May Every Wound Be Fatal - Chapter 23.2
At the end of it all, it felt as though she could see Elizer left utterly alone within despair.
The words Priscilla had once whispered to her with malicious intent suddenly resurfaced in her mind.
“You are far more…”
“……”
“…more cruel and horrifying than you think.”
She had been right.
Soon, Reyna sank into the pitch-black sea and fell into a very deep sleep.
***
King Bailion was famous for indulging in women. He did not discriminate between his wife’s maids, servant girls who happened to catch his eye as he passed by, or even married women.
Yet at the same time, he was obsessively careful about contraception.
He feared his own bloodline. Just as he himself had joined hands with Leonard Dazbel to murder his father and pin the crime on a Dochioin attendant, he believed that one day he too might be killed by his own children.
The first wife he took when he was still a prince had been frail. After becoming queen, she safely gave birth to Prince Cassian, but she remained bedridden for a full three years due to complications from childbirth and eventually died.
After that, King Bailion took as his second queen a young noblewoman he had kept as a mistress. She was a girl Duke Leonard Dazbel had pushed into the king’s bedchamber.
The king was fond of his young wife. His indulgence in women was a separate matter altogether.
It was around the time the young queen became pregnant with Prince Tiberian.
At a banquet, the king fell in love at first sight with a beautiful dancer and brought the woman, whose origins were unknown, into a separate palace, visiting her every single day.
He cherished her so deeply that it was as though he had forgotten about his pregnant queen.
Eventually, the king even permitted her to enter the royal garden, a place only members of the royal family were allowed to frequent.
To anyone who saw her, the woman appeared to be someone special.
As if to prove that fact, despite the king’s long-held obsession with contraception, the dancer soon conceived his child.
Since King Bailion feared his own blood, it was unclear whether he welcomed this.
However, the young queen grew anxious, and Leonard Dazbel, who had made her queen, was also displeased with the king’s new mistress.
Even so, the dancer safely carried the child to term and gave birth. As if openly proclaiming the child to be of royal blood, he was a baby boy with vivid golden hair and blue eyes.
That child was Elizer.
Unfortunately, the dancer died of puerperal fever just ten days after giving birth.
From that point on, King Bailion rapidly fell apart. To forget his profound grief, he abandoned himself to pleasure and forgot everything she had left behind.
The annex palace that had once seemed like paradise, and even the child she had borne.
In truth, after the dancer’s death, everyone quickly forgot about the king’s illegitimate son. He had been born particularly small and weak, and it was assumed he would soon die like his mother, so he was simply left alone.
Contrary to everyone’s expectations, however, the child stubbornly clung to life.
Only an old maid who had once attended the dance remained behind in the abandoned annex palace to care for the child.
“You must never make a sound. Do not let anyone know that you are alive.”
If he were noticed, the child would clearly be expelled from the palace or killed, so the maid made him live as though he were already dead. That was the best she could do.
And so, astonishingly, the child grew into a boy deep within the innermost reaches of the royal castle, without ever knowing who he was.
If one were generous, it could be called good fortune.
However, when the child was around seven years old, the old maid who had been caring for him died.
The child did not even realize she was dead and simply waited. As she had instructed him, he stayed buried deep within the ruins of the annex palace, making no sound at all, waiting only for her to bring him food.
But the dead do not return. Unable to endure the hunger any longer, the young boy eventually crawled out of the darkness.
He wandered hesitantly through the dense forest for a long while, lingering near the walls of the annex palace.
From beyond the wall came the sound of guards on patrol.
“Where is that rotten stench coming from?”
“I do not know. It seems to be coming from inside the wall, but what can we do? His Majesty sealed off the annex palace.”
Startled by the unfamiliar voices, the boy hurriedly hid himself among the bushes. Even after everything grew completely quiet, he stayed frozen in place, waiting until nightfall.
Then, just as he cautiously crawled out of the bushes and was about to sneak back, it happened.
Someone else sprang out from the bushes as well.
“You. You, what are you….”
It was a man with a flustered expression and refined clothing. He still looked young, yet he was tall like an adult.
The boy, who had never encountered anyone other than the old maid since birth, was utterly terrified and froze where he stood.
“So you really were alive….”
Regardless, the well-dressed man approached while repeatedly uttering exclamations of awe that were hard to understand.
“…What is that smell?”
Then, as he caught the stench coming from the abandoned boy, he sharply twisted his face and covered his nose and mouth.
That was the first meeting between Cassian and Elizer.
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