Survival comes at a heavy price when your husband is the ruler of the nation that destroyed your home.

Elise is the last survivor of a fallen imperial family. She carries the weight of an entire legacy on her shoulders, forced to navigate a precarious existence where one wrong move could mean the end of her bloodline. To reclaim her lost empire, she decides to play the long game. This leads her into an uneasy alliance with the archduke of an enemy nation, a man who holds all the cards.

The terms of their arrangement are cold and calculated. Elise agrees to marry this powerful dragonborn archduke and bear his heir in exchange for her survival. There is no warmth in this union, just the desperate needs of two people standing on opposite sides of a war. Their marriage is purely a business transaction, or so she tells herself to keep her heart protected.

Living in the lion's den is never easy, especially when the person you are tied to is the reason your kingdom fell. The archduke has his own motives for wanting an heir, and Elise must determine if there is any room for genuine connection in such a hollow promise. It is a tense game of wits where the stakes are life, death, and the future of an empire.

Created by {creator}, this gripping manhwa brings high stakes drama to life with every panel. It focuses on the intense emotional landscape of a forced marriage between bitter enemies who are both hiding their true intentions.

Read it completely free right here on HiShow Manhua, to see if a princess and a dragonborn can find a future in a marriage built on secrets.

What makes It Was Just a Contractual Marriage impossible to stop reading?