He raised his head. Some of the blankness had left his eyes, replaced by clearer worry and longing. His voice was still a little dry, but it had steadied a great deal.
"Your Lordship... Charlotte... what is she... doing now? Is she... and the child, are they both all right?"
Earl Rochefort picked up his pipe again and took a slow draw. Smoke curled upward, blurring his sharply chiseled face.
His gaze turned to the gray winter sky outside Fran City's window, his tone calm with a mixture of pride and complicated emotion.
"Earl Boles von Herax, the newly appointed Tri-Border Governor, has appointed her as Rhine Land Legion Commander. She is responsible for recruiting and training new troops in the Rhine Land region, and assisting in the suppression of the Bandits in Herwenham."
"Legion Commander..." Karl repeated the title in a low voice. There was no surprise on his pale face. Instead, a nearly bitter understanding appeared there, and... an even deeper pain.
That was who she was. Charlotte de Rochefort, who had fought shoulder to shoulder with him on the Northern Battlefield, who had commanded with calm assurance, valiant and spirited.
She had never been some delicate flower that needed to be kept in a secluded chamber, waiting for salvation.
Even after enduring the immense pressure of pregnancy, childbirth, and raising an infant alone, she could still straighten her spine, take up a sword, shoulder responsibility, prove her own worth through action, and protect everything she cherished.
That kind of Charlotte was dazzling, unyielding and unbroken, like an Edelweiss that never withered in the north.
Yet that blinding light now seemed like a cold mirror, reflecting his own baseness, his wavering, his wretchedness with perfect clarity. He had almost...
Intense inferiority and self-loathing wound around him like poison