How to Get My Husband on My Side

“I’ve finally found a worthy groom for you, darling,” announced Father, as he wiped off his lips with a napkin.

Laying on the knees of my oldest brother Cesare, I felt the urge to run back to my bedroom and throw up all the food I’d just eaten.

My second brother Enzo, who had been busily chowing down on an awfully smelly quenelle, slammed his fork down and cried out in protest.

“Not again! Father, how many times has it been already?”

“Enzo.”

“It hasn’t even been three months since her last engagement was called off! Regardless of what our family would gain from this marriage, shouldn’t you at least try to consider her feelings?”

“What a surprise to see you side with your little sister. Then would you rather battle the barbarians yourself instead of accepting Britannia’s support?”

“What are you talking about? Those savage barbarians up north wouldn’t stand a chance against the likes of me, the greatest, most noble soldier to ha—”

“Shut your trap, boy.”

The great noble soldier took the rest of the quenelle on his plate and shoved it into his mouth, aggressively chewing in protest.

The marriage proposal wasn’t any surprise to me though. I knew that it would come sooner or later.

“Who is it, Father?”, I asked cheerfully.

My father, who had been staring disapprovingly at Enzo, looked back my way and smiled.

“He’s Britannia’s hero. The king’s beloved nephew and famous knight of the South. He’s very handsome, I’m sure you’ll like him.”

“What! Father, do you know how bad his reputation is?!”

“Boy, was I talking to you?”

Enzo became quiet again.

that this handsome knight would one day massacre their entire family.

“Ruby?”

This time his long fingers groped the back of my head. I shuddered in revulsion. It felt like a cold snake slithering

locked eyes with Cesare. After glancing at his eerie azure eyes, I shifted my gaze to Enzo who was frowning discontentedly,

can at least be of some service to

smile and pressed them up against the

always, our sweet little

I really wanted to

I had more pressing matters to attend to than throwing up. After all, the handsome knight of the South was

***

Era, and as a character in a novel that I’d read long ago, and, to make matters worse, forced to survive in an environment that was just as vile as my previous life, would

to be reincarnated as a character in this novel, couldn’t I have at least been born into a decent

“Ugh!”

water. I’d gotten good enough at throwing up silently that I didn’t need to worry about being caught

eating disorder. Before I became Rudbeckia de Borgia—I mean before I died—I was an adopted daughter of an

nothing about the so-called ‘Korean Peninsula’ where I was born. Like my adoptive siblings, I attended a prestigious private school in Madrid and lived a

was sometime around 4th grade, when a boy in my class laughed at me while pulling back his eyes. At first I didn’t understand what it meant, so I just laughed along with the rest of the kids in my class. I thought that my eyes

time I grew numb to the racism that I faced at school, but as for my life at home, despite the sophisticated, welcoming

was publicly exposed for his promiscuous private life and drug addiction. The only one in my adoptive family who would sometimes treat me

the role of a smart, cheerful, and obedient daughter, since if I ever brought the smallest bit of shame to my family or offended them in the slightest, there was

I looked in the mirror, instead of seeing my

few days to realize that I’d become Rudbeckia de Borgia, a character in the fantasy novel Sodom and

and revolved around the tale of a vile, corrupt pope who abused his power to subjugate others. It was a story about the countries of the North and the clergy bravely rising up and banding together to overthrow the wicked pope, his family, and the entirety of the

title referred to the people of the northern Romagna region of Italy, and ‘Holy Grail’ was a metaphor for the holy site of the Vatican City. And as for

no less than at the hands of

off Rudbeckia, and after three unsuccessful engagements and another last minute cancellation, she

someone as noble and austere as Izek would lose his mind and decide to murder his wife’s entire family after only being married for six months, it

of Rudbeckia, who’d poisoned his little sister. Cesare had

Rudbeckia killing his little sister, it seems like Izek just got fed up with his backstabbing b*tch of a wife and ended up killing