*Carriage of House Calder*
Inside the carriage that was moving towards the House of Duke Lunaris, two young girls were sitting quietly.
One had her eyes covered by a cloth. Anyone who didn't know her identity would think she was of commoner origin by looking at her clothes.
They were clean but something only commoners would wear.
In front of her, a girl around her age was sitting.
Someone in maid clothes. The clothes worn by her were more sophisticated compared to the clothes worn by the Elara.
But there was also something unusual about the maid as well. There was a mark on her throat.
This mark was none other than a slave mark.
The name of the maid was Elsa.
"Did you do what I asked for?" - Elara
Elara asked her slave if she had completed the job she gave her.
"Yes, Lady Elara. I searched for anything I could find about Lord Lucien." - Elsa
Elsa replied with confidence to what Elara asked her.
Today was the day Elara would be married to the young lord of the house Lunaris.
So, on this occasion, she had asked her slave to find out about her future husband.
Was she interested in him? No, she was scared, so she wanted to find out about her before hand to know what she could expect in the future.
Elsa started telling Elara about Lucien. About his family. About what kind of person he was. About his friends.
Lucien wasn't someone with a big family.
His only family members were His father, his stepmother, and his stepbrother.
He wasn't close to his stepmother and stepbrother.
The reason was simple for that and one would hardly find anyone in this day and age to be close to their stepfamily.
His only notable friend was someone around his age from another ducal household.
He was someone who followed his noble duties and followed religious doctrines.
That was the major thing one could come to know about his personality.
Overall, he was a reserved man with few close relationships.
But he was a capable man when it came to politics and his skills.
He hadn't undergone his ceremony but was one of the best swordsman that could even rival someone with low-level sword skills.
Anyone would be happy to marry such a person, even if it was a political marriage.
But it can't be said the same for Elara, and the reason was simple.
Because she was completely blind since birth. Her eyes offered her no image of what was in front of her.
*Sigh
She began reminiscing about the past.
The past she herself didn't experience.
It was a time when she wasn't born.
Her mother was pregnant with her, but her mother's health was deteriorating with each passing day.
Her father, the head of the Calder family, was scared about his wife's health, but what scared him more was the laws that related to inheritance of the title Calder.
The laws were clear about one thing. If you can't prove the death of your first wife or her children was of natural causes, the title can not be passed on to your second wife or her children. The burden of proof was on the head of the household, and if the head can not prove it, then the title of your household can not be inherited. A law that was against what the historical doctrines said. But the law was passed by the royal family to stop the malpractices used by various members of noble households to inherit the title of family themselves even if they were not the first in the line of succession.
Only the king could pardon this.
The head of the Calder family immediately sent his wife to the royal palace so that, in case any mishap happened, he could get a pardon from the king.
Soon the day of Elara's birth came.
Her mother died in the process, but the Calder family got a heir until it was known that she was completely blind.
The family head, Elara's father, immediately approached the king and asked for a pardon.
The king immediately granted him a pardon.
But the Royal Counselor was of some other views.
He suggested to the king that the law only allowed pardon for when something happened after birth, as that is the result of their current deeds and should be allowed pardon, but stripping someone on the basis of birth is not correct, as it's like taking away their rightful rights on the basis of their birth, which would be against both historical doctrines and current law.
This angered the current head of the Calder family, but he again pleaded his case to the king, and the king again agreed with the head, but this time with one condition.
To take care of his daughter properly and marry her off properly to a proper man. The man she is married off to must be a proper man, and no one from all the dukes or the royal family should think otherwise on that matter.
King asked for the opinion of the only present duke in the Royal Palace, Duke Lunaris.
'Please, say no' - Viscount Calder
"I agree with the king" - Duke Lunaris
It would not have been an issue if his family was doing well. But at a time when his family was struggling, such a condition was devastating for the Calder family
'You knew about my condition and still' - Viscount Calder
The condition seemed like something easy to fulfil, but it was not.
To marry a daughter to a proper man meant finding someone with a good noble status and to marry as his first wife. Someone who had inheritance rights, it would require him to spend a lot of money on gifts and maybe even present his family land for someone to accept a blind girl as his wife.
Viscount Calder was enraged by such turns of events just after his beloved wife had passed away.
No one in the whole family loved Elara except for her grandmother. His father soon married someone who was said to not have a good moral character.
Rumors were that she seduced him very easily.
Her grandmother was old and hardly spent time with Elara, but whenever she was with Elara, she would hold her in her arms.
By the time Elara turned 5, her grandmother also passed away.
Seeing this, her mother's brother, that is, her uncle, tried to take her with him to his Baron's household but failed to do so.
In the end, all his uncle could do was buy a really expensive slave from a far-away kingdom and bind that slave to Elara.
Her only companion till this date.
It wasn't easy for her uncle to bring a slave to a kingdom where slavery wasn't allowed, and he was only able to do so after paying very heavy taxes.
Elara was grateful to her uncle for it.
Her father cut off all kinds of contact with Elara. She was confined to her room. She was never given any education by her family.
She was barely provided any food; the reason for that was something she had heard once.
She couldn't walk if she ate more than that; she would get fat, and who would marry her.
She heard a maid telling so to the newer maid.
She could walk fine, but the truth was she wasn't allowed to leave her room, as the family head didn't like seeing her face.
But she didn't lose hope.
She knew that her father must marry her off to someone.
She wished she would be married to someone who had a loving family and who was the same as her in some way. So she could stand next to her husband as an equal and die peacefully with her only family, that is, her husband. Physicians and Healers had already said that there is high chance her children may also be blind, and so she didn't want to give birth to a child. Just herself and her husband, who are equals.
But everything changed a month back.
At first, she was happy that her father asked something of her.
He had asked her to agree with him. She wasn't sure what he meant, but she readily agreed to do so.
He took her out and helped her climb into a carriage himself.
After a few hours, they reached their destination.
She, along with her father, was sitting on a sofa that was of very high quality.
She could make out that they had come to the house of Duke Lunaris.
She had heard that her father didn't like the duke, so she was a little confused as to why they had come here, but soon thunder came down on her.
She felt as if everything she had hoped for came crumbling down to nothing.
Her father had brought her here so he could discard her to his enemy in order to get his revenge.
His plan was to make things harder for the Lunaris family so that no one could inherit their title.
And for his plan, he is using Elara.
She panicked; tears started coming out of her eyes. Suddenly, she was asked if she accepted such an arrangement.
She had agreed to accept her father's proposal. Right now, the only thoughts she had were why she was such an easy woman to accept his father's proposal so easily.
She should have already come to know what kind of person her father was, yet she couldn't understand his sudden actions.
She had no choice but to accept this arrangement that would murder her dreams.
There was no one to blame but herself is what she thought, as maybe she would have prevented it if she had refused her father earlier.
But now it was no use thinking about it.
Soon her father again taunted the Duke Lunaris, and they returned home.
The very next day she was tutored on the basics of noble etiquettes of a females and how she should act as a wife. She was taught other basic things for the next 30 days.
She knew that only 2 things could happen: either she would be dealt with very quickly, but she doubted her father would let them do it, or she would face much harsher conditions as compared to here, in the form of a grudge.
There could be another result, but she doubted the Duke family would risk having a child with a blind girl that could put the Duke family in the same position as the Calder family.
She realized that her dream of being her husband's equal is now just a distant dream that could never be fulfilled.
A baron's blind daughter being equal to the capable son of the Duke's family.
She again felt like crying thinking of all these things, but crying here and now will just make things worse for her.