SBWCM 03

Chapter 03

“Greetings to Your Grace, the Archduke.”

The knights greeted him respectfully, but without even sparing them a glance, his gaze remained fixed solely on Edah.

That look felt as though it were hurling curses at her, causing Edah to lower her eyes.

How pathetic her attempt to escape must have looked. In that moment, Edah could have understood even if Astaldo had berated her with insults.

Astaldo stared at Edah’s pitiful state. His gaze lingered particularly long on her skirt, which was torn in two places and stained with blood at the knees.

Edah couldn’t bring herself to utter a single word. She knew that speaking up in front of such a fierce face would almost certainly result in her head being chopped off on the spot.

As he furrowed his brow, his already angry-looking face turned even more terrifying, like Nergal, the god of death.

“Return to your posts.”

At Astaldo’s cold command, the knights bowed low in greeting and took their leave.

With the knights gone, Edah thought he would choke her by the neck at any moment.

“I suppose you wanted to run away so badly that you ended up in such a state?”

At the sound of his thoroughly enraged voice, Edah squeezed her eyes shut and kept her head bowed low, unable to reply.

“Follow me.”

Contrary to her expectation of being dragged off to a dungeon, however, the place where Edah arrived was the audience chamber.

Edah had rarely stepped foot in this place—perhaps only when foreign ambassadors or knights bearing news of victory arrived.

Even then, she had never been able to look around properly because she had been too busy treading on eggshells around Ingrid and the other women.

Gathered in the audience chamber were Astaldo’s knights and the women of the Archducal Castle.

The moment she was dragged inside, everyone’s eyes turned toward her all at once.

Disheveled hair, a torn skirt, and black ash smudged across her hair.

“Look at that state!”

Ingrid burst into cackling laughter. In contrast to Edah’s shabby appearance, Ingrid, who had also lost her husband, looked strikingly beautiful.

Ingrid, meticulously groomed to draw attention, and herself, entirely unkempt.

Ingrid had always been beautiful, and Edah had always been wretched.

Yet today, faced with a contrast that stood out so unusually starkly, Edah couldn’t bring herself to raise her head out of sheer embarrassment.

A snicker of mocking laughter reached her ears. Sharp, contemptuous glances pierced her face.

Here was her hell.

Edah quietly closed her eyes.

She understood why Astaldo had deliberately brought her here: to make an example of her before everyone.

“Silence, all of you.”

A deep voice resounded. Edah flinched as if her heart had been pierced by the sound of that voice alone.

Astaldo raised his hand. At that gesture, Edah cowered heavily, feeling as though that massive hand would strike her down at any moment.

If Ivar had been a piece of trash, could his younger brother be any different?

However, that rough, weapon-like hand merely pulled off Edah’s hood.

Unlike his coarse hands, the touch that removed her hood was so impossibly soft that Edah had no idea what was happening to her.

Edah’s shimmering silver hair cascaded down.

Then, his large hand slid down to rest beneath her chin.

The moment her head was lifted, her eyes met pair of golden ones.

Those eyes—they were the eyes of a wild beast.

Edah was forced to look at Astaldo.

Moderately tanned skin, jet-black hair. Only now did she notice the black ceremonial attire tailored to his body. Not even that suffocating clothing could conceal his solid physique and presence.

He appeared manly to the point of sending a chill down her spine. Yet to Edah, this man was nothing more than an executioner.

The man’s eyes scanned Edah’s wretched form.

A bruised eye, disheveled hair, torn clothing.

His face turned grim. For some reason, that fierce gaze hurt worse than all the ridicule combined.

Even to him, I must look hideous, right?

Edah braced herself for the insult that was bound to drop.

“A wench not even worth sharing a bed with!”

“I will take this woman as my Archduchess.”

Edah doubted her own ears at those sudden words.

“In accordance with the tradition of levirate passed down in Wesselwolf, I shall take my brother’s wife, Edah Mahina, as my wife.”

Edah stared at the man in front of her with a blank expression.

The second way for Edah to survive—

Was precisely to marry her late husband’s younger brother.

