When I Asked My Husband for a Divorce, He Said He’d Be Bringing Home a Young Woman, So I Left - 5

And so, somehow, five years passed. It felt both long and fleeting in the blink of an eye.

When I asked my father if he could buy up all the Ecklund Viscountcy’s debts in one go, he refused, insisting that negotiating with creditors was a crucial business matter I should handle myself. My father was truly strict when it came to commerce. I wish he’d been half as strict with His Majesty.

Through relentless effort and fortunate avoidance of major disasters or mishaps, everyone worked together to manage the territory, and the Ecklund lands quickly regained financial stability. Though we weren’t yet comfortable enough to relax, the debts were being steadily repaid. Our civil officials truly were exceptional.

Everyone believed that once my husband returned, the viscountcy would finally return to normal.

To cut to the chase—my husband did not renounce his duelist status. He did not come home.

The reason? At the time, he was assigned as a mentor to a fifteen-year-old girl and insisted on remaining at the front until her training was complete.

I couldn’t make sense of it.

The frontlines weren’t just for soldiers—people of all roles were stationed there. So why did it have to be my husband paired with a fifteen-year-old girl? Why did he have to postpone his retirement and stay there with her?

I was now twenty-three. Most women my age had already borne and raised children—some were even mothers of three.

And yet, my husband chose to mentor someone else’s child—a girl already fifteen—instead of raising his own. He made his wife, who longed for children, wait even longer, leaving her to shoulder the burden of the territory alone. All for that girl.

Would I have felt this way if I’d had my own child?

It was like being back at square one, like the rug had been pulled out from under me. With no clarity and my future painted black, my already worn-down heart cracked under the strain.

Still, in the sixth and seventh years, my husband returned home for my birthday.

I finally got to hear the reason directly from him—why he hadn’t retired and instead became that girl’s mentor. But all his talk of confidentiality only deepened the mystery, leaving me with no real answers.

He explained that the girl had received a revelation at the age of ten—a prophecy that she would “one day receive the divine revelation of a duelist.”

A foretelling of a revelation was unheard of, so she was placed under the temple’s protection to prepare. But when she turned fifteen, she received another revelation: “Place yourself amidst battle.”

No one understood the meaning—there was no precedent. But regardless, the girl was sent to the frontlines.

A mere fifteen-year-old, not yet granted her revelation, unable to wield the light arrows or healing radiance of a duelist.

And so, my husband—a veteran of the front—was assigned as her partner.

He apologized for all the things he couldn’t explain, oblivious (or perhaps indifferent) to the fractures in my heart. Then, without giving me the child I longed for, he cheerfully embraced me and returned to the front.

No matter how many duelists there were, the battlefield was a brutal place.

Yet amid that carnage, the girl never fled—she stood and fought alongside my husband. Slowly, the people around them began to regard her as sacred.

By the eighth year, even I had heard the stories.

Now twenty-six, I was growing anxious about my first childbirth. Resolved, I sent a firm letter, pleading with my husband to return and consider an heir.

His reply? “This year’s schedule is packed. I cannot come home.”

Not a word about my plea. Just ignored.

“Perhaps you should visit him, my lady,” the steward suggested, seeing how despondent I had become. “We know little of the frontlines here. If you go to the nearest town, you might learn more.”

Thanks to the duelists and soldiers, the town closest to the front was safe.

If circumstances allowed, duelists often relocated their families there to spend holidays together. Were I not the viscountess, I might have done the same.

My husband had written that he often spent his short leaves in that town.

The territory, painstakingly restored through the efforts of so many, had been stable for years now. Even if I were gone for a month—traveling to and from the front, plus my stay—it would hold.

After much deliberation, I decided to go.

I wanted to see the town where my husband stayed, the frontlines where he defended the country.

Though I didn’t tell the steward, it was the urgency in those battlefield rumors that drove me forward—the fear that if I didn’t act now…