After receiving the one-sided marriage notice, Hestia tried for several days to change Melda’s decision, but Melda was stubborn.
There were times that Melda got angry.
“You’re young and don’t know anything! You probably resent me now. Eventually one day you will realize that I was right and thank me.”
There were times when she was soothing.
“I’m doing this for you. All because I love you.”
Meanwhile, the wedding day was approaching. Hestia locked at herself in her room, like the walking dead. She had thought that Melda might change her mind if Hestia got a job and earned some money. For several days, Hestia sent dozens of letters looking for job openings at the Wizards’ Guild, but did not receive a single reply.
Exhausted, she began to deny the obvious. Maybe her mother was right, after all, that’s what she had been taught at the academy as well. They said that a woman would be happy with her loving husband. Even if their husband was as old as their father, they would develop respect and affection the more time they spent together. And they would eventually be even happier once they had children.
‘It’s because my mother loves me. She wants me to be happy.’
…But, was she really happy? Was she just running away from reality?
Lying on the bed, Hestia blankly looked at the empty desk, then she sat up with a strange feeling. The sound of the tree branches swaying in the wind sounded eerie that night. Instinctively, she went to the window and opened the curtain slightly with trembling hands.
Melda was kissing a large man. He boldly placed his hands on her hips. She smiled and hugged him as they walked off somewhere together, away from the house.
Hestia backed away from the window, as if it would burn her, and sat down, covering her mouth with her hand. Her heart pounded like it could explode at any movement. Her vision was becoming blurry.
Hestia knew that men. He was a knight who was raising his son alone.
“…Father.”
Hestia thought of her affectionate father, James. Tears silently flowed from her eyes and fell to the floor. Although it was a long time ago, she had been happy. Her father had loved his only daughter and her mother had loved her as well.
Although it had been short, it did not change the fact that they all had loved each other.
But, the feeling of love is unstable. One love left her and the other changed.
Hestia had learned too early that death could separate her frim the person she loved, and that love could be corrupted. Made up love would never be the same as true love, no matter how much you tried to imitate it.
In fact, Hestia had already known, how could she not. She had just pretended she didn’t and denied the facts. Her suspicions had been slowly growing for a very long time. Melda, who had shed tears every time she left for the academy, eventually tried to urge her to leave as soon as possible at some point. When she returned to her hometown for vacations, the time they spent talking decreased. Melda spent more time ignoring her and went out more often.
Her mother loved her but was trying to force her to get married? Was that really love?
Pandora’s box was placed before her. Hestia got up slowly and walked toward her mothers’ room. The door was locked. Hestia stood in place for a long time as if nailed to the spot. Her desire to confirm the truth and her desire to avoid it were competing fiercely.
‘Fear is nothing when you face it.’
Her father’s voice was ringing in her ears. After hesitating for a while, she raised her trembling hands and used the emergency key to open the door. With a clanging sound the door opened with ease.
Hestia slowly entered the room. It was a place that was both familiar and unfamiliar to her.
Her father hugged her and kissed her cheek when she was young, and her mother smiling happily next to him. And in the midst of all of this, there was a happy little girl without any worries. Her old memories which she missed, turned into smoke and disappeared.
There were many happy memories present in every corner of the room, but everything had changed. The warmth from back then disappeared, leaving only cold silence.
Hestia quietly approached the table. Her mother’s table was filled with expensive perfume. She had said she had no money. When she opened the drawer, there was expensive jewelry, necklaces and earrings she had never seen before, carefully arranged. There was also a bundle of papers laying under the jewelry box.
It was a contract. Baron Simon purchased the ‘pure young lady’ with ‘mage blood’ for 60,000 gold, and the down payment had already been paid.
This was a transaction, not a marriage. And the item being traded was Hestia herself.
Sixty thousand gold. It was the price her own mother had sold her for.
She was only worth 60,000 gold.
“Hahaha…”
Every time she had said it was because she loved her, it was a lie. Everything was a lie. A single tear flowed down her cheek.
Father, you were wrong. Dad was wrong. It’s not a big deal.
Something in her heart shattered. The papers she was holding in her trembling hands fell to the floor. Before the shock had even subsided, when she though that there couldn’t be anything worse, she picked up a piece of paper that had Melda’s handwriting on it.
On the parchment, it was clearly written where the 60,000 gold would be spent. Among them was a private school admission fee that would be used a few years in the future. It was probably an entrance fee for the man’s son.
It appeared that the son of the knight had stolen her mothers favor.
The child was four years younger than her. Hestia had lost her father three years ago, though he had been fighting an illness for several years before that. Hestia was once again shocked. It was a blow to her head that felt like being hit by a hammer after counting the years in which the child had been born. Her mother had given birth to the child on a year when she did not return home due to a field training assignment from the academy. She had then greeted her when she arrived for her winter vacation as if nothing had happened.
The pregnancy was no accident. It was planned.
After Hestia had opened pandoras box, the whole truth was revealed. She had denied it, but the evidence all pointed to one thing.
She didn’t even shed one tear. Hestia’s love for her mother had long since disappeared.
She found it funny that her past self had endured at the academy with all her might, waiting for the day she could be happy with her mother again. The thought of derailing Melda’s plan engulfed her. Hestia’s eyes turned to Baron Simons contract terms again.
***
Hestia rushed out of the house. She pulled the hood over her head; the dawn air was cold. She had no destination, but was unable to stay home right now otherwise she would go insane. The streets were dark at dawn, she instinctively walked to find light.
She couldn’t tell if the light was shaky because she was crazy or because her vision had gone blurry. She stared down blindly, without even looking ahead.
Eventually, Hestia collided with a person walking on the street at the end of an alley. The person was much larger than her so she was barely able to keep her balance and prevent herself from stumbling and falling.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright.”
Despite her apology, the stranger seemed to be quite offended, his voice filled with contempt. Contrary to his words that it was okay, he openly brushed off his arm that had bumped into her like she was dirty. She would have felt embarrassed if anyone had been there to witness the situation.
Fortunately, he didn’t start a fight and try to bully her. Hestia took a step back and waited for him to pass first, but he didn’t move. Moreover, she could feel his gaze staring intently at her. She looked up at the strange silence.
He slowly lowered the hood of his cape. An overly handsome face caught her attention. Where had she seen him before? He seemed to be thinking the same thing. His eyes widened as he correctly identified her first.
“Hestia?”
Hestia blinked. There was definitely something wrong with her vision. Or maybe it was a dream. Why was Adrian Kingston here?
“…You?”
Adrian looked surprised for a moment, then chuckled and muttered to himself.
“’You?’ Oh my gosh, is this a dream?”
She was the one who thought it was a dream. Even if it wasn’t a dream, it didn’t matter. Hestia sharply retorted and laughed lightly at the sight of him.
“Why? Can’t I call you ‘you’?”
“No, I was just surprised.”
Adrian didn’t mind her rude attitude at all. He spoke kindly, unlike when she had bumped into him. He had a deep smile on his noble and beautiful face.
“It’s just been so long since you’ve looked my way.”
It was true. Hestia had avoided him. Life at the academy was already difficult enough, she didn’t want to get involved with him in the slightest.
Adrian Kingston was the only great noble at the academy who had freely interacted with, not only lower nobles, but also commoner mages. There was an opinion among the upper-class nobility that interacting with those lower than them would lower the dignity of the great nobles. However, he wasn’t someone who followed others opinions, otherwise others wouldn’t have labeled him as a scoundrel.
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