Chapter 2

After spring arrived, the Princess Royal hosted a banquet on Willowmere Lake.

Rosalie attended as well.

She was once Adrian’s fiancée.

Three years earlier, bandits kidnapped her on her way to a chapel, and she disappeared without a trace.

The Hale family assumed she was dead.

A year later, the king arranged my marriage to Adrian.

For two years, we lived together in quiet harmony, but Rosalie suddenly returned.

She had endured great hardships, which left her with a chronic heart condition, and she had lost both her parents.

When Adrian brought her to Hale Manor, he said she would stay for only three months.

“Once she recovers, I’ll find her another place to live.”

I agreed at the time.

I even personally prepared the east wing for her and chose the softest bedding.

But three months passed, and she still didn’t leave.

Adrian stopped mentioning it, too.

At the banquet on Willowmere Lake, a sudden current jolted our barge.

Rosalie and I fell into the water at the same time.

Adrian was standing at the bow.

He swam to me first.

My hand had already reached his wrist when Rosalie cried out from several yards away.

“Adrian, my leg cramped…”

He immediately pulled my hand away.

“Clara, you can swim. Hold on a little longer.”

Then he swam toward Rosalie.

I was actually a poor swimmer.

I had fallen into a well as a child and was terrified whenever my feet couldn’t touch the bottom.

I told him about it during our first year of marriage.

He had probably forgotten.

But when the lake water flooded my mouth and nose, the system remembered it perfectly.

[The second abandonment has been confirmed.]

[Life countdown: eight. Affection remaining: eighty percent.]

I grabbed the rope hanging from the barge and let the boatman haul me aboard.

By the time Adrian returned with Rosalie, soaked through, I had already finished coughing up the water I’d swallowed.

He took off his coat and draped it over her shoulders.

When he saw me, he paused.

Only then did he seem to remember that I had just come out of the water, too.

Rosalie clutched his lapel and said softly, “Clara has always been strong and healthy, unlike me…”

I sneezed.

Adrian frowned.

“Don’t fight over a coat here. You’ll both be fine once we return to the manor.”

That night, I came down with a high fever.

Adrian stayed in Rosalie’s wing because she had suffered a nightmare.

The next day, when he heard I was ill, he had the steward send me a prized medicinal herb.

I added it to the herbal remedy.

The second pearl on my bracelet cracked.

The third time came half a month later, when we were ambushed.

The mountain road back to the city was narrow, and assassins charged out of the woods on both sides.

The guards brought over only one horse that hadn’t panicked.

Adrian mounted and drew Rosalie onto the saddle in front of him.

I grabbed the reins.

“What about me?”

He looked down at me.

The wind howled around us, yet his voice came through clearly.

“Caleb will protect you.

“Rosalie can’t ride. I’ll get her to safety first, then come back for you.”

He always said he would come back.

[The third abandonment has been confirmed.]

After Adrian rode away, Caleb took a blade meant for me.

I picked up the short sword from the ground and held out with the remaining guards until reinforcements arrived.

By the time Adrian returned, the assassins had already retreated.

Blood spattered the back of my hand. I didn’t know whether it belonged to someone else or to me.

He dismounted and hurried toward me.

But Rosalie cried out from the saddle, “Adrian, I can’t get down!”

He turned back to help her.

I stood there and swallowed the words, “I’m hurt.”

The fourth time came on the anniversary of my mother’s death.

Adrian promised to accompany me outside the city to visit her grave.

The carriage was already waiting when Rosalie sent word that she had dreamed about the time she was held captive by bandits.

She refused to see anyone and would only allow Adrian to visit her.

Adrian handed the flowers back to me.

“I’ll go with you next year.”

I took them.

“All right.”

He stared at me for a moment, as if he wasn’t used to seeing me remain so calm.

“Is that all you have to say?”

In the past, I would have held on to him and asked which of us mattered more to him, Rosalie or me.

The system had already asked him four times on my behalf.

The answer was clear enough.

“No.”

That day, I knelt alone before my mother’s grave, removed the fourth cracked pearl from my bracelet, and buried it in the earth.

As I descended the hill, the system reminded me,

[Life countdown: six.]

I thought six was still a long way off.

I never expected Adrian to make his choices faster and faster.