The Sand Bride - Side Story 2.20

“Don’t give it a lot of water at once, but don’t give it too little like other cacti either.”

“It’s difficult…….”

When Esther furrowed her brow at the merchant’s words, the merchant smiled and said.

“Originally, it’s difficult to make a cactus bloom. Some people can’t make them bloom even after several years. But once they do, they are truly beautiful!”

At those words, Esther cautiously tickled the area near the cactus’s sharp prickles with her fingernail, pondered for a long time, and then nodded as if she had made up her mind.

“Hey.”

Karzhen spoke as he paid the price.

“Give me one more of the same.”

“I-I have enough with just one.”

“I know. This one is for me to grow.”

When Esther tried to stop him, thinking he was buying two for her, Karzhen replied as if it were nothing. At that, Esther stared at Karzhen with a shocked face. Him, growing something? And a plant, no less.

Karzhen watering a cactus was not only impossible to imagine, but to Esther, he was seen as a man who would end up drying a cactus to death. Even the merchant, who would be happy just to sell a single pot, flinched slightly; that was how much the round, cute cactus and Karzhen were a mismatched pair.

Thus, each holding a cactus, the two realized the sun was slowly setting. It was time to return. But before the two could head back to the palace, a thin hand grabbed Esther’s skirt.

“P-Please, please help me, lady!”

Startled, Esther turned around to find a woman leaning her back against a wall, prostrating herself. It was understandable. In Gharyam, suddenly grabbing the hem of a noble’s clothing was something that should not be done.

Furthermore, the woman was dressed like an abandoned or barely escaped slave, or an extremely destitute commoner. The woman seemed to know this as well. Given how the hand grabbing Esther’s skirt was trembling violently, it was clear she had made a great resolution.

However, the guards, who had no reason to care about such circumstances, frowned and pressured the woman, asking if she wouldn’t let go of the hand immediately. Because Karzhen had an unpleasant face, they pushed the woman even more mercilessly.

“How dare you grab her sleeve, you lowly wretch! Step back at once, or I’ll cut off your hand!”

“I-I am sorry! But please help me! My child is starving right now!”

Even with her hand at risk of being lost, the beggar woman sent a desperate look to Esther.

The woman had followed them from behind ever since the two of them had watched the animal performance earlier. Having observed them closely, in her judgment, the man did not look very merciful, but she had no doubt that the woman beside him—Esther—looked weak-hearted and would give a generous alms.

Just as she expected, Esther looked at the woman with a pained face. Looking closely, there was even a baby beside the woman.

Wherever there were the wealthy, there were bound to be the equally destitute on the other side. Esther found that heartbreaking.

She knew she couldn’t save all the poor people, but she knew that acting heartlessly toward someone who asked for help when she had the means was a very bad thing to do.

However, since Karzhen’s face was fiercely distorted, instead of asking him for money, Esther took off the bracelet she was wearing and handed it to the woman.

She didn’t know the exact value, but since it was a piece of jewelry made of gems and gold, she acted in the belief that selling it would allow both the baby and the mother to stop living on the streets.

“Why did you give that away!”

Thus, when they returned to the palace and Karzhen got angry, she was at a loss for why. In the room where they had gone to see the sleeping baby, Karzhen suddenly shouted like that. Startled, Esther stared at Karzhen.

With a hardened face, Karzhen spoke fiercely. That bracelet, inlaid with grains of agate and coral, was something Esther herself had said she liked among the things he had given her. The fact that she gave it to such a beggar so easily made him angry.

“That was a bracelet I gave you. You said you liked it.”

“But…….”

Understanding Karzhen’s words, Esther flinched slightly, but she didn’t get completely terrified like before.

Over these three years, she had long since become as accustomed to Karzhen’s scowling face as one could be. Esther now knew that when Karzhen hardened his face like that or huffed with a scowl, he wasn’t particularly angry.

When Karzhen was truly angry, his face would instead turn cold and he would fall silent. Unless it was such a situation, Esther didn’t need to be so afraid anymore. However, because Karzhen would soften his face in a panic if she acted as if she were terrified, Esther intentionally shrank her body.

“I have many other bracelets, and I like them all. That’s why I did it…….”

“……In any case, it means you liked that one too.”

As Esther intended, when Karzhen saw her looking fearful, he took a deep breath and softened his voice somewhat.

“You could have just thrown separate coins to that beggar…….”

“Shh.”

At the sound of the baby crying, perhaps having woken up from the loud voice, Esther put her index finger to her lips. It was a sign to be quiet. Now she was even cutting off his words. However, Karzhen truly fell silent after a few small grumbles.