The Duchess’s Contract Marriage

Chapter 1

1. You’re My Sister

Count Luxen was one of the leaders from the Aden Kingdom’s southern region. He had several manors and dozens of knights who had sworn allegiance to him for generations. During the reign of his father, the former Count Luxen, he had also held important posts in the capital. He might have even risen to the top if he had stayed in the capital and married into the nobility there. However, his father returned to his local fiefdom, leaving behind his dazzling glory and Count Luxen as only the leader of the southern region.

Count Luxen didn’t resent his father’s decision—in fact, he was grateful for it. He and his family were able to stay safe because his father had looked to the future and given up his fame and glory.

The king of Aden at the time was one of the worst in history—he was perverted, murderous scum. He possessed all the traits of a tyrant, as if he had left his heart behind in the womb when he was born. When he captured his enemies, he made sure to kill them by shooting them with arrows in front of everyone. Then he would send their wives to other enemies and even kill their children, no matter how young. Whenever he was in a bad mood, he would declare even his most loyal followers enemies and do to them what he would to any of his other adversaries.

The capital was shrouded in silence and fear and had long been a city of blood. The nobility could not escape even if they wanted to because it was obvious that turning one’s back on the king would mean becoming an enemy. So, the local nobles laid low and held their breaths. When the king told them to raise taxes, they would raise them. When he ordered them to send a hostage, they would send one, even if it meant producing an illegitimate child to sacrifice. At the same time, they were grateful that the king was far, far away.

Count Luxen was one of the local nobles who felt this way. In a time when the only goal was to survive, he had two daughters that were the apple of his eye. His first daughter was Rubiana, and his second was Kalena. They were two years apart and got along well.

Rubiana had red hair and green eyes. Her face was quite pretty, but it was obscured by the strong impression made by her flaming, fire-red hair—that was why she was named Rubiana, or “Ruby’s blessing.” Although her parents must have put a lot of thought into choosing her name, Rubiana had always thought it was a little tacky. Her younger sister, Kalena, was a beautiful girl with curly blonde hair and green eyes. She turned heads and made everyone look twice when she passed by. As if that weren’t enough, she was also extremely smart.

One day, when Rubiana was fifteen, she suddenly realized that her younger sister was just as smart as she was beautiful, if not smarter. In these difficult times, birth order did not dictate who would be first in line to inherit the title—rather, it was about who could maintain the title and family’s name safely.

In that case, shouldn’t the next Countess Luxen be Kalena? Rubiana was deep in thought while considering this issue.

“Ruby, I’m going to take this lace. It definitely suits me more.”

Kalena waved a piece of lace made of silver thread in front of Rubiana’s face. Smart as she was, the barely thirteen-year-old Kalena always wanted her sister’s things. The wide piece of lace that she was flapping around was a gift their father had given Rubiana for her fifteenth birthday.

“Get your dirty hands off of that right now.”

Rubiana rushed at Kalena, forgetting all her worries about the future, her younger sister’s genius, and the family succession.

How dare you touch your precious older sister’s things? This kind of thing calls for divine punishment.

Rubiana grabbed her sister and dragged her to the library, where their tutor was. While watching her sister get scolded for not finishing her homework, Rubiana revisited the thoughts that she had put aside earlier. She decided to tell their parents about her thoughts when Kalena was mature enough not to touch her stuff.

However, before Rubiana could tell them, their parents were summoned to the capital and killed. Their crime was blasphemy against the royal family. The pearl that they had offered to the king had a scratch on it the size of a speck of dust.

Rubiana and Kalena were not yet adults when this occurred, so their uncle rushed over to be their guardian. Their uncle became the standing Count Luxen on behalf of his young nieces. The first thing he did was go to the capital and offer the manor that received the most taxes to the king. By doing so, he was able to collect the bodies of Count Luxen and his wife.

Rubiana prepared to face her parents’ bodies while holding Kalena, who was crying so hard she could barely breathe. The bodies of the count and his wife were unrecognizable, and there were apparent signs of perverted torture. Rubiana watched her parents’ bodies being taken into the mortuary without blinking even once. She waited until the door was closed before releasing the hand that covered her sister’s eyes.

The funeral lasted for three days. By tradition, the funeral should have lasted for seven days, but the king only allowed three because of their supposed crimes. There were also no mourners. Rubiana spent those three days engraving the decision she had made when she was fifteen into her heart.

The girls’ uncle was a just, kindhearted person and didn’t dare steal the seat of Count Luxen from his nieces. When Rubiana had her coming-of-age ceremony at eighteen, her uncle tried to give her the title of Countess Luxen. She declined, saying it wasn’t her time yet, and remained as the successor of the title.

Then, a month before Rubiana’s twentieth birthday, Kalena turned eighteen. Rubiana gave her the signet ring engraved with the Luxen family crest as her birthday present to show that she was giving up the right to the family title and naming Kalena as the new Countess Luxen.

