Grant Me Your Grace

“…Your Highness. Your Imperial Princess!”

“Mmm…”

A familiar voice tickled her ear. The voice became clearer as consciousness slowly surfaced.

“Your Highness, please open your eyes, Your Highness!”

Dahlia groaned and lifted her heavy eyelids. Beyond her blurred vision, the flickering candlelight cast shadows on Bertha’s face.

“Bertha…?”

“Your Highness, are you awake?”

A glimmer of relief flashed across Bertha’s stricken face.

“I woke you because you were so distressed. Did you have a nightmare or something?”

Nightmare? Dahlia turned her head and looked around the room. Hissin, who had taken over atop my body a moment ago, was nowhere to be seen, only a startled Bertha staring at me.

“Wasn’t someone in my room just now?”

“Your chamber? That can’t be right, even our maids don’t dare enter when you’re asleep, but today you seemed so afflicted that I had no choice but to come in…”

Dahlia let out a shaky breath in disbelief. Was it really a dream, she wondered, still feeling his hands on her body so vividly.

Her stomach tingled as she remembered Hissin’s tongue insistently exploring her chest. 

Dahlia moved her arm without Bertha’s knowledge and traced her breasts. She could feel the swollen buds, puffy and tender where Hissin had sucked them.

Embarrassed, Dahlia squirmed around, turning away from Bertha. At that moment, she felt even further flustered.

“Oh…”

There was dampness between her legs. Her underwear must have gotten soaked. The dream had turned things up a notch.

Burying her face in her pillow, Dahlia swallowed hard at her embarrassment and turned to Bertha.

“Bertha… get me some bath water.”

“Bathwater? It’s still a long way from daylight, Your Highness.” 

“I had a nightmare, and I’m sweaty, I don’t want to go back to sleep like this.”

“Oh, of course, yes, Your Majesty. Just a moment.”

Bertha left the room in a huff, believing Dahlia had suffered a terrible nightmare.

Left alone, Dahlia staggered to her feet. Her soaked underwear made it hard to sit up straight.

Finally, she got out of bed and walked over to the window to calm her nerves. The dusky dawn light bathed the entire palace in blue.

As she opened her eyes, she could see the temple in the distance. Dahlia stared at the temple, her eyes filled with confusion as she rubbed the dots on her right hand out of habit.

“Why do I have to…”

To have such a vile dream about a man she had only spoken to once, she felt utterly ashamed and mortified, as if she had committed yet another sin of immorality.

“I read in a book that healthy men sometimes hold the woman of their dreams…”

But that’s not something that only happens to men. I’m a woman, and I don’t dare to embrace the gift of god in my heart.

“Who am I to hold someone in my heart…”

Dahlia muttered to herself and buried her face in her hands. Her cheeks were bright red beneath her palms.

She wished she could just wipe the memory of the dream away.

[Your body exudes the scent of figs.]

[It’s so sweet it makes my throat ache, and I want to chew and swallow you whole.]

The harder I tried to forget, the more vivid the dream kept getting. Worse, the sensation of hearing his words and feeling his lewd touch intensified, making my chest swell and the heat between my legs rise once again.

Dahlia’s eyes blurred again with the wicked pleasure she’d never felt before.

“Your Highness, your bath is ready.”

“Ah, yes. I’m coming.”

Startled, Dahlia quickly pushed her lustful thoughts away from the window.

But after three or four steps, her feet stopped dead in their tracks. Bertha tilted her head, puzzled by Dahlia’s sudden stiffness.

“Your Highness, can I help you?”

Dahlia didn’t move at Bertha’s call. Instead, she slowly raised her hand and shook her head.

The long red spot that ran horizontally across her palm was gone.

“…Bertha. Can you turn around for a second?”

“What? Ah… yes.”

Hearing Dahlia’s faintly trembling voice, Bertha quickly spun around without realizing it. Seeing that Bertha wasn’t looking her way, Dahlia pulled down her thin nightgown.

‘There’s nothing.’

Like her palms, the red spots that had covered her chest until just before she fell asleep were gone.

The pain was excruciating, like a bloody curse.

‘…No way.’

Dahlia’s eyes trembled slightly.

The image of Hissin in her dream, caressing the area near her heart, filled her mind.

✨

It had been two months since Hissin had appeared in the country of Bahran.

He still couldn’t remember anything but his name, but now no one in Bahran could doubt that he was a gift from the gods.

This was because of the miracles that had occurred in Bahran since his arrival.

The first miracle was the revitalization of the land. The Bunta region had long been called ‘the dead land,’ a barren place where not a single weed could grow.

The country was blessed with a large plateau, and several attempts to cultivate the land had failed due to the thick salinity of the soil.

Suddenly, this dead land became fertile. Green grass began to sprout, and soon animals that had left the land moved in, creating a thriving habitat.

The villagers began to praise Hissin, believing that this was a miracle caused by a gift from the gods.

The second miracle occurred in the river. Many rivers flow from the Tibara Mountains surrounding Bahran, and one of them, the Beal River, had gone rotten a decade earlier. 

Its waters had contaminated the surrounding land, making it barren.

However, the river began to flow cleanly again the day Hissin appeared in Bahran. 

The river once flowed so clear and pure that it was said to be the essence of the Tibara Mountains. The surrounding land became naturally fertile.

A gift from the gods to save the nation of Bahran. The people, who firmly believed in the prophecy, flocked to the god’s gift, enthusiastic about the miracles that had occurred.

“May the grace of the Nuit Goddess be with you.”

“Manra.”

As Hissin laid a hand on the top of their head, the blessed old man’s eyes filled with tears. He laughed as happily as if he had been embraced by the goddess.

The long, lingering procession of devotees did not end until after the sun had set and the temple doors had closed.

“You must be tired, come and rest.”

As Hissin entered the temple, the High Priest Aaron offered him a padded chair. Hissin bowed respectfully and settled his weary body into the chair.

“Since your arrival, the entire empire has given thanks every day for the grace of the Nuit Goddess.”

Aaron said with a wry smile. As if in agreement, the priests gathered in the temple chanted manra. 

Then Hissin smiled shyly, as if abashed, and shook his head.

“I’m ashamed to say that all I do is recite a few lines of prayer, and yet I feel like I’m getting way more credit than I deserve.”

“A few lines of prayer, even a single line of prayer, is valuable because it comes from a god’s gift. The same goes for the miracles that have happened since you appeared in the land of Bahran.”

Aaron was pleased to hear that the people had indeed begun to make more offerings and supplications since Hissin’s appearance.

“Indeed.”

Hissin smiled softly. His beautiful smile drew people’s eyes to him for a moment, as if they were looking at an angel.

Appearing overnight with no memory of his existence, he was revered as a gift from the gods. 

An ordinary man would have been quickly corrupted by greed and power.

But not Hissin.

“If I am truly god’s gift, why hasn’t the Nuit Goddess given me any other powers?”

“A gift of the gods.”

“Whenever I see people suffering from the pain of illness, my heart aches as if it were my fault for not being able to heal them.”

And again he was ashamed of himself for not performing more miracles as a gift from the gods. 

He prayed for people every day, day and night, and grieved deeply for those who suffered.

When his ruby-red eyes would fill with tears of compassion, people would weep with him, moved by his noble heart.

Praying and serving without ceasing for those whom he did not even know, he never complained, but rather lamented and agonized that he could do nothing more.

One of the priests, gazing at Hissin with fascination, said in a mesmerized voice

“How can you be anything other than a god when you look like that?”

It was a moment of pure, thoughtless appreciation.