I was a princess ennobled by my father, the late king. Marrying the general of the northern frontier, Griffin Quenell was already a great show of royal favor.

On my wedding day, just as my royal carriage arrived at the Quenell family’s courtyard, a woman dressed in grey wool knelt before the castle gate. She held a swaddled infant in her arms.

Griffin, as the groom of the day, dressed in his wedding tunic, blocked my path with a troubled expression.

“Your Grace, Joan is someone I met in the borderlands. She bore me a son and now has no place to go. Please let her move in with me on this special occasion. You’ll be my first wife, and she’ll be my second wife. It’s all for the sake of the Quenell bloodline.”

The guests at the gate erupted into commotion.

His grandmother, Wilma Quenell, spoke firmly. “Your Grace, you were born into royalty. You certainly do not lack a title. However, Griffin is the only son the Quenell family has had in three generations. This child bears the Quenell name. We surely can’t make him an illegitimate child.”

The border soldiers knelt and said in unison, “Your Grace, have mercy!”

I looked down at the child in the swaddle, then at Griffin’s pleading gaze.

I smiled, removed my coronet from my head, and placed it on the wedding table.

Then, I turned and boarded my carriage.

“General Quenell, I will not stop you from wanting an heir, but my late father’s decree said I am to be married, not given away as a gift. If your family cannot abide by his words, then I shall take the decree back with me.”

###CONTENT

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My groom, General Griffin Quenell, stepped forward and said, “Your Grace, do you really have to make such an ugly scene on our wedding day?”

His hands, calloused from years of gripping a sword, clamped down on the carriage’s carved door frame. His grip was so fierce that the veins bulged across the backs of his hands. He nearly crushed its ebony wood.

I firmly sat inside the carriage and stared coldly at him.

He was the man the people of Cathor called the unshakable general of the northern frontier. Though he was the groom, there was no trace of joy on his face. All I saw was the seething fury of a man humiliated in public.

“Ugly?” I said indifferently as I toyed with my ruby ring. “General Quenell, would you really call letting your mistress block the door and confront your bride on your wedding day a dignified deed?”

Griffin’s expression stiffened as embarrassment flashed in his eyes, but he quickly replaced it with a look of pained righteousness.

“Your Grace, you were pampered in the palace since childhood. How could you possibly understand the bitter cold of the frontier? That night, when the enemy launched a surprise attack, had Joan not taken an arrow for me, I’d be nothing but bones by now. She’s just a frail woman. She nearly died for me, had my child out of wedlock, and suffered nothing but scorn for it. If I abandoned her now, what kind of man would I be?” he added with conviction, as if he were the greatest lover the world had ever known.

The common folks gathered around were all whispering and pointing.

Hearing this, the tide of opinion turned in an instant.

Pitying and moved glances fell upon Joan, who knelt on the ground, and the woman was sharp enough to sense the change in the atmosphere around her.

Her body shuddered vulnerably as tears started streaming down her face.

“General Quenell, please... don’t say any more...” She bit her pale lips hard and spoke in a pitiful, sorrowful voice. “It’s all my fault. I’m not worthy of you. I came here today only to let my baby be acknowledged by his father’s family. I never meant to compete with Her Grace for anything.

“Your Grace, you are of noble birth and possess boundless worth. Even if I were made no more than a lowly maid to wash your feet, I would serve you willingly and with all my heart.”

As she spoke, she collapsed on the ground with the baby in her hands, giving her a fragile demeanor. Her tears fell on the ground.

Griffin’s heart ached so much that tears welled up in his eyes.

He turned to help her, but with me still present, he forced himself to stop. He could only stand there, glaring at me with a look of bitter, burning hatred.

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“Did you hear that, Your Grace?”

Griffin gritted his teeth as he struggled to suppress his rage.

“Joan already went through so much. Must you insist on pushing her so cruelly? You are a princess of a high station. Are you not going to show mercy and make room for one helpless woman?”

I watched as Griffin and Joan performed their tragic drama before my carriage with indifference and absurdity.

“Griffin, did the wasteland at the border rot every shred of sense in your head?”

I leaned forward and parted the curtain of my carriage. Then, I looked down at him from above.

“I am the sovereign here, and you’re merely a subject. You allow a woman who shared your bed out of wedlock to weep and wail before my carriage, but the one who lacks mercy is me?”

Griffin flinched under my icy gaze, but the border soldiers behind him would not back down. They were crude men who had ridden and bled alongside Griffin. What would they know of the rites between sovereign and subject?

To them, Griffin was their commander and their cause. Joan was the woman who had given their general a son.

“Your Grace, our general has spilled his blood and given his life for Cathor!” A lieutenant with a scarred face rose to his feet and said at the top of his lungs, “He only wants to grant his woman and his own child a proper place in this world. What is wrong with that? You may be royalty, but you cannot break the hearts of your loyal soldiers like this!”

Led by his outburst, the other soldiers chimed in.

“Please show mercy, Your Grace! Please accept Ms. Sonne!”

Hundreds of armor-clad men shouted in unison. Their voices thundered through the courtyard.

