The royal palace, alive with a banquet in full swing, buzzed with a festive air. The decision had been made to reopen the trade routes that had been closed for nearly twenty years.

Hereis was a country bordered by sea on three sides, yet it had long abandoned the sea lanes due to steep tolls, scraping by on trade with other nations through treacherous mountain passes. For Hereis, there was no more welcome news than this.

Voices drifted through the gap beneath the closed door, people making a fuss about how Hereis would soon become a great power once maritime trade resumed.

The footsteps of servants carrying wine and food, the sound of lively music, the laughter of people well into their cups. Everyone seemed happy. Everyone except one.

Canasia lay sprawled across the bed, sobbing bitterly. She bit down on her lips to keep the sound from leaking out, and the sheets were soaked through with blood and tears.

‘Canasia, your marriage has been arranged.’

It was two days ago that Canasia received the bolt-from-the-blue announcement from her mother.

It was not entirely unexpected. Canasia was twenty years old this year, and Hereis’s national power was declining rapidly. Her mother, who had been steering the kingdom in place of her younger brother, who ascended the throne at only nine years old, had chosen to sacrifice Canasia to a political marriage. It was a painful decision, but a reasonable one.

The problem was the groom.

Philkennon di Eldos, the fifth king of the Kingdom of Eldos. The man who turned the fledgling nation of Eldos into a power rivaling the Listonia Empire was set to celebrate his fifty-eighth birthday in two months.

It was staggering enough to become the wife of a man forty years her senior, one who already had five marriages behind him, but Canasia’s reason for refusing this marriage was something else entirely.

Three years ago, her sister Eleanor, who went to marry Philkennon, lost her life just two months after the wedding ceremony.

Eldos claimed that Eleanor had fallen ill, unable to endure the rough voyage, but Canasia did not believe a word of it.

‘Cana, when I turn twenty, I’m definitely going to escape this suffocating place.’

Unlike the shy and timid Canasia, Eleanor was lively and optimistic. She always found life in the palace stifling, and every now and then she would sneak out and climb aboard ships without the sailors noticing, only to get caught and scolded terribly.

For someone like Eleanor, a political marriage to the king of Eldos must have been an unbearable hell.

「I’m sorry, Cana. I just can’t do this anymore.」

The last letter Eleanor sent from Eldos detailed Philkennon di Eldos’s atrocities one by one. By day he subjected her to constant verbal and physical *buse, and by night he committed acts too horrific to put into writing. Just as he had done to the other women he had made his queens before her.

‘Sister took her own life!’

When the tragic news reached her, Canasia thr*st Eleanor’s letter forward and pleaded for the truth to be brought to light, but Eleanor’s death was buried without inquiry. There was no evidence to prove the facts beyond the letter, and even if there had been, it was impossible for a small and weak nation like Hereis to hold Eldos accountable.

Compounding the situation was the fear that even the regular trade ships Eldos sent as a show of goodwill might be cut off, and so Eleanor’s death was quietly covered up.

‘I’ll end up just like Sister.’

If she went to Eldos, she too would lose her life at the hands of that shameless man before long. Unable to believe the reality of a plainly visible tragedy unfolding before her, she cried herself to exhaustion and collapsed into sleep.

“Your Highness.”

A knock shattered the silence. Canasia lifted her heavy eyelids.

Who is it? A servant?

It was obvious this was her mother’s summons to come out and show her face. She said nothing in reply, and the uninvited guest outside knocked again.

“Your Highness.”

“……Roderick?”

“I’m coming in.”

Roderick entered the room. At the arrival of the one man she believed was truly on her side, Canasia leapt up and ran to him.

“Roderick!”

“Your Highness.”

“Roderick, no, Sir Ferdinand, please save me!”

The full skirt of her dress swept over Roderick’s military boots. He moved to stop her before she could drop to her knees, but Canasia was already clutching his legs and pleading.

“Run away with me, Roddy. Anywhere is fine, just please…….”

Tears gathered on her silver-white lashes and fell drop by drop, wetting the floor at his feet. Her pale complexion looked fragile enough to shatter. Roderick stared at her with a shadowed expression, then opened his mouth.

“Please stand, Your Highness.”

White gloves covered the hand he extended to her with perfect courtesy. The unmistakable line he drew made Canasia’s heart drop.

“Roddy?”

Canasia tried to meet Roderick’s eyes, but he would not look at her directly. What came back to her instead was a cold announcement.

“Departure has been set for the fifteenth of this month.”

“What?”

“I will accompany you with a contingent of knights. We have arranged to attend to you without inconvenience even in Eldos…….”

“You…… what are you saying?”

“…….”

“Are you telling me you’re going to sell me off to Eldos?”

The sounds from the banquet hall had stopped at some point. The whole world seemed to have gone still. Canasia stared at Roderick, who felt strangely unfamiliar to her today.

“Don’t worry. Nothing will happen.”

“Ha.”

She let out a hollow laugh.

“How, how can you do this to me?”

“…….”

“Did Mother promise you a title in exchange for talking me into this?”

“…….”

“Why aren’t you answering! Say something! Say something!”

Her scream-like voice rang through the small room. Roderick kept his gaze away from hers and confirmed it with his silence. The anger in her voice broke into a sob.

“Don’t do this, Roddy. If I go to Eldos, I’ll end up like Sister. So please─”

“……I’ll protect you.”

“How could you possibly!”

Canasia exploded again.

“How are you going to protect me? Are you going to come live with me in Eldos? Are you going to stand guard outside the Eldos king’s bedchamber? What can you do besides pace around outside the door at best!”

Canasia shouted with eyes bloodshot red.

“Did you say this to Sister too? That you would protect her?”

“…….”

“Answer me, Roderick Ferdinand!”

The man who was Eleanor’s fiancé and Canasia’s first love let out a long sigh and bowed his head.

“I will come again later, Your Highness.”

Roderick gave a polite bow and left the room. Canasia sank to the floor where she stood and wept.

* * *

The banquet celebrating the marriage alliance between Eldos and Hereis went on for five full days. It was a grand and joyful celebration, as though everyone was trying to forget the existence of the one person who would be sacrificed for this marriage.

When the music that seemed like it would never end finally stopped and the sound of servants’ footsteps fading down the corridors died away, Canasia slipped out of the palace in secret.

She put on the worn servant’s dress Eleanor used to wear when she left the palace, hid herself in a cart carrying wine, and held her breath as she waited for the cart to stop.

‘Cana, the coachman at the brewery is always drunk, so if you hide inside an empty wine jar, he’ll never notice. So if you’re ever in a pinch, try that method.’

She never imagined she would end up using her sister’s advice, which she had laughed off with a shake of her head.

Canasia smiled bitterly and listened to the sounds coming from outside. The streets, usually quiet at this hour, were noisy with merchants who had flocked in at news of the princess’s marriage and crowds celebrating the opening of the sea lanes.

The cart stopped in the middle of a bustling alley. While the coachman talked with the brewery owner, Canasia jumped down from the cart.

Watch me, Sister. I will never end up like you.

Tossed into an unfamiliar alley, Canasia steadied her pounding heart and walked on. Whoosh, whoosh. Drunks who spotted a woman walking alone on the dark night road whistled at her one after another.

Canasia pulled her cloak tight over her face in case anyone recognized her and gripped her pouch. It was the pouch she brought when she left the palace, holding a few jewels and gold coins.

It wouldn’t be enough to live comfortably, but it should last three months. She would find a way to survive within that time.

Even if she ended up wandering the streets and starving to death, it was better than becoming the Eldos king’s wife and meeting a miserable end.