CH 7

She pushed open the door herself. As the cold midnight air blew inside, she saw that there were knights gathered in the drill hall.

“What is it? I clearly told you not to bother us during our preparations for bat…”

At the sound of the door opening, the knights turned their heads and focused on Amber immediately.

All the knights who recognized Amber widened their eyes in surprise. ‘Isn’t that the Duke’s newlywed wife? What’s that woman doing here?’

Amber could easily read the questions in their mind and stared at each of the familiar faces gathered before her.

The image of the knights was significantly worse than Amber remembered. Though careful management had kept the armor and weapons clean, the wear and age could not be hidden. The knights themselves, unable to receive a proper salary while being dragged off to difficult battles, looked tired to no end. As it was difficult to receive supplies of hay for fodder, even the horses for the heavily armed knights looked thing and weak.

‘I knew this was the case, but they really are inferior aren’t they,’ Amber let out a deep sigh in her mind.

At that moment, she met eyes with Kalix, who was in the midst of issuing orders to the knights.

Kalix also looked very different from how Amber remembered.

Kalix, Amber’s husband was…

‘Way too young!’

He was much younger than she remembered.

It should have been obvious as she had returned ten years into the past, but it still felt strange to see her husband so young.

Furthermore, the first time Amber actually met her husband was two years after she signed the marriage documents. This was the first time she had ever seen him at the age of twenty-four.

‘My goodness,’ Amber thought. ‘Twenty-four. He really is a young sprout.’

For a twenty-four-year-old husband, instead of the grandiose title of the ‘Duke of Thales’, calling him by his name Kalix felt more fitting instead.

The dark navy-colored eyes that met with hers sparkled with youthful light. His lips were sealed tightly as if he was surprised and nervous at her sudden appearance.

However, Kalix was also unable to hide the obvious tellings of fatigue like the other knights.

In the middle of the freezing cold night, the sight of Kalix standing there with shabby armor and his knights in tow emphasized the extreme fatigue and exhaustion in his figure.

At the time of their marriage, Kalix was said to be a newly appointed duke. It hadn’t even been a month since he received his title when he married Amber. The title succession was delayed until the marriage because of the Eastern land’s conservative custom that necessitated an engagement to be recognized as a proper adult.

The reason Amber’s mother-in-law, Bella, couldn’t grasp the powerful political strength she desperately sought was because Kalix had no wife.

Furthermore, she also heard that this would be the first time he lead his knights into battle as the duke.

‘But even so, to even think that he looked tired and pitiful…’ Amber thought to herself, ‘I must be crazy to pity the great Kalix Thales.

Amber’s husband was not a pitiful man. He was the pillar that held up the barren Eastern Lands and was called a god of war for achieving miraculous victories in every war or battle.

For Amber, the ten years she experienced married to a man who treated her with the utmost coldness was deeply engraved in her heart. The memory of their first night, when Kalix had taken her virginity and walked out without even looking back as he commented that she wouldn’t be able to go back anymore, was enough for her to instantly lose any pity she had for him.

“I believe this is the first time we’ve met.”

Kalix continued to keep his mouth shut, so Amber bowed first, bending her knees in greeting. The knights glanced her way at the elegant dip of her white wedding dress. “I am Amber Thales, the Duke’s wife. Though I signed the document, this seems to be the first time I have seen your face.”