Chapter 4

From that day on, Sabrina took to her bed, playing sick.

I watched, half-amused, as the three junior brothers ran themselves ragged over her illness, like three headless flies.

Ferran went so far as to kneel outside my cave dwelling day after day, begging me to plead with the Grandmaster and call off the marriage alliance.

So I sealed myself away and left them to their noise.

Then, the day before the alliance was to be sealed with the Demon Realm, all three of them fell quiet at once.

I took it to mean they had finally given up. What I did not expect was that they would be bold enough to break clean through my barrier and bind me.

I cursed my own carelessness. This body of mine was no longer what it had been at its peak.

"Cloralie, we don't want it to come to this either. But our junior sister is at death's door. She's so timid — how could she ever survive a marriage alliance in the Demon Realm?"

"How about this. I promise I'll practice dual cultivation with you, and you go to the Grandmaster and get him to take back his decree, all right?"

Wyatt kept pressing his spirit energy down on me, holding me pinned, and yet his face wore a look of great reluctance.

Seeing that I only kept my face cold and said nothing, Marlin spoke up, a little awkwardly.

"Senior sister, if it's me you like, I'm willing too, so long as you let our junior sister stay!"

"Only, if you choose me, I hope the eldest and the youngest will take good care of her."

Even Ferran, frantic, blurted out one line after another.

"I can too!"

"As long as you two look after our junior sister!"

I watched the three of them yield the spot to one another, each waving it off. Not one of them had ever once considered that the real say in this belonged to me.

When they finished, all three looked at me, anxious.

"Senior sister, choose one, hurry!"

I looked at them with contempt.

"The three of you — I don't want a single one."

The moment I said it, all three of their faces changed.

The next second, Wyatt's expression turned vicious.

"Then, Cloralie, you can't blame us for this."

And then I saw Wyatt scatter something over me. It took no more than an instant.

I felt as if tens of thousands of ants were gnawing at my body.

Wherever they bit, the skin did not only itch beyond bearing — it burned like open flame, and the pain was agony.

I couldn't hold it in. I dropped to the ground, thrashing and rolling, crying out and screaming.

The three of them stood there dumbstruck at the sight.

Marlin grabbed hold of Wyatt and demanded an answer.

"Eldest brother, didn't you say it was just a small lesson for our senior sister? Why is she in this much pain?"

Wyatt looked just as lost.

"Could she be faking it?"

But before they could settle on any answer, I had already passed out from the pain.

They rushed to me at last, and only then did they find my whole body scalding hot, not one patch of skin left unbroken.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in the Grandmaster's chambers.

The Grandmaster's face was grim.

"Rest easy. Those three put you to torture without cause, and this master will see them punished for it."

"It's fortunate the betrothal gifts from the Demon Realm included a medicine made precisely for fire ants. Any later, and the fire venom would have burned you to death!"

A wave of cold dread washed through me too.

For those three I had still held on to a shred of feeling, born of the days we once shared morning and night. But now, not a scrap of it remained.

I bowed low to the Grandmaster, and then I put on the bridal gown.

"Grandmaster, today I am to be wed. Let the three of them kneel and witness the ceremony."