At the castle banquet, Leon got drunk.
In truth, neither ale nor Honey Wine was particularly strong.
But wine did not intoxicate people; people intoxicated themselves.
His younger sister, Liya, was the daughter his father had with his second wife.
There was nearly a twenty-year age gap between the siblings.
Liya lost both her parents when she was only five.
Leon had taken on the burden of the household and family, maintaining the business and connections his father had left behind while also caring for and raising his sister.
An elder brother was like a father. He was Liya's brother, but also her father.
Through bleary, drunken eyes, Leon watched the lively yet somewhat illusory scene of the banquet, his thoughts drifting ever farther away.
He still remembered how, whenever he returned home after a business trip, Liya would follow behind him like a little tail, calling out in her clear young voice, "Brother, Brother."
He had spent a fortune to provide Liya with a privileged life and hired the finest tutors from the royal court.
All of it had been to cultivate Liya into an outstanding court mistress.
Making money by becoming a mistress—there was nothing shameful about that.
Leon wanted so badly to rise.
Didn't the Salt Field Family, which monopolized the entire Northern Kingdom's salt trade, still have to eagerly send women and money to the King, dukes, and other powerful nobles?
The Salt Field Family had even been doing so for more than a century. Every King of the North had mistresses from that family in his court.
Generation after generation of bloodlines joining together had forged an unbreakable alliance between the two sides, until the current King of the North died without an heir.
Besides, becoming the mistress of a great noble was far better