The Only Thing a Poor Woman Like Me Can Afford to Lose

“Katarina Godrick. Please begin your statement.”
The affair between the Empire’s greatest hero, Millian, and his sister-in-law, Katarina, was a scandal so vile it shook the entire nation.
In the courtroom where the adultery trial was held, Katarina faced two opposing gazes—those of the nobles, desperate to drag Millian down, and those of the commoners, equally desperate to keep him from falling.
Every eye in the room was fixed on her lips.
“I… was the only one who harbored such feelings. His kindness, born out of compassion… I mistook it, foolishly, for love.”
Katarina had loved Millian. She still did.
He was the one who had shown her undeserved kindness when no one else would look her way—who had held her with warmth, even when she had fallen to the lowest depths of despair.
And so, she wanted to protect him—his honor, his duty, even the noble name of Godrick that he had built with his own hands.
To protect him, the only thing left for Katarina to give up—was herself.
And that, to her, meant nothing at all.