The Name Inside the Ring
The Archduke of Exepsion officially declared his marriage to Odelli Cardel.
That day, the whole empire was in an uproar. A political match? A threat? Was some vast conspiracy buried underneath? Every kind of wild rumor ran loose. Ludville's infamy was that great.
He was a war hero beyond dispute, and every battle under his command ended, without exception, in victory. Yet not one of those who had fought beside him ever called him a hero.
He was a merciless commander, willing to cut down even his own men at a single stroke if the need arose. Great causes and honor alike were nothing but tools in his hands. One day he had every prisoner put to death; another, he sent a traitor away with all four limbs intact.
Why? Because not one of those choices sprang from feeling. Each was handed down according to advantage, calculated to the last.
Ludville Exepsion. The name, like a war machine stripped of emotion, left behind nothing but victory.
And so, once the Archduke of Exepsion had resolved upon it, no one could stop this marriage. Not even House Cardel, for all its towering might.
"Your Grace, how can you commit so lawless an act? This is no different from abduction! Return my daughter!"
Duke Cardel protested in a fury, but—
"Abduction? If you believe it to be abduction, you are welcome to raise the matter formally in court."
"..."
"Then everyone will learn where I met her, and in what state."
"..."
"Is that what you want?"
Duke Cardel ground his teeth in rage, and in the end he had no choice but to withdraw without ever getting Odelli back.
While the gossips murmured and stirred, the wedding was driven through with blinding haste. Duke Cardel and the house's heir, Gawin, sat among the guests without a word, but their ashen faces and rigid expressions were enough to lay their hearts bare. They had lost, as emptily as this, the Purifier who had held the house upright. Even so, silence was the only choice left to them. Honor, glory, power, face—everything the house had raised over hundreds of years upon an elaborate scaffolding of lies had to be protected, somehow.
Having read the final verse, the High Priest lifted both hands above the heads of bride and groom and blessed their union.
Strangely, the exchange of rings was omitted. A worn silver ring already circled the ring finger of his left hand—a clean, simple design, glowing a quiet silver. Far too plain a thing for an archduke to wear.
Could it be... he already has someone in his heart?
Then she understood. She had wondered why, of all the many noble daughters, the one he chose had to be Odelli. He had been looking for a suitable false wife, someone with whom he could slip the pressure of his house. A daughter of House Cardel would not fall short in rank, and since she was known to be frail, she would have no need to show herself in public. Nor were her circumstances sound enough to let her haggle over the terms of a contract marriage.
So this, too, was a play. A supporting role, stepped onto the stage to protect the archduke's true love.
...Yes. It isn't bad.
If anything, she ought to be grateful. At least, before she died, she would be able to leave the house. Disappointment was not something she could allow herself.
"And last, before God, the proof of love..."
The words had barely left the High Priest when a firm hand lifted her chin. In the eyes that met hers, however briefly, there was no feeling at all.
A kiss for form's sake. As that pitiless kiss drew on, Odelli closed her eyes amid the cheers.
After the funeral, she could not tell how the time had passed. When Odelli came to herself, she was in a council chamber.
When did I come here again?
Her memory kept breaking off in pieces.
"This will is absurd!"
"If they divorced, she's a stranger, isn't she? And there wasn't even a child between them. What are we supposed to do about an heir?"
"To hand over the archduchy, without warning, to someone who has neither the noble council's approval nor a lawful designation as heir—it is unprecedented!"
"Cardel blood or not, before the marriage she was so frail she never once set foot outside the house! We have no choice but to question her health and her competence."
The chamber was nothing short of chaos. Not a single vassal would be still. Veins stood out in their necks as they brandished documents and slammed the table, faces twisted with rage. But Odelli sat in her chair and let the whole uproar pass in one ear and out the other. The noise around her only tolled, muffled and far away.
Snap. Snap—
"My lady. My lady!"
Someone snapped their fingers before her eyes. A man in black formal dress, his gaze gone cold, spoke.
"Are you listening?"
Marquis Belgrave. Of all the vassals in the archduchy, the one who wielded the greatest political influence.
Sunk in her own thoughts, Odelli answered a beat late.
"Ah... I didn't hear you."
"..."
"Would you say it again?"
For a moment the marquis could not go on. He let out a sigh, and when he spoke it was in a low, hard voice, as if he were forcing his irritation down.
"In accordance with His Grace the Archduke's will, every authority is to pass entirely to you, Lady Odelli—property, lands, fortresses, the mansion, shares in the trading company, and the title itself."
"I see."
"Of course, should you not wish it, you may refuse. By rights, that would be the decision everyone could understand."
She heard the rest of it plainly enough. Refuse, or he would hinder her by any means he could find.
"I will give you time to consider. Reach your decision as quickly as you can."
With that, the marquis withdrew, and the vassals followed after him. The clamorous chamber fell still, and Odelli regretted having come.
What rank and glory am I supposed to enjoy?
In truth she cared nothing for title or fortune. And yet the reason she had come running the moment word arrived that her husband on paper was dead... The reason...
...I don't know either.
Odelli leaned back in the chair and let out a sigh. Close her eyes, and he was still there, lying at peace among the white flowers.
She had tipped her head back and was drawing both hands down over her face when—
"My lady."
She opened her eyes. The aide who had brought her here was standing before her, the rims of his eyes flushed red, a box held out in his hands.
"By His Grace the Archduke's will, I kept this keepsake in my own care... but I thought it best that you look at it yourself, at the last."
Odelli took the small box he offered. It was astonishingly light.
"He ordered me never to open it. He charged me, again and again, to bury it deep in the earth, and that it must never pass into anyone's hands."
"But you disobeyed."
"I will bear that guilt gladly."
Loyal as he seemed, quietly refusing an order he could not accept—that was Edwin.
Odelli opened the box with care. Inside lay the ring Ludville had always worn on the ring finger of his left hand.
"Why this?"
It was hardly something to be delivered apart from everything else, and with a face so grave. She lifted the ring, every trace of the years still on it, and turned it in her fingers. The feeling was strangely unsettled. Looking at this ring, she had believed he must have a beloved hidden away.
She went on turning it over for a long while, her feelings too tangled to name, when all at once she felt, along the inside of the band, the touch of something cut into the metal.
An engraving?
Puzzled, she held the ring up to the light and read the letters. In the same instant, her eyes flew wide.
On the faded ring, her own name was engraved.