.”

As Seriana took the maid’s hand and plunged into the bathtub, she closed her eyes as she felt the thin wet robe clinging to her skin.

Whether there were waves in the small bathtub, the thin cloth moved with the water and the petals tickled as they touched her.

It wasn’t a bad feeling.

As she leaned back in the bathtub, a maid came and started braiding Seriana’s luscious hair.

Secured so it didn’t interfere with washing, still, a few red petals clung to the lightly braided hair, creating a bizarre landscape.

‘I thought she was just skinny!’

Surprised, Chiarin noticed Seriana’s perfect feminine curves, exposed by the clinging of the wet robe.

She had been unaware as Seriana wore clothing that covered her body to protect her skin, which was not used to in the scorching heat of the desert.

Her body wasn’t as strong as the Chaitun women, but the line between her slender neck, the prominent collarbone, and the bulging breasts were beautiful.

What about the flat belly and long legs beneath it!

Chiarin nodded her head with satisfaction as she watched water drip from her fingers holding the tub edge, drop by drop onto the floor.

Chiarin had never before admired beauty in other women because she herself was beautiful.

But lying in the bathtub, Seriana was beautiful enough to draw her admiration.

‘Even if she’s not the Ranua that Kudra greeted with love, I’m sure he’ll like it.’

Chiarin recalled Vaisha and was convinced.

Before he was Kudra, Vaisha was a friend she had grown up with since childhood.

Despite the age difference, he felt like a friend of the same age and, very occasionally, like a brother, he was a man with a daring disposition, and that disposition was not unique to one thing.

On top of that, Vaisha used to speak like a habit.

That his own love would only be directed towards his Ranua. He was twenty-five this year, and he was a man at the most energetic age, but Vaisha didn’t come close to women, as if to keep his oath.

‘Anulla threw her body a few times, but he ignored them all.’

When she remembered Anulla’s rudeness when visiting Ranua, she clenched her jaw again.

‘I think you should seriously warn Nurabi.’

The rudeness of a child was the parents’ responsibility.

Anulla explicitly considered herself his servant and would not hesitate to sneak into Kudra’s bedroom.

Additionally, Chiarin thought that appearance just before was far beyond mild danger.

At this rate, not only Anulla, but also the Shika tribe would fall outside the eyes of Vaisha.

The Shika tribe was a tribe that was still useful to Vaisha.

By the time he completely unified the desert, he had to leave as many hands as possible to use.

“Ranua, you need to get out before the water cools down.”

“Hmm.”

Pushing thoughts of Anulla away, Chiarin focused on Seriana again.

It was a million times better for her to focus on the Master before her than that woman.

Later that night, Seriana leaned against the still awkward window of her own room and stared at the moonlit oasis.

She was unable to sleep, as a new concern, provoked by the meeting with Anulla, was bothering her.

‘Is Mother okay?’

She wasn’t a good person, but Seriana still worried about her mother, left alone at County Fjord.

Ellaire was not welcome anywhere in Rajen.

And it was the same in the County, so Seriana couldn’t stop worrying about her.

‘She’s not the kind of person who gets hurt by that, but…….’

Less than a week after the death of Count Fjord’s first wife, Ellaire, who bore the King’s child, married the Count and became Countess.

No one in the mansion welcomed her.

Count Fjord had received his title in exchange for marrying her and did not welcome her either, so from the first day she entered the County until the present, Ellaire had never slept with the Count.

And young Lucardo, grieving the loss of his mother, raged against his father every day and denounced his new stepmother.

He was angry as if the two had stolen his mother.

Later, when he learned that his father had been given the title of Count and received Ellaire as his wife upon the King’s order, his anger toward his father subsided to some extent.

But his enmity against the Countess continued, and he hated even her daughter Seriana.

‘Mother didn’t deal with him at all, so he would have had no choice but to focus on me.’

Seriana could understand Lucardo.

Even though he was furious and insulted her, her mother ignored Lucardo as if hearing a passing dog barking.

The Count’s young son was not worth caring about.

So it was only natural that his anger was fixed on Seriana.

‘How he hated me for walking around and calling him family.’

Seriana discovered it on her 8th birthday.

It was the day she shed the most tears since she was born.

And from that day on, she began to crouch down so as not to be noticed in the County.

When she saw Lucardo in the distance, she turned around and ran away.

The fact that her very existence made other people angry depressed her, and she shed tears every day.

Fearing that she would be hated even more if she was caught crying, she found a place where she could cry without anyone knowing.

