May Every Wound Be Fatal - Chapter 2.2
At the maid’s voice, spoken with deliberate effort to comfort her, Reyna consciously lifted the corners of her mouth and rose to leave the room.
For a moment her vision darkened and her legs trembled, but she did not reveal it.
She had to see her husband right now. If she did not do it now, she felt she would repeat her foolish mistakes again.
“Where is His Majesty?”
Even as she asked, her steps were already carrying her somewhere.
Where he would be was obvious. His office, or if not that, the training grounds or the reception room.
The attendants passing by halted and quickly bowed their heads, secretly glancing at the rapidly retreating figure of the queen. Reyna paid no attention to their gazes.
The king’s knights stood before the office. Reyna knew she had come to the right place. Even when the knights turned toward her as if to block an unannounced visitor, she did not stop.
At that moment, without warning, the office door opened.
Reyna instinctively lifted her gaze and halted in her tracks.
‘Ah.’
It was because she had encountered an unexpected person. Or perhaps she had expected this slightly when she heard that Priscilla had taken the detached palace.
The woman with neatly pinned black hair and grayish brown eyes stopped short as she stepped out of the reception room.
The woman who, under different circumstances, would have become queen and mistress of this castle. Priscilla, wife of the late Prince Kassian and Elizer’s sister-in-law.
Priscilla looked at Reyna with an unreadable expression, then quietly lowered herself into a polite curtsey.
‘…So it really is true. She really is in the palace. Yes.’
And in that moment, facing her husband’s sister-in-law who had come out of his office during such a late hour, Reyna wanted to leave Elmaril immediately.
She walked past the bowed Priscilla. As though there was no secret left to protect, the king’s knights no longer blocked the queen’s path.
Thud.
The sound of the door closing behind her rang unusually loud.
And finally the figure of the man seated at the desk came into view.
Her husband. Her king, Elizer Wills.
Reyna, walking toward him, hesitated without realizing it. Suddenly he felt unfamiliar to her. His pale platinum hair and the shadow cast over his lowered face revealed no trace of the shyness or youthful softness he once had.
Elizer lifted his gaze. He did not look startled or surprised in the slightest, and his expression was far from that of a husband looking upon his wife.
As always, it was a cold, emotionless gaze.
“What brings you here, Reyna.”
Even though she had collapsed in front of him, he acted as if he knew nothing of it.
But Reyna no longer cared about such things. She had grown too worn and too eroded to feel disappointment and hurt at his every action.
Once, she had believed he would return to her someday.
Someday, he would smile at her again as he once did.
But now she had reached her limit.
She no longer wanted to wait for him.
She no longer wanted to cling to his love.
Elizer spoke.
“If you have come to speak about allowing guests into the palace, you may stop.”
Even at his tone that cut off the conversation, Reyna was able to answer calmly.
“The matter regarding Lady Priscilla does not concern me.”
But Elizer did not appear to believe her words.
“Even if you put your family forward, it will be of no use.”
Of their five years of marriage, Elizer had spent three on the battlefield. Once he had been a puppet king, but now the king’s soldiers outnumbered the private forces of the Dazbel Duchy. The absurd rumor that the Duke of Dazbel was a king above the king had long since faded.
“I have no intention of doing that.”
But truly, Reyna did not care about such complicated issues. What she intended to say to the king now was something she could never discuss with her father.
The duke was strict. He would be ashamed of a weak daughter and would never permit her to flee the royal palace.
‘But truly, I cannot endure any longer.’
She had endured his indifference for five long years. Was that not enough effort?
Reyna was exhausted. She wanted to end this painful process and leave this place as quickly as possible.
So with a somewhat urgent tone, she murmured.
“I will leave.”
Reyna had not come to ask Elizer to send Priscilla away from the detached palace.
“It is not Lady Priscilla who will leave Elmaril. It will be me. Your Highness must have wished for this as well.”
At her true reason, spoken at last, a subtle and hard to notice crack appeared on his expressionless face.
But Reyna, worn to the bone, could not see it clearly.
“Please depose me.”
In that moment, she felt strangely relieved, and an unconscious, faint smile rose to her lips.
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