The Sand Bride - Side Story 2.4

* * *

Human emotions were like an hourglass being turned over. Once it began to turn, it might seem to flow slowly at first, but by the time one looked away for a moment and then checked again, it had already been filled all too quickly.

Karzhen was currently in deep agreement with that metaphor. No matter how much he tried to keep the bandages on until the very end, the wound had completely healed thanks to his characteristically sturdy body.

Thus, in the spring of Gharyam—that season when flowers bloomed on cacti and buds rose on low-hanging vines—Karzhen successfully recovered and became healthy enough to crush stones once more.

Identical days repeated thereafter, but beneath the surface, a different current began to flow like a subterranean stream hidden deep in the earth. This was true for Karzhen, of course, but it was the same for Esther.

She still waited for her father’s letters delivered by Karzhen. She was happy when she received them and sullen on the days she didn’t, but as the days with letters became more frequent than those without, she began to take more autonomous actions little by little.

One of those was exploring the palace. It started with her being curious about the patterns on the silks placed in her room, then wondering what kind of wood the bed was made of, and which bird’s feather the quill she held came from, as her curiosity began to spark one by one.

So, after examining and learning everything about that spacious room, she even developed a desire to go outside. After hesitating for several days, she finally went so far as to speak to Karzhen first.

“Lord Karzhen.”

When Esther opened her mouth while handing him a letter, Karzhen expected her to say something like, ‘Please be sure to deliver this to my father.’

However, Esther cautiously brought up a different subject.

“May I go outside the room……?”

Karzhen stared at Esther intently for a moment. This was a conversation that hadn’t existed between them before. A rule was being broken. The sound of something unilateral snapping with a crack could be heard, but neither Esther nor Karzhen heard it.

But even if Karzhen didn’t hear it, he replied like a man who believed there was no other answer:

“You may do as you please.”

Just like that, as if the sand of an hourglass were falling down.

And at that answer, Esther looked at Karzhen with surprised eyes before bowing her head and replying in a small voice.

“Thank you…….”

It was the moment her first request was rewarded.

* * *

It was about a year after Esther’s movements had become completely free that her father finally recovered from his illness and moved his residence to the North Palace.

Usually, the North Palace was a place used when the Sayar’s precious guests or relatives stayed; it was essentially a palace for guests. Thus, while it was maintained, the number of staff assigned was small if there was no specific news of someone planning to stay, but once Esther’s father resided there, the number of servants needed doubled.

He was no longer a lowly slave, nor was he an ordinary doctor. The rumor that Karzhen regarded Esther as something special had already become the truth, and so Esther had also transformed from a slave girl whom Karzhen frequently sought out into the woman who was the owner of the inner palace.

A wedding ceremony had not been held yet, but because Karzhen had once told the servants who asked about Esther’s treatment that she was his wife, Esther was treated as no different from a legal wife. She herself seemed unable to believe it, but Karzhen was sincere.

Esther could not understand him. Putting aside her feelings about marrying him, she could only think that she didn’t know why a man of high status like the Sayar would take someone like her—not as a concubine, but as his wife.

However, because Karzhen promised that if she married him, he would send people to contact Esther’s mother in her homeland and bring her safely to Gharyam as soon as she recovered, she hesitantly accepted the proposal.

In this position as the Sayar’s legal wife that was thus established, Esther would normally have had to manage the Sayar’s other women and children, but since Karzhen had no other concubines he had taken in, let alone children, she truly had nothing to do. That was, if one excluded her private actions of going to see her father.

“Esther.”

On her way to the North Palace where her father stayed, Esther recalled the words he had spoken on the first day they were reunited.

“I am truly sorry. I’m ashamed. I can tell without you saying a word… how much you’ve…….”

How much she must have suffered, how hard it must have been, how much it must have hurt, and yet, what the reason was that she continued to live.

Esther shed tears as she embraced her father, who sobbed guiltily, unable to finish his sentence. She wept without rest, as if the flow of the passing years had been held in her tear ducts and finally burst forth.

She had already cried many times since coming here, but that day was different. It was different in that the lump in her chest had loosened slightly after crying, and joy had begun to arise.

“It will be okay.”

Esther murmured like that when she was finished crying.