Four times. That was how many times, over the span of ten years, she had been bought and sold to become someone’s wife.
On the day that humiliation was forced upon her for the fifth time, she met him.
“Celia.”
Her sixth husband was unlike the others.
For the first time, someone called her by her name.
But his family rejected her outright.
The eyes that looked at her as though she were filth on the street were proof of their contempt.
“It was a mistake to allow such trash into Berseike in the first place.”
“Disgusting! A filthy woman like you has no right to even touch him.”
“Even a face drained of blood might be more tolerable. Hah, maybe you’d make a decent corpse on display.”
If only she could meet him again after he left for the battlefield. She would endure any insult, any humiliation.
When he returned, he tore their marriage contract to pieces and tossed it into the fire.
“You’re free now.”
The first man ever to show her kindness.
Although he told her to go wherever she wished, that was a fate worse than death.
For the first time in her life, Celia summoned what little courage she had.
“…Would it be all right if I stayed by your side?”
“Are you out of your mind? Do you mean to linger here, playing some foolish game of love?”
“A foolish game of love… Is that truly what you want?”
“What?”
“If that’s what you want, I’ll try.”
But she did not yet know.
That her sixth husband was, in truth, her first love—the one she had thought to be dead.
That she was the daughter of the enemy who killed his mother.
That despite knowing all this, he had loved her… yet would never want the child born of that love.
And so, on the day she finally faced the cruel truth, Celia left his side carrying their unborn child within her.