“Then I met Vaisha…… No, it wasn’t a bad thing to meet him.”

The child that cried every day learned to hold back her tears as she watched the man in the mirror, and she learned how to control her emotions alone.

The image of the man reflected through the cold mirror surface was so dazzling.

She thought that she wanted to be like him.

And that thought evolved into love.

“…… I never thought I’d be able to meet him…….”

But she did, and she became the wife of that man, Vaisha.

If this is not a miracle, then what should she call a miracle?

Seriana looked down at the oasis illuminated by the night sky, she thought, as time passed, she wanted to see him again.

“If I go a little down the road toward the window…… Did they say oasis?”

As her thoughts flowed, it reached an oasis.

Seriana recalled Chiarin’s explanation and looked down for a moment to see what she was wearing.

Pajamas, as light and pure white as the bathing robe.

Unlike Rajen, it was nice to have no undergarments constricting the woman’s body, but just the one piece of underwear was all she wore under the pajamas that fell below her knees.

To put it simply, it was like a thin cloth was wrapped around her naked body. It was absolutely unsuitable for going out.

“She said that the boundaries around the oasis are strict…….”

The oasis at the back of the palace was strictly forbidden for people to enter.

The water flowing from another spring on the rocky mountain was distributed to the people of the desert without discrimination, but the oasis facing the palace was reserved.

A place for Kudra and Ranua, the children of Helaim. And a place with the strictest boundaries, inaccessible to anyone with an impure purpose. That was the reason Ranua’s room faced the oasis.

“Isn’t it okay if I take a look for a moment?”

Seriana patted her pajamas with her fingers and looked out the large window.

It was something the Seriana in Rajen could never have imagined.

But the strange air of the desert gave Seriana courage.

She crept out of her room through the large window, moving in clumsily, and Seriana began to walk slowly along the road, feeling its bumps through the soles of her thin slippers.

In the middle of the thick grass, there was a path where no grass had grown, as if it had been visited by people for a long time.

Not long after she started walking along the road, her view brightened.

“Wow…….”

It was a huge oasis containing the round moon in the sky.

When she looked out the window, it felt big, but the oasis she saw up close was nothing compared to that.

Seriana slowly started walking again toward the oasis in front of her.

She could feel without looking that the bumpy ground turned into hard but soft sand.

‘Beautiful…….’

It was beautiful.

It was a beauty that didn’t feel real.

Could this be a place made by the hand of God, not man? Seriana stopped moving without realizing it, and she stood watching as the wind gently brushed past her and caressed the waters of the oasis.

The shadow of the moon fluttered, and the sound of grass dancing in the wind was heard.

This wasn’t the first time Seriana had seen the oasis.

Beyond the mirror Vaisha often used to swim in the oasis.

Sometimes it was a moonlit evening and sometimes it was a sunny day.

There were days when it was raining so much that it was hard to tell what was ahead.

As she watched him like that, Seriana had to admit that she had a very poor imagination, as she had envisioned the whole picture of the oasis in her own way.

She had read a lot of books and thought that it would not be enough, but she was alone in her delusion.

Seriana started to step back slowly with a dazed face.

As she walked towards the oasis without even blinking, it was as if she was possessed.

“It’s forbidden to dip into the oasis with shoes on.”

She was awakened by the sudden sound of a voice, and Seriana stopped with a bewildered look on her face and looked around.

Had it not been for the voice, she would have continued so enchantedly that she would have fallen into the oasis.

It was a slightly dangerous moment for her as she did not know how to swim.

“Looks like my Ranua enjoys night walks.”

Turning her head toward the voice, over the sound of the rippling waves, Seriana could see a man walking toward her from inside the oasis.

From the moon-shadowed face, intensely luminous amber eyes stared at Seriana.

“Or are you interested in swimming?”

“Ku, Kudra…….”

Vaisha’s dark hair was wet and clinging to his dark skin, as if he had enjoyed swimming a while ago.

The moonlight gave it a strange color.

Seriana gulped as she moved her gaze involuntarily to follow the water drops running down Vaisha’s muscular torso and arms.

At the dizzying visual impact of the man’s wet body, she trembled and felt goosebumps arise.

“Ranua?”

“I…… So…… I want to see, the oasis, for a moment…….”

“Oh, you went for a night walk.”

Seriana turned her head as she blushed seeing him completely exit the water.

From her point of view, he looked naked.

And Seriana didn’t have the courage to look straight into the face of such a Vaisha.

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────