Inheriting the brother’s title meant inheriting the brother’s marital relations as well. That was the law of Wesselwolf.

But why was I chosen under that law? Before she could arrive at an answer, Astaldo opened his mouth once more.

“Eliminate everyone in this room on the spot, save for this woman.”

Goosebumps instantly broke out over Edah’s skin.

With the exact face she had imagined, he coldly ordered the execution of all the women without a trace of emotion.

The only difference from her expectations was that Edah alone would survive this room.

“Th-that makes no sense! What are you talking about?!”

Ingrid shrieked out loud. The delicate makeup she had applied to seduce the returned successor distorted hideously.

Edah wore a dazed expression.

“Did you not hear me? This woman is my wife.”

I’m going to marry that man? That man who was my husband’s younger brother? This is absurd. Edah had never been chosen by anyone in her entire life.

As Astaldo spoke of ‘death,’ the people snaps back to their senses and shouted in panic:

“Lord Astaldo, what do you mean?! To kill us all!”

“My father certainly offered a suitable price…!”

At a subtle nod from Astaldo, the knights drew their swords and pointed them at the crowd. At the lethal atmosphere that looked ready to swing steel at any second, the women screamed in terror.

“Lord Astaldo! What on earth is the meaning of this! Wasn’t I supposed to be your Archduchess?”

Even while the other women were trembling in fear, Ingrid remained dignified and assertive.

However, as Astaldo turned his head toward her, she flinched and took a step back.

Faced with Astaldo’s amused gaze that seemed to urge her to go on, Edah felt a chilling sense of dread.

“Say more.”

“Pardon?”

“The reason why you should be my wife.”

Edah looked at the man standing beside her. A faint wave of anxiety began to creep in.

Edah knew. When the older brother dies, the younger brother takes his brother’s wife as his own.

If there were a woman who ought to be chosen in this absurd tradition, it was undoubtedly Ingrid.

That was why Edah couldn’t comprehend the fact that she had been the one chosen.

“You couldn’t possibly be ignorant of what my father did for your sake, could you? How do you think you were able to roll around in a field of corpses and inherit your brother’s position?”

Unlike Edah, who had been virtually discarded by the Mahina Duchy, Ingrid was the daughter of Count Bern, a house deeply rooted as vassals of this Archducal Castle.

Of course, she had long forgotten that Edah was technically the daughter of Duke Mahina.

To Ingrid, her husband’s death was not a tragedy.

Naturally so—for the one who had killed her husband was her own father.

At any rate, if the brother died and the younger brother took his wife, what a beautiful custom levirate marriage was when that ‘younger brother’ was so attractive!

Ever since learning of Astaldo’s existence, Ingrid had praised that very law.

Your ascension to Archduke is all thanks to our house.

Looking at Ingrid’s triumphant face, Edah bit her lip.

It was because Edah had also realized, through Ingrid’s words, what she and her family had done.

If it was her family that had murdered her husband, then naturally Ingrid should have been that man’s wife.

Only then did Edah understand why this was happening.

Astaldo was trying to tame Ingrid.

A long time ago, an intoxicated Ivar had once said: Ingrid was far too fierce and needed to be broken in.

In fact, several servants had lost their lives in the crossfire of their quarrels. The one dying this time was bound to be herself.

Astaldo was simply trying to crush Ingrid’s pride, lest the woman who contributed to his ascension to the title act too haughtily.

“What did your family do?”

Sure enough, Astaldo’s tone softened smoothly. As the sharp features of the man relaxed, the tension naturally began to dissolve.

“We made sure… that you inherited everything.”

At that, Ingrid also whispered sweetly in a gentle voice.

“Now, please stop teasing me. You’re scaring me.”

With that, she batted her eyes and tried to lean into Astaldo’s embrace. However, Astaldo grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Look at you, leaning into my arms when you were supposedly so devoted to my brother. How filthy.”

“What nonsense! I was a victim of Ivar, your brother! The one who was devoted to him was that woman over there!”

Edah gasped in shock as she watched the finger pointing directly at her.