Chapter 4

Luke’s face was dark as storm clouds when he saw me preparing paper offerings.

“You’re taking your new husband to pay respects to your dead one? Chloe Brooks, you really are unbelievable.”

“Don’t waste your paper money,” he grumbled. “No guarantee he can even receive it. And judging by the life he’s living now, he probably doesn’t need your few pennies anyway.”

The floating words laughed.

Since climbing into the bed, Luke’s mouth has gotten even meaner.

He knows the hero isn’t dead, but his wife still misses the ex.

The ex is alive too. Brutal.

I glanced at Luke’s sour face.

“Then don’t come. Stay home.”

His eyes widened instantly.

“Chloe Brooks—”

Logan crouched down with a smile and rolled up the legs of my pants for me.

“He doesn’t want you to go. Why tease him every day?”

He looked at the dew on the grass outside the yard.

“The fields are wet. I’ll carry you.”

After a moment’s thought, I stuffed the bundle of paper money into Luke’s hands and climbed onto Logan’s back.

Luke stamped after us in a rage.

It had been a while since I had gone.

Small weeds had sprung up around the low dirt mound that marked my husband’s grave.

The strips of smoked pork I had left there before had turned pale from rain and dew.

I sighed and slid down from Logan’s back.

“Ethan,” I said softly, standing before the grave. “I came to see you.”

I looked at those pale strips of pork and, for reasons I could not explain, felt wronged all over again.

“I only came to tell you one thing. I won’t be coming anymore. The two guards you left me are very useful. They don’t dislike my smoked pork, and they don’t hate warming my bed. They even compete over it.”

I sniffed.

Tears still slid down my face.

“I’m not going to the capital. I’m going to live a good life with my two men. So I won’t come see you anymore.”

I lowered my head and buried the rain-soaked pork in the ground nearby.

The air behind me stayed very still.

Neither of the men spoke.

The floating words sighed.

Now I kind of feel sorry for her.

The hero really is awful.

Even if he had to leave, he should’ve said something.

But at least she doesn’t plan to make trouble. Maybe now she can live peacefully.

Thinking about her spending her whole life in the village while he enjoys luxury in the capital is just sad.

I raised a hand and wiped my tears.

It was not that I did not know Ethan had not truly died.

And it was not from missing him that I cried.

I cried because I felt sorry for myself.

In the three months of our marriage, we had never really become husband and wife in full.

The first time I shyly took off my clothes in front of him, he only coughed and coughed, so I assumed his health was poor.

The next day I got up even earlier than before, doing more work in the fields, hoping I could save enough money to get medicine for him.

He sold candy apples. Back then I could not read, so I drew little cheerful pictures by hand on his wrapping paper to make them prettier.

To build his strength, I spent half a year’s savings buying a long strip of pork when the village butcher slaughtered a pig for the New Year.

I could not bear to eat much of it, so I cured it and hung it by the window, cutting him a little piece every day.

Whenever he tried to put it in my bowl, I pushed it back into his.

He always said it was too greasy.

Too rich.

Now I understood.

He had been used to delicacies. What I treasured so carefully must have looked cheap to him.

As we grew closer, we finally did become husband and wife in that way.

Yet even then, every time he entered my bed, it was with reluctance.

He complained that my hands and feet were too cold. That I ground my teeth in my sleep. That I tossed around too much.

I was not crying for him.

I was crying for me.

When I got married, the woman next door told me a woman should treat her husband as her sky.

What she never told me was what to do when the sky itself could not be trusted.

I had always known Ethan did not love me.

But he was my husband.

We were supposed to spend our whole lives together.

That was what I kept telling myself.

Only after the floating words appeared did I understand.

He was never meant to stay in my world.

Not only did he not love me—he had looked down on me from the very beginning.

I cried because I had been foolish.

I cried because my life had been pitiful.

The one man I did not want to cry for was him.

What was there to cry for?

So what if he was some dragon in the sky?

He would never eat my smoked pork again.

And he would never meet another woman like me.

Luke seemed to get annoyed by my crying. He strode over, wrapped an arm around me, and held me close with none of his usual softness.

“You cry and cry and cry. Fine, do it at night if you must. But what’s there to cry about over a pile of dirt?”

I choked on my own tears.

The floating words wheezed.

Look who’s jealous.

His heart’s gone sour.

Logan crouched beside me, his voice warm as ever.

“Let’s go home. There’s not much smoked pork left at the window. Tomorrow I’ll go buy more and cure it with you.”

I thought that once Ethan knew I had no intention of going to the capital, he would stop coming.

I was wrong.

Two nights later, Luke dropped from the ceiling beam with a thud.

At the same moment, Logan sat up beside me, all softness gone from his face.

Both of them looked sharply toward the window.

I followed their gaze.

There was nothing there.

“He’s here,” Luke said.

Logan picked up the little jacket beside the bed and helped me into it. As he fastened the buttons, he spoke in a quiet voice.

“No matter what you see in a moment, don’t be afraid.”

I blinked.

The floating words were racing wildly.

The hero came back in the dead of night?

Didn’t he hear everything she said at the grave?

He’s about to get married. What is he doing here again?

Something feels off now.

Only then did I understand.

It was Ethan standing outside.

Logan was afraid I might think I was seeing a ghost and frighten myself senseless.

I slipped on my shoes and followed them outside.

The gate to my little yard burst inward with one hard kick.

And there he was.

My long-dead husband.

He stood under the night sky looking at me without blinking.

“Chloe,” he said softly, his voice almost carried away by the wind. “Have you been well?”

