Just as the last wagon was finally loaded, a voice he had known for half his life called out to him.
"Bana?"
The voice was so familiar, so loathsome, it cleaved through the wound in his memory that had only just begun to heal.
Lena—the wife who, when his business failed and he was at his lowest, had stolen his last few coppers and abandoned him, leaving him to give up on himself.
How pathetic. He had once considered this woman the love of his life. Now he cursed himself for having been so blind to her true nature.
Bana turned around calmly. A rather pretty woman stood some distance away. She wore a gorgeous gown and sparkling jewelry, but the expensive fabric couldn't hide her somewhat stout figure, and the heavy makeup couldn't conceal the weariness at the corners of her eyes.
Lena's eyes lit up. She greedily scanned the loaded wagons behind Bana and the alert guards, then hurried over. "It really is you! Bana! My dear husband..."
She had heard that some strange, laughable fool of a merchant was coming to buy discarded equipment that day, so she had come to see for herself. She hadn't expected it to be her ex-husband—or to find him with so many wagons and attendants.
"You're... doing well now?" She tried to make her voice sound tender, and reached out unconsciously to stroke Bana's face.
As he looked at her, what flashed through his mind wasn't the tenderness they had once shared, but the despair he'd felt when he returned home after his business failed and found it stripped bare—his wife's betrayal had made him lose the will to live.
Bana took a step back, recoiling from her touch in disgust.
This greedy woman was acting this way now simply because