Rubiana was Count Luxen’s heir for twenty years, and as she had done nothing wrong while working hard for the family, faced strong opposition from her lieges and relatives. In order to persuade them, Rubiana was forced to give up her worldly life. She declared that she would enter one of the monasteries that Count Luxen’s manor had built and intended to live the rest of her life as a nun, throwing away all of her earthly rights. After this announcement, no one could disagree any longer, and with no opposition, the process for her sister to succeed quickly commenced.

Kalena was calm. She hadn’t refused her sister’s present on her eighteenth birthday, and she hadn’t tried to convince her sister not to enter the monastery. Because of this behavior, many suspected that they had already planned this together in advance.

* * *

The night before Ruby was supposed to enter the monastery, Kalena climbed into Rubiana’s bed, wearing her pajamas.

“Ruby.”

There was no reply.

“I can see your eyes moving behind your eyelids. Don’t pretend you’re asleep.”

“I’m sleeping.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“I’m really asleep.”

“Then you better wake up quickly. C’mon, open your eyes.”

Kalena pressed a pillow into Rubiana’s stomach.

“Oof.”

Rubiana couldn’t pretend she was asleep anymore. She opened her eyes. Kalena put her pillow next to Rubiana’s and started to violently hit it. A cloud of feathers flew in the air and covered Rubiana’s face. While Rubiana was coughing and trying to shake off the feathers, Kalena lay in her place, pulling the duvet up to her neck.

“What are you doing? It’s not even thundering outside.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m no longer afraid of thunder!”

“Then what are you doing here?”

Rubiana let out a long yawn as she lay down next to Kalena. She hadn’t been asleep, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t sleepy.

“I have something to tell you, Ruby.”

“Go ahead.”

“I know why you’re going to the monastery. You just want to spend the rest of your life having fun and being lazy, right?”

“How could you say something like that to me?”

“You told me to tell you what I was thinking.”

“Yeah, but don’t people usually ease into serious matters with something a little lighthearted?”

“I think you probably would have fallen asleep.”

“No way.”

“Yes way. You always fall asleep. See? Your eyes are closing right now. Open them properly.”

Kalena pinched Rubiana’s arm slightly. The latter exaggerated her pain by lightly thrashing around.

“I know why you chose that monastery. We always donate the most money to that one every year. If you’d really wanted to turn your back on the world and pray to god for peace and refuge, you would have chosen to go to Aimel Monastery.”

“Hey, as long as you become the countess, what does it matter? I wouldn’t go to Aimel even if it meant death.”

“Luthel Monastery’s abbot is our distant relative, and they’re so lax there that there are practically no rules at all. A lazy person like you, Ruby, can sleep up to twenty hours a day and just horse around.”

“It’s not like I’m really going to spend twenty hours a day sleeping.”

“Oh, right. You’ll have to spend time eating your three square meals a day. So, fifteen hours?”

Rubiana didn’t have a response. Yet again, Kalena had shown just how clever she was. Was there any need to pretend to be sincere around a sister like that? Rubiana got rid of the calm, reserved expression she had been using to trick her relatives.

“Please continue to donate generously. The abbot of the monastery is quite greedy, so I might be mistreated if you start slacking.”

“We’ll see how well you do, Ruby.”

“What do I have to do?”

“I won’t tell you to write to me first. You’re so lazy that I can’t expect too much from you. Instead, if I send you a letter, you better write your reply within three days and send it to me within a week.”

“I’ll try.”

“Don’t try. Just do it.”

Kalena engulfed Rubiana in a big hug.

“Oh, gross. Let me go.”

Rubiana tried to escape from Kalena’s grip but stilled when she heard a sniffle. She gently patted Kalena’s shoulder.

“Are you crying?”

“Do you have to point out the obvious?”

“Who’s the one who always has to win an argument?”

“Well, what am I supposed to say to that?”

“Okay, okay. It’s all my fault.”

Rubiana pretended she didn’t notice her shoulder getting wet. She considered whether she should share her feelings before speaking.

“Lena.”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t try to take revenge.”

There was silence.

“You know, I’m just too lazy, so I decided not to try.”

“You were just trying to protect me, weren’t you?”

“No, no. It’s just too much work for nothing, so why bother? What I’m saying is, since I’ve given up, you should do the same.”

Kalena sat with her mouth shut.

“Let’s just live like this. I’m going to spend my time eating and hanging out, while smart little you manages the family.”

“Ruby.”

“Just listen to me—don’t do it. Forget everything. Just live. Let’s just live our lives.”

Rubiana was met with silence. Kalena tightened her grip on Rubiana until she was hugging her so tightly that she couldn’t breathe. Rubiana couldn’t tell Kalena she was suffocating or ask her to loosen her grip. All she could do was rub Kalena’s shoulder and bite her lip to keep any sound from coming out. She tried hard to pretend not to notice her sister’s trembling or the hot wetness from her tears on her shoulder.

The two sisters remained this way for the whole night.

* * *

In the early morning, Rubiana teased Kalena about her swollen eyes. She received a hit to the shoulder so hard she considered seeing the doctor, but she decided that it was time to leave instead.

She didn’t bring much. With just her father’s bow and some arrows, a few books and clothes, and a bag of silver coins to slip to the abbot, she departed for the monastery.