Luke glanced at me, then at Ethan, surprise flickering across his face when he saw how calm I was.

“I’ve been fine.”

Ethan seemed surprised too.

He looked at me for a long time. Then, as if realizing something, he stepped toward me.

“You know I didn’t die. When did you figure it out? If you knew, then why didn’t you come find me?”

I frowned.

The floating words exploded.

What’s wrong with him?

He’s the one who staged his death!

Why is he acting shocked that she didn’t go after him?

Ethan coughed hard from agitation.

He wore an expensive white fox-fur cloak, yet his face was still paler than the fur itself.

“You faked your death because you didn’t want me to come looking for you,” I said, with no mercy at all.

Silence fell for a few seconds.

When he lifted his eyes again, they were red.

“I didn’t want to drag you into danger,” he said. “Once everything settled, I was going to come back for you. I just never expected…” His gaze moved past me to the two men behind me, and his coughing only grew worse. “Chloe Brooks. I left them here to protect you. Not to put a pair of horns on my own head.”

He had gone red with fury.

“Are you trying to kill me?”

I looked at him quietly.

Maybe Ethan truly was angry.

After all, what man could stand seeing his wife in another man’s arms?

“I’ll arrange a new place for you,” he said. “As for these two…”

He looked past me again, his eyes turning icy as they fixed on the brothers.

“I’ll take them back and discipline them myself.”

Before I could speak, Luke laughed.

“Mr. Walker really does know how to dress ugly things in pretty words. Abandoning someone sounds almost noble when you say it.”

Ethan stared, stunned.

Logan gently smoothed the hair from my forehead, not even glancing at him.

“The day you handed down that order, didn’t you say it yourself? From then on, we would have only one master. What right do you have now to take us back?”

Ethan could hardly believe what he was hearing.

“Have the two of you lost your minds? Forgotten whose shadow guards you are?”

Luke did not even frown.

“Chloe Brooks’s,” he said lazily. “Mr. Walker, for a man who remembers his own importance so well, you sure forget your own words fast.”

Ethan was shaking with anger now.

In three quick strides he moved as if to grab me.

“These two lunatics. You are my lawfully wedded wife. I told them to keep you safe, not to crawl into your bed. You—”

Before I could even step back, Ethan was suddenly flying sideways.

He hit the ground hard.

Luke had kicked him so fast I barely saw it.

“You might be a great man in the capital,” Luke said coolly, “but in Maple Hollow, you’re nothing more than Chloe Brooks’s dead husband. We are the men she has now.”

Ethan lay on the ground for a long moment, unable to get up.

He had come in secret, choosing the middle of the night. To be extra careful, he had not brought any extra guards with him.

Now he looked like a dead dog in the dirt.

He was furious enough to spit blood.

“Chloe Brooks,” he panted. “Stay away from those two men. I’ll take you home.”

In his fury he did not even talk anymore about settling me elsewhere.

He had jumped straight to taking me back.

“Those faithless dogs,” he hissed at the brothers. “I’ll deal with you later. Chloe, you’re coming with me tonight. The carriage is waiting at the edge of the village. We leave now.”

I sighed.

“Ethan,” I said, “if I go back with you, what about the woman you’re supposed to marry?”

In the night, his breathing roughened.

“Who told you that? How do you know?”

I looked at his pale, handsome face and suddenly realized I had once wrapped him in a light too holy for any real man to deserve.

To me, Ethan had always been elegant and distant, unlike the rough men in our village. Even sickly, he carried the air of someone refined, someone educated.

But now, like mud on the white of his throat, I was finally seeing the ugliest parts of him.

Selfish.

Cowardly.

False.

“Go,” I said. “Even if I spend my whole life in Maple Hollow, I will never become someone’s second wife. I won’t share a man.”

Ethan shook his head and tried to come forward again, but seeing Luke’s foot shift, he stopped.

“I’ll come back,” he said hoarsely. “Chloe, you are my wife. We haven’t divorced.”

Then he left.

The air in the broken little house felt heavy after he was gone.

Logan took my cold hand and placed it over his chest.

Luke sat on the edge of the bed cursing under his breath.

“That man’s already dead and buried. What was the point of coming back?”

Then he glared at me.

“Chloe Brooks, it’s all your fault. I told you not to go waste paper money for him. Now look. Crawled out of the grave to find you.”

The floating words laughed helplessly.

What is this guy even talking about?

Still, how is he just a guard? The way he kicked the former master was insane.

Risking everything for a woman now.

Then I suddenly remembered something.

I sat up so fast that Logan grunted when I shoved him.

“Ethan looked important. How could you kick him so easily? He said he’d come back. Will he capture both of you?”

Luke gave a low snort.

“He’s just a court scholar. And a pathetic one at that, running around after a princess’s skirts. How many men can he really command?”

“Luke,” Logan cut in.

Luke shut his mouth.

Then Logan turned to me and sighed.

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. It’s that the more you know, the more danger you’re in. Don’t worry. None of this will touch you. I’ll protect you.”

Luke, who had started toward the ceiling beam again, suddenly turned back.

“Why am I the one sleeping on the beam again tonight? Brother, you’re cheating. Yesterday she was yours too.”

I lay back down slowly.

But now, for the first time, I had a rough idea of something.

Ethan had likely never imagined that the two shadow guards he left me were not tame dogs at all.

They were wolves.

And by the way Luke spoke of him, Ethan had never truly been his master in the first place.

He had picked up a rock only to crush his own foot with it.

I buried my face in Logan’s chest, listened to his steady heartbeat, and drifted to sleep.