“Do you actually feel sorry for me just because I had a nosebleed?”

I gave a small shrug and took my seat. The table was filled with an abundant spread of food—far too lavish for a simple breakfast.

“Is it really something even your healing ability can’t fix?”

“How many times do I have to say it? My power doesn’t work on me, and it can only heal physical injuries.”

From the beginning, my ability came at the cost of my own life force. It wasn’t as if I could harm and heal myself at will. Besides, no saintess’s power could cure illness in the first place.

“It happens often enough anyway, so don’t worry about it.”

As expected, my husband looked deeply unconvinced. But when I calmly lifted my spoon and took a sip of soup without the slightest hesitation, he said nothing more.

Still, after forcing down a few bites of bread and salad, chewing for a long while before swallowing, I eventually set my cutlery down, claiming I had no appetite. At that, his expression darkened, his brows drawing together in irritation.

“Eat more. The only reason your body is so weak is because you barely eat.”

“…I do eat. Thanks to you.”

“That tiny bite you had—do you really call that eating?”

With that, he placed a portion of finely cut meat in front of me himself.

Did he think I couldn’t cut it on my own?

I stared at him for a moment, one brow slightly raised in disbelief.

“It’s too much.”

“So, the noble lady who was raised so delicately finds such lowly food unfit for her taste? Should I show my sincerity by dismissing the chef and the maids for daring to serve you something so beneath you?”

“Alright, alright. I’ll eat it.”

Refusing him was pointless.

Before he could launch into another lecture about how I was a pampered princess who knew nothing of the world, I picked up my fork again.

“…Are you perhaps doing this because you don’t want to attend the founding celebration?”

There was a slight hesitation at the start of his question.

Ah.

So he thought I was pretending to be unwell just to avoid the event.

I let out a quiet sigh and shook my head firmly.

“Of course, that place will be extremely uncomfortable for me—but I have no intention of skipping it. It’s a couple’s event, isn’t it? If I don’t go, you’ll have to attend alone.”

I answered with a hint of weariness, chewing the tender steak as though it were tough rubber.

The silence that followed felt strange.

I lifted my head and looked at him.

He was watching me, his expression unreadable—subtle, but unmistakably different.

“It seems you’ve finally decided to accept me as your husband.”

“Isn’t that obvious? We spent the night together yesterday, didn’t we?”

“Before the revolution, you rejected me so thoroughly. And now that your status has been stripped away, have you finally realized that clinging to me is your only way to survive?”

“Don’t twist it like that. I didn’t reject your proposal because of your status. That was… my own problem.”

His mocking tone made it unbearable to continue the conversation, so I simply lowered my gaze to my plate and forced the meat into my mouth.

My husband, once a knight of common birth, had distinguished himself even during the monarchy. He had proposed to me—the sole princess of the royal family—countless times, and I had rejected him every single one.

We had barely crossed paths back then, so I could only vaguely assume that his proposals had not been born of love, but rather a desire to erase the one flaw in his otherwise impeccable life—his origins.

But even setting that aside, he had been exceptional.

To the outside world, he was a brilliant commander. In high society, he was a striking, handsome man—admired by every woman.

There had been a time when I, too, was no different. Watching him rise from an ordinary soldier to the man who brought my father the greatest victories, I had been impressed… even flustered by his beautiful appearance.

Among all my suitors, he stood out the most.

Which was precisely why he could never be tied to me.

I was nothing more than a puppet princess, exploited to uphold the royal image—and slowly dying.

So, though it pained me, I rejected him as I had rejected all the others—coldly, firmly, without hesitation.

It was meant to be for his sake.

But instead, it must have wounded his pride—so high, so unyielding.

After the revolution, I was arrested and put on trial like the rest of the nobility. But those whose lives I had saved with my healing power opposed my execution, and so I was spared.

Even so, remnants of the royalist faction, along with nobles who had fled abroad, continued trying to draw me into their schemes to restore the monarchy.

The Estantian Republic could not allow that.

So they made me into something else entirely.

They married me off to the man who despised the Beatrix royal family more than anyone in this country.

The commander of the revolutionary army—now the supreme commander of the Republic’s military—Reinhardt Helares.

With that marriage, I was no longer Sienna Beatrix, princess of the Estante royal family.

I became no one.

Just Sienna Helares.

