Chapter 1

My husband returned victorious from the northern battlefield.

The man everyone called the untouchable, icy hero lost all his composure in front of the entire crowd. He pulled my personal maid into a desperate, crushing embrace.

“You are alive! Do you have any idea how much I missed you?”

The moment he saw the infant in her arms, his eyes turned bloodshot. Right then and there, he vowed to petition the Emperor to take my maid as his first, legitimate wife.

Before I could even utter a word to protest, a small figure rushed past me and threw himself into the maid’s arms.

“Daddy is finally home! Aunt Tessa is finally going to be my real mommy!”

That was my five-year-old son, the boy I nearly died giving birth to.

The chamber door was kicked open with a loud bang.

“Gwen, are you still playing dead? Tessa wants the restorative marrow broth you make!”

Garrett stormed in, his face tight with impatience.

He bowed stiffly when he saw Princess Leanne sitting beside me. But then he immediately reached out, grabbing my wrist to drag me toward the kitchen.

I ripped my hand away with all the strength I had left.

“Marrow broth? She is just a servant girl, yet she dares to demand such a sacred tonic?”

It was a legendary healing recipe made from rare, precious herbs and bone essence, renowned for restoring vitality and beauty.

Every single ingredient was extraordinarily rare and hard to find.

Tessa, the woman he was demanding it for, used to be my personal maid. Now, she was the treasure he kept on a pedestal.

The last time I made that broth for him, the grueling process nearly cost me half my life.

Furious at my resistance, Garrett furrowed his brows and glared at me with pure disgust.

“You owe her this! You treated her like a servant for years and gave her so much trauma!”

Princess Leanne could not take it anymore. She rose and slapped Garrett hard across the face.

“A servant? If Gwen hadn’t saved her from the red-light district, she would be rotting in a gutter right now! Only an idiot like you would treat trash like a treasure!”

Garrett’s face twisted in rage. He did not dare lash out at royal blood, so he turned his fury on me instead.

“What else are you going to throw a tantrum about? Aren’t you the one shamelessly clinging to this household?”

I stared at him blankly as a bitter chill flooded my chest.

Yes, in his eyes, I was just a desperate woman clinging to a broken marriage.

With trembling fingers, I pulled out the letter of divorce. When he first tossed it at me, it was still covered in the gritty desert dust from the frontier.

He had planned to sever all ties with me while he was still miles away at the border.

I looked at him quietly. Ever since the day he marched back into the capital, all my years of devotion and loyalty had crumbled into dust.

“Just as you wished. We are nothing to each other now.”

Surprisingly, he did not speak right away. He stared at me blankly for a second, then let out a scoff.

“You realized throwing fits doesn’t work, so now you’re playing hard to get?”

“Gwen, know your place. Keep pushing this nonsense, and you can forget about ever being a wife in my family again.”

I had no energy left to argue with his arrogance.

Princess Leanne signaled her personal guards to carry me, and her attendants swiftly packed my belongings.

“Gwen! If you take one step out of this door today, we are done forever!”

Seeing that I did not stop, Garrett spat out the threat with absolute confidence.

He truly believed I would crawl back and beg like before. Hearing his arrogance, Leanne picked up her pace.

“Hurry up! Don't let the stench of this place stick to us. There are too many disgusting men here, let’s go!”