The Amber Knight Swears His Love on the Saintess’s Left Hand - Chapter 0

Could a man handpicked by a Saint truly be called a lucky soul?

“Quill of the House of Langbart, second son, is hereby designated as the fiancé to the current Saint, Lynette Ceryes.”

That single sentence, inscribed on a sheet of paper, was the beginning of it all.

Quill Langbart let his eyes dart busily over the document he’d been handed, fighting the turmoil rising in his chest. The smile on Crown Prince Leonard’s face, sitting directly across from him, was insufferable. That look alone told Quill that this decision was irreversible.

“Since when,” Quill asked, “did I join the ranks of the Royal Family?”

“Well, I haven’t heard any news of House Langbart disowning their second son,” Leonard replied smoothly.

“Your Highness. I might actually stab you.”

“Now, wait. I’ll give you an explanation that makes sense.”

Leonard placed his hand atop a mountain of paperwork piled on his mahogany desk.

“What do you think these are?”

“Documents awaiting approval, I assume?”

“The voices of the people of Eiklant.”

Leonard flipped the top sheet and held it up before Quill’s eyes. It was a formal protest from the citizenry, submitted through a local lord. The current King of Eiklant, wishing to keep his ear to the ground, collected such feedback once a month.

As for the content? It was entirely about the marriage of the Saint, Lynette Ceryes.

At sixteen, a Saint is chosen by the stars and embarks on a journey across the four shrines of the Eiklant Kingdom, bearing the Holy Sword. She spends six months at each shrine offering prayers of purification. Once this two-year pilgrimage is complete, the wild nature of the magical beasts is quelled, significantly reducing the damage caused by rampaging monsters within the borders.

Convention dictates that a Saint who has fulfilled her duty is granted the honor of marrying a member of the Royal Family specifically those second in line to the throne or lower or one of their close kin.

However, the mountain of paper Leonard was gesturing to told a different story.

Even if it was tradition, the public was questioning the wisdom of marrying an eighteen-year-old Saint into the current Royal Family. It wasn’t a lack of faith in the Crown; the current King enjoyed some of the highest approval ratings in history. Nor was it a lack of faith in the Saint, who was often more revered than the royals themselves.

Quill tilted his head in confusion.

Leonard held up three fingers and folded them down one by one.

“Second in line. My dear younger brother, Felix, is only eight years old.”

“I am aware, of course.”

Felix, Leonard’s brother. Calling him “cute” wasn’t brotherly bias or exaggeration; it was a simple fact. With his chin-length hair the color of slightly burnt honey, Quill often thought the boy must have fairy blood in his veins. He was composed for his age, a testament to his royal upbringing.

“Third in line: Duke Brockmeyer. Married, thirty-five years old. Fourth: Duke Eichberg… wait, how old is he? Is the old man pushing forty yet?”

“He is thirty-eight. A bit early to call him an ‘old man,’ sir. Your Highness, I’m losing the thread here. Why would Prince Felix need to be removed from candidacy in the first place?”

In high-society marriages, age gaps were usually treated as if they didn’t exist. Setting aside the married Duke Brockmeyer, a twenty-year gap with Duke Eichberg was… a bit much, perhaps. But Prince Felix was only ten years younger than her. He was an adorable, angelic boy. To spend one’s days watching him grow into a man—to Quill, that didn’t seem like a bad life at all.

“Times are different than during the height of the Old Faction,” Leonard explained. “Extreme age gaps just aren’t ‘in fashion’ these days.”

The “Old Faction” referred to houses that had served as nobility since before the founding of Eiklant. While the status-obsessed Old Faction had lost its momentum to the meritocratic New Faction, the latter still valued social standing. They just placed a newer, stronger emphasis on “spiritually sound” unions.

“I’ve heard that if a gap is the result of true compatibility, it’s welcomed as a sign of deep devotion,” Quill countered.

“If the parties involved actually want it, sure. But for a Saint, it’s different. It’s a unilateral decision by the Crown. Marrying off a girl to someone ten or twenty years older when she didn’t choose him herself? It plays poorly with the public.”

Quill understood the logic, but it didn’t solve his problem. If Felix was an issue, surely Quill was too. Quill had just turned twenty-five. To the public, a seven-year gap and a ten-year gap weren’t all that different.

As if reading his mind, Leonard smirked.

“Since there were no suitable candidates, we decided to simply let her choose for herself.”

“I see.”

“We asked the Saint if there was anyone she wished to be bonded with.”

“I see.”

“And the one she chose was you, Quill.”

“…Huh?”

Leonard’s logical explanation had just flown right out the window of Quill’s understanding.

The Purification Pilgrimage is escorted by elites from the White Knights—glamorous warriors who handle royal security and ceremonies. Quill belonged to the Black Knights. They were the ones on the front lines, suppressed by the beasts until the Saint finished her work, and the ones who hunted down any monsters that slipped through her divine protection afterward.

As a Black Knight, Quill had never even met the Saint.

“Are you sure she didn’t get the wrong person?”

“I thought so too, so I had her secretly confirm it at the knight’s training grounds. ‘Amber eyes and black hair.’ No one else fits.”

“My eyes aren’t amber.”

Amber is a stone of many shades, but usually, it’s yellow or orange. Quill’s eyes were a dark, brooding red. While expensive amber can have a reddish tint, his irises were so crimson they bordered on the ominous. “Garnet” would have been a more accurate description.

“She insists they are amber. And I confirmed your face, too. To ensure there was no mistake, I explained exactly who you are, including your status in House Langbart.”

“And Lady Ceryes was still fine with it?”

Leonard nodded and put on a dead-serious face, as if playing his final trump card.

“Look, Quill. This gets you out of the marriage market for good.”

In that moment, a refreshing breeze swept through Quill’s soul.

The guilt of being a twenty-five-year-old “leftover,” glancing at a mountain of marriage proposals only to shred them. The exhaustion of enduring the predatory gazes at evening balls. The hunger of smiling through small talk while watching the meat he missed out on being cleared away. The emptiness of dreaming of drowning in wine barrels because he couldn’t even get a buzz at those parties.

Freedom from marriage interviews. Freedom from balls.

In hindsight, it was a reckless thought utterly insincere toward his partner. But at that moment, Quill allowed himself to be swept away. The fact that it was a royal command he couldn’t easily refuse anyway provided the final push.

“You’ll take it, then?”

“I humbly accept.”

Quill’s reply was as formal as if he were being commissioned for a mission. Leonard’s eyes crinkled with a triumphant grin, as if he had predicted this outcome from the start.

And so, Quill Langbart came to welcome the now-retired Saint, Lynette Ceryes, as his fiancée.