Perhaps, in truth, they had given me a punishment worse than execution.

By binding me to a man who loathed me more than vermin, they had extinguished not only my identity—but every possibility I might have had.

“We leave in two hours. Be ready and come down.”

After forcing me to eat until he was satisfied, he tossed the words at me coldly, indifferently, before leaving the dining room.

In this world where everything had been overturned, perhaps it was only natural.

A woman who was now nothing—whose life could be snuffed out on a whim—had dared to reject him over and over again.

Of course he would want to punish me.

On the day of our wedding—

“Do you… love me?”

I had asked, unable to understand why he insisted on marrying a fallen princess like me.

“No.”

The answer had come, firm and absolute, after a long silence.

Of course.

“Then why… marry me?”

“Because I wanted to drag you down into the hell I live in.”

That answer—so chilling it felt almost sinister—made my heart drop straight to the floor.

In other words, our marriage was his punishment for me. His judgment. His revenge.

What he wanted was the satisfaction of breaking me at my lowest—of trampling me beneath his feet, crushing me, looking down on me. A release. A sense of vindication. Closure.

And I understood him well enough.

This marriage was the wedding gift I could give him. A consolation, and perhaps compensation, for the wife he would soon lose.

Knowing full well that I was little better than a criminal, I wanted at least to dress plainly for any event related to the Estantian Republic.

But my husband had prepared the most extravagant clothes and jewelry for me.

When I saw the sky-blue gown laid out in my room, along with the necklace and earrings studded with costly jewels, I felt almost overwhelmed.

Well, I should do as he wished.

If my humiliation and discomfort were a celebration and a form of entertainment to him, then the least I could do was play my part.

“Let’s go.”

My husband stared at me in silence for a long moment, his gaze fixed on the way I was adorned from head to toe in the things he had given me.

What was he thinking?

I had expected him to sneer, to ask whether I enjoyed dressing myself in the blood and labor of the people.

Yet he said nothing.

As I took his hand and let him help me into the carriage, I could feel how large, firm, and warm his hand was through the thin, translucent silk of my gloves.

The brief brush of his breath, the faint trace of his scent so close against the back of my neck, sent a flush rising to my face.

Even inside the carriage on the way to the venue, he did not let go of my hand.

If anything, he seemed to enjoy idly stroking my palm, teasing me, delighting in my flustered discomfort.

***

The Founding Day celebration was grand, almost festive in scale.

Because the event had also been opened to some civic organizations and members of the press, the venue was crowded with people.

The Estantian Republic was stabilizing at an unprecedented speed. Contrary to those who dismissed it as a barbaric nation built by commoners who had severed their king’s head, it was steadily laying the foundations of a great power.

The festivities began with demonstrations of the high-pressure steam engines the government had been actively promoting, along with weaving machines and locomotives powered by them. Then came one celebratory performance after another—opera, classical orchestra, and more.

“Commander Helares, it has been some time. Have you been well? No troubles, I hope?”

Countless people approached our table and greeted my husband with the utmost respect.

He welcomed them with a fair degree of warmth, exchanging brief conversations here and there.

Surrounded by others, engaging in polite society, his expression looked far gentler than it ever did when he was with me.

I could also feel the admiration people had for him—along with the way the women nearby kept stealing glances at him, their cheeks flushing.

Using the excuse that I was going to fetch a drink, I moved a little distance away from him and stood there blankly, watching.

Then I let out a quiet sigh.

The truth was, I had fled because I could not bear the thought of him introducing me as his wife to people he knew.

Because I already knew what they must think of me.

‘An accomplice to tyranny. A troublesome princess. A relic of a dead age that ought to disappear. The tainted blood of a worthless royal house…’

Some still revered me as a saintess chosen by the heavens.

Others condemned me.

‘In the end, weren’t you still a woman who stood with the royal family?’

The thought pressed heavily on my chest. I placed a hand over my heart and tried to steady my breathing, drawing in slow, measured breaths—only for a wave of dizziness to make me stagger slightly.

“Ah… not again…”

As if it had no sense of timing, blood began to stream down my nose. I hurriedly covered it with my hand.

“My lady, are you alright?”

“…Thank you.”

Startled, I quickly accepted the handkerchief a man offered and wiped the blood away. Judging by the neatly tailored uniform he wore, the young man appeared to be a military officer.