The Sand Bride

Romance Guide:

Setting/Genre: Historical Fantasy / Court Romance

Keywords:

#HistoricalFantasy, #Fantasy, #WesternStyle, #CourtRomance, #Royalty/Nobility, #ClassDifference, #Possessiveness/Jealousy/Obsession, #DashingMan, #ObsessiveMan, #BadBoy, #RegretfulMan, #ColdMan, #ArrogantMan, #CharismaticMan, #StraightforwardMan, #WoundedHeroine, #InnocentHeroine, #NaiveHeroine, #TragicLove, #Hardcore, #HighTension, #DirtyTalk

Male Lead: Karzhen – The supreme ruler of Gharyam, Sayar, who believes that the strong deserve to win and wield power. As the king of Gharyam, he raids a merchant caravan crossing the desert at the request of his sister, Greta, and ends up kidnapping Esther. Though he torments Esther endlessly, he unknowingly falls in love with her.

Female Lead: Esther – While crossing the desert with her father, who joined a merchant caravan at a trader’s request, she is kidnapped by Karzhen and becomes his plaything. Despite her suffering, she clings to the hope of surviving and returning home with her father……

When to Read: When you’re in the mood for a high-tension, tragic romance.

Emotional Quote:

“To think that the one who loves me is also my enemy…… Wouldn’t my death be the sweetest revenge?”

Ⅰ. Desert

Black smoke and ash filled the sky.

On top of the shattered carriage, corpses lay sprawled, and the spilled red blood soaked the sand. The wails of the survivors and the groans of the dying mingled together, rolling in the air. It was a horrifying sound. Esther flinched, holding her breath and curling up into a ball.

She was fortunate to be among the survivors. Not only that, she was unharmed and intact, but who knew what could happen next? The situation was too desperate, and she had no idea what to do. Her heart kept pounding.

The reason Esther had survived was entirely thanks to her father.

As soon as the attack began, Esther’s father had shoved her into a carriage filled with worthless items, told her to hide among the carpets, and ordered her not to move no matter what. He told her not to make a sound and to wait until the bandits had left.

Before Esther could blink three times, her father had already closed the carriage door. Left behind, Esther called out to her father in terror, but outside was already filled with screams and the sounds of fighting.

What had happened to her father? Had he died? He might have been badly injured. Esther’s heart shattered as the groans of the wounded sounded just like her father’s.

Just as she was about to step out of the carriage to look for her father, a cheer erupted outside. It was clearly from the bandits who had slaughtered Esther’s group. Esther, filled with fear, curled up even tighter.

“Lord Karzhen! Our master!”

It was the sound of the bandits praising their leader. It was strange for bandits to call their leader “master,” but Esther had no room to dwell on such things.

She clasped her hands together and prayed fervently to God. She begged that the bandits would leave without discovering her and that her father would still be alive when she stepped outside.

At that moment, as if God had heard Esther’s prayer, the bandits seemed to be preparing to leave. The sound of horses neighing and carriages moving made Esther sigh in relief. Hoping this moment would pass quickly, she wiped away her tears.

“Hey, what’s this carriage?”

“Oh, that? It’s probably the one they used to store the servants’ stuff. Nothing valuable in there.”

“Really?”

Esther held onto hope until the bandits who had looked inside the carriage closed the door again. If they left like this, she would find her father. She would tend to the wounded. Her father was a doctor, so he would know what to do. And then they would return home.

But the voice that followed shattered that hope.

“Well, you know, sometimes…….”

“M-Master?”

“There’s always a little rat hiding in a place like this.”

Esther’s heart stopped with a thud. Immediately, someone entered the carriage and began smashing and throwing things. Porcelain shattered, and wooden boxes were destroyed. Esther, hiding under the carpet right behind them, trembled uncontrollably.

God had turned a deaf ear to her prayers. The carpet she had been hiding under was mercilessly pulled away, and a shadow loomed over her. Esther, shaking violently, looked up.

“See? I was right.”

A young man was grinning down at her.

* * *

The desert nation of Gharyam was the land of the Kemut tribe.

Unlike the Kingdom of Donova, which was mostly flatlands, Gharyam was a barren desert except for the areas around the great Demot River. Though it had a vast territory with cities near the sea, the heart of Gharyam was formed by the Demot River and its oasis cities.

Perhaps because they grew up in such a harsh environment, the Kemut tribe was infamous for being more warlike and brutal than any other nation. Stories of them boiling enemies alive or impaling their heads on spears were almost considered common knowledge. Fittingly, most of the desert bandits were also Kemut.

However, Gharyam, with its strict survival-of-the-fittest mindset, was more lenient toward the bandits’ rampages compared to other nations. They would even turn a blind eye when the bandits attacked merchants from other countries.

Naturally, there was significant backlash, but no nation dared to wage war against Gharyam. Wars with Gharyam were on a completely different level from those with the prosperous southern or eastern nations.

They slaughtered every last citizen of the enemy nation, burned buildings, and trampled crops. Knowing full well what happened to nations that went to war with Gharyam, everyone wisely kept their mouths shut.

Esther, a citizen of the southern Kingdom of Donova, had heard tales of the Kemut tribe’s infamy since she was a child. In her kingdom, there wasn’t a child who hadn’t heard the warning that the Kemut would come for them if they misbehaved.

As a child, Esther too had cowered in fear, trembling at the thought of the terrifying Kemut coming for her when she did something wrong.

But she never imagined she would actually be attacked by Kemut bandits.

Esther’s father was a doctor. Since Gharyam’s specialties like spices and porcelain fetched high prices, Donovan merchants often risked their lives crossing the desert to trade. And on such trade routes, a doctor was always necessary.

Esther’s father was a skilled doctor, so when a merchant offered a large advance to accompany him, he accepted. Normally, he would have refused for Esther’s sake, but her mother had fallen ill. The medicine needed to cure her was exorbitantly expensive, far beyond what Esther’s father could afford alone.

In the end, on the condition that they would only travel as far as one city, Esther’s father made a contract with the merchant. Her mother, left at her maternal home, tearfully bid farewell to her daughter and husband.

Unable to let her father go alone and aspiring to become a doctor herself, Esther forced a brave smile to reassure her worried parents.

But perhaps it was a mistake to assume nothing would go wrong after visiting just one city. Not long after entering the desert, the merchant caravan Esther and her father were traveling with was ambushed by bandits.

“Well, well, you sure know how to hide and cower.”

“Ah!”

The man let out a snickering laugh before grabbing Esther by the hair and lifting her up. He then dragged her out of the carriage. His strength was so immense that with just one pull, Esther was yanked out effortlessly.