The wedding night passed quickly, though the wait felt like a thousand years for Katalya. Like that night, many more followed. Katalya waited for her husband to come to her, but he never did.

She soon realized that her marriage to Klode was, in his eyes, a mistake that could never be undone. Yet she clung to the hope that things would change. That he would return to her as before.

One year passed like this, until she dreamed of Klode again. In her dream, a son was born, but not hers. It was Klode’s son with his mistress, Misaria, the daughter of a wealthy commoner greedy for a title. What hurt the most was that they were truly happy and in love. There was no betrayal greater than this. All those nights he had been absent from his wife’s bed, he was joyfully building a family with another woman and now, their child. For Katalya, who had loved Klode for so long, it was a knife to the heart.

Inevitably, there was a confrontation, which Kartel soon discovered. As mediator, he cared nothing for the happiness of either party. Instead, he pressured them to produce a legitimate heir in circumstances that lacked the consent of both. Katalya’s dreams of a happy family lay in ruins. Her husband’s infidelity and her father-in-law’s constant abuse had shattered them. Yet she found hope in the child that was to come. That child became her purpose, her reason to endure. She vowed to protect it from this family, even from the man she had once loved most.

For some years, life was not good for either of them, but it was bearable. Then Kartel died. No one mourned him, yet his death brought a storm even Katalya could not have foreseen.

With his greatest obstacle gone, Klode violently banished his wife and annulled their marriage. His aim was clear: his mistress and their son would become his legacy, while his father’s would be erased. His fury was so great that Sarah had to spend her entire life savings just to buy Katalya a ticket off the continent. A desperate chance to save her life, leaving Khiel in the midst of this storm of hate...