They were not begging for mercy. They were pressuring me.

Griffin stood at the very front of the crowd with his back straight as a ramrod.

He looked at me. It was as if he were smugly telling me that the people wanted Joan acknowledged and that I had no choice but to give in.

Ignoring the noise, I calmly looked away, lowered the curtain, and said to the coachman, “Head back to the palace.”

The coachman raised his whip and prepared to turn the carriage around. Just then, a heavy lion-headed cane slammed down hard before the horses’ hooves.

“No one will take the princess away today!” Wilma, supported by two maids, stood shakily in front of the carriage.

Though her hair had turned completely grey, her upturned eyes held undisguised sharpness and cruelty. She was a battle-hardened woman who had charged into war alongside the founding king.

With that merit, she always strode as she pleased through the capital, fearing no one. Even my father, the late king, had to show her great respect when he was alive.

“Your Grace, you’re acting pretty willful today. Where does that leave the honor of the royal family?”

Wilma leaned on her cane, her wrinkled face tight with tension.

Her tone held no respect. Only scorn.

“The Quenell family has been a great military house for a hundred years. Griffin is the royal court’s most essential man. Your carriage has already reached the front gate. Every noble and high official in the capital is watching. If you break off this wedding, are you dishonoring the Quenell family or the royal family?”

Her words were condescending and full of blame. It was as if my leaving today would make me the greatest traitor to Cathor.

With his grandmother backing him, Griffin’s confidence swelled.

He stepped forward again. His tone softened, but he still threatened me.

“Your Grace, my grandmother speaks the truth. Do not act on anger alone. The late king commanded this marriage. If you storm away today, by tomorrow, every street and alley in the capital will be whispering of your jealous and spiteful nature. When that happens, your reputation will be ruined. How will you show your face in this capital then?”

I sat quietly inside the carriage as I listened to this pair of grandmother and grandson perform their duet of reproach.

####CHAPTER-NAME:

I was no longer able to suppress my anger.

“My reputation will be ruined?” I chuckled. It was strangely loud in the silent carriage. “Griffin, you think far too highly of yourself. My reputation is none of your concern. You’re a coward who hides behind a woman.”

Griffin’s expression darkened drastically. He was instantly enraged.

“What did you just call me?”

As a celebrated warrior, he was being publicly called a coward by his betrothed. That hurt him even more than death itself.

“Griffin, please don’t be angry...”

Without me noticing, Joan had already approached us. She stumbled before throwing herself into Griffin’s arms. She held the infant in one hand and held onto his sleeve with the other.

“Her Grace was just angry. She didn’t mean it. It’s all my fault! I’ll leave right away. I won’t make things hard for you, Griffin.”

Even though she said she would leave, her feet remained rooted in place. Her tearful eyes were filled with both grievance and reluctance.

As expected, the moment Griffin saw how pitiful she looked, he flew into a blind rage.

“Isolde, don’t push your luck!”

He did not even bother calling me by my honorific title anymore. He called me by my name directly.

“For me to marry you is more honor than you deserve. Do you really think that you’re still that little princess the late king coddled? The new king has taken the throne. You’re nothing but an orphan, just the ghost of a dead reign. You have a title and nothing more.”

Everyone present gasped and fell into dead silence. No one had expected Griffin to speak the unsaid truth so publicly. Wilma, standing nearby, did not stop him. Instead, she revealed a satisfied, cold smile.

Clearly, she was also thinking the same thing.

To them, I had lost my patron and my power. I could only let the Quenell family do whatever they wanted with me.

“Griffin is right,” said Wilma.

She struck the ground with her cane again and continued smugly, “Your Grace, I advise you to see things as they are. Once you’re part of the Quenell family, you’ll have to obey my household’s rules. As for Joan, you will accept her whether you want to or not.”

The moment she said that, the Quenell household guards took a synchronized step forward. The scrape of steel leaving scabbards cut sharply through the air. Those several hundred soldiers in heavy armor surrounded my carriage.

It was clear that I could not leave unless I agreed to the marriage.

The scar-faced lieutenant and the other soldiers that Griffin led fixed the coachman with a menacing glare.

Nothing but a slight move from the coachman would trigger their swords.

“Your Grace, please step down from the carriage.”

Griffin smoothed his wedding tunic that Joan had wrinkled and stood tall again in his lofty, condescending posture.

“It’s getting late. Don’t keep the guests waiting.”

The atmosphere was heavy with pressure. The household guards of the Quenell family completely blocked my path. The coachman trembled with fear. He gripped his whip tightly in his hands. He did not even dare to breathe loudly.

This was Cathor’s great noble house. This was the so-called worthy man whom my late father, the king, had chosen after seeing a thousand potential grooms for me.

I looked at those bright, gleaming blades outside the carriage window.

It was an absurd scene.

“Griffin,” I said in a clear and calm voice, “Do you truly believe that a few hundred household guards can hold me prisoner?”

Griffin frowned. He seemed annoyed that I still spoke boldly, given my dire situation.

“Your Grace, I am doing this for your own good.”

He sighed and pretended to be reasonable.

####CHAPTER-NAME: