The Sand Bride - Side Story 2.9

* * *

“Did you understand?”

As soon as she set the basket down in a suitable place, Esther spoke to Ben once more, as if seeking a promise.

“You must be the one to name the child, Father.”

“But…….”

Ben looked at Esther with a troubled expression. If Esther gave birth, it was certain that the child would live in Gharyam in the future.

There was a vast difference in names between the people of the Southeast and the Kemut tribe. Moreover, the child’s father was no ordinary man, but Karzhen, the ruler of Gharyam. He believed that naming the child was rightfully the father’s role.

However, Ben, who could sense—even if he didn’t know the details—that Esther’s feelings toward Karzhen were not entirely positive, expressed his thoughts indirectly.

“Esther. A child’s name is decided with the person the child resembles in mind.”

“A child who looks like me will be born.”

But Esther shook her head at his indirect refusal and spoke.

“Or a child who resembles you or Mother will be born. And you promised me before. That you would name my child.”

“I did say that, but…….”

It was true he had promised to name his grandchild himself, but how could Ben have anticipated that the child Esther would bear would be in a distant foreign land, and the child of the Gharyam royal family at that?

Ben looked down at Esther with a troubled face. Esther resembled his wife more than her father.

While Ben was kind but somewhat soft in his self-assertion, Esther took after his wife, who could be stubborn once she made up her mind; once she decided on something, she rarely let it go.

Sure enough, as if she had resolved to do so on her own, Esther nodded and lifted the basket she had set down. Then, she pulled back the cloth covering the top and held out the items inside to Ben.

Rare and precious goods spilled out before him, but instead of being happy, Ben let out a deep sigh—his face clearly reading ‘Not again’—and tried to dissuade Esther.

“Esther, how many times have I told you? It is better for you to eat these things than me now. I have become much healthier…….”

“Then let’s eat them together, alright? They said this is extremely good food for the body.”

Once again, Esther did not break her stubbornness. She still could not forget the sight of her father when he was sick unto death, the version of him she first saw in the capital. How her heart had ached as she received and sent tear-stained letters every day, looking at his body, so thin that his bones showed through his skin, and his haggard eyes.

Esther desperately hoped her father would never experience such a thing again. So, when she learned of something good, she simply could not bear not to feed it to him. It was an intense desire for her father to enjoy more of what she possessed than she did herself.

Looking at his daughter holding out a piece of candy, Ben sighed once more. He was worried about Esther, and every time he felt that he was benefiting from his daughter’s hardships, his heart ached unbearably and he hated himself.

Even knowing there would have been no other choice without him, at first, when he thought his daughter had to marry and live with a man she didn’t want because of him, he felt it would be better to just hang himself and die. That was why he couldn’t break Esther’s stubbornness.

He wanted to let her have her way, if only in this. If he didn’t have the power to give his daughter the life she wanted, he wanted to at least do that much.

“Very well, Esther.”

So Ben nodded, smiling quietly, though his face somehow looked sad.

“Let us eat together.”

If that is what you want, then let us do so.

Ben saw Esther smile and sit in a chair at those words, and he sat in a chair himself. Hiding his own bitter sorrow…….

* * *

As her belly swelled, her sleep increased, so Esther would seek sleep as soon as she returned to the Inner Palace from the North Palace.

The room where Esther stayed was always kept at a suitable temperature and humidity, and incense good for pregnant women was burned, making it perfect for drifting off. However, while it was fine when Karzhen wasn’t there, on the days he was, Esther felt very uncomfortable, because he kept pestering and pawing at her as she lay down.

“Are you sleeping?”

Even though he clearly knew she wasn’t, Karzhen would ask such a question while burying his lips in the nape of Esther’s neck and murmuring.

The exhausted Esther didn’t answer, trying to brainwash herself into thinking she was asleep, but she always failed because he would play with his hands behind her—rubbing her swollen b*****s or caressing her flank.

As soon as Karzhen heard from the doctor that she had reached the stable period, he kept wanting to have s*x with Esther.