Chapter 23: Gravity Training
The Second Empress of the Starbloom Empire, Edna Starbloom, had always thought of herself as a strong woman.
A very strong woman with an unshakable will.
She had been raised to be one.
Born as the daughter of the ruling house of the Solaria Empire, she had grown up knowing her value not as a person, but as a bargaining chip for peace.
When the long, bloody conflict between Solaria and Starbloom finally reached its tipping point, she had been the solution — offered as the Second Wife to Emperor Aldric Starbloom in exchange for a truce.
At sixteen, she was sent to a foreign palace, to a foreign man, in a foreign land she barely knew.
It wasn’t like those stories she used to sneak from the library when no one was watching —those sweet, romantic novels where a political bride gradually melted her husband’s cold heart and won his love.
This was real life.
In real life, marriages were inked in treaties, not carved into hearts.
The Emperor was not cruel to her.
He was a good man — a good ruler. But to him, she was never more than another woman to the Emperor, he valued his first wife far more than her.
She was nothing more than tool of politics, a duty fulfilled. When he looked at her, it was with a distant fondness, never love.