May Every Wound Be Fatal - Chapter 3.1
Karla had been unable to stay still for a while now. Reyna finally spoke when Karla kept pacing back and forth in her line of sight.
“You are making my head spin, Karla.”
Unlike Karla, who had been trembling with anxiety for days, Reyna was completely calm.
“Oh my, I am sorry.”
“You will end up startling the baby in your belly.”
“Ah…”
Karla unconsciously wrapped her arms around her lower stomach, where her pregnancy barely showed. She gave an awkward smile, then quietly sat down beside Reyna.
Reyna showed a faint smile.
“I felt uneasy because you had to stay in Elmaril away from your husband because of me, but it is good that you can return to Kaldirac like this.”
It was a joke that did not feel like a joke, and Karla could not laugh.
“…Good, you say.”
“We must hurry. Before your belly grows any bigger.”
Lately Reyna had an odd spark of vitality. Karla sometimes wondered if it was alright for her to be like this, yet when she watched Reyna looking noticeably livelier, it made her feel as if everything might turn out fine.
That did not mean her worries disappeared.
“…I am afraid the Duke will be angry with you, Your Highness.”
Karla feared the Duke’s wrath.
When she was fifteen, during her foolish years, she sneaked out of the inner castle with Reyna and caused a great commotion. Since then, the Duke has been the most frightening person in the world.
Reyna nodded lightly.
“Yes, he will probably be very angry.”
“…Will you not regret this? If you speak properly to His Majesty even now, the Duke may never hear of it.”
“No. I am leaving this place.”
“Your Highness…”
Karla could not say anything more after Reyna’s firm answer. Reyna gave her a weak smile as if apologizing.
Even in Reyna’s own thoughts, requesting her removal from the throne without consulting her father, then trying to return to Kaldirac so abruptly, was terribly irresponsible.
However, if she did not leave in such a reckless manner, she would never be able to return to her homeland.
“Father will eventually pretend he had no choice and accept me.”
Even as she said that, Reyna was not confident.
The Duke cherished his daughter. Everyone said he cared for her especially because she lost her mother at birth.
But the look in his eyes had definitely changed when he saw his daughter unable to find her place in the capital and unable to bear a child. The last time he visited Elmaril, he had not even tried to look at her face.
Even so, from what Reyna remembered, her father had always granted what she wanted. That was why, whenever something happened, she instinctively sought the Dazbel family.
“I am a Dazbel.”
She had married Elizer Wills, but she still considered herself a Dazbel.
So she believed that at the very least, her father would never betray her.
***
The queen demanded to be removed from her position, yet the king showed no response afterward.
It was exactly as Reyna had expected. Her husband was a man who would not even blink if his wife collapsed right in front of him.
Reyna had grown completely desensitized to his indifference.
“His Majesty is truly too much. How can he be so cruel to Your Highness?”
Since Karla tirelessly became angry in her place, Reyna felt that was enough.
At that time Reyna could think only of returning to Kaldirac, where she was surrounded by people who cared for her more than her indifferent husband ever did.
“Did you deliver the message?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“And he said nothing?”
“…Yes.”
Even when Reyna told him she would leave the palace tomorrow, the king said nothing. This too was expected.
“Now then, it is finally tomorrow.”
As if to push away her stray thoughts, Reyna kept herself deliberately busy.
There was not much to pack. Five years. A long time if long, but nothing she had grown attached to.
The next day, at dawn. Reyna left her room with a cloak around her shoulders. She felt a little nervous, but her steps were light. Even though a long journey of more than fifteen days awaited her, she still felt that way.
At last, the wheels of the carriage she boarded began to turn.
This would be the end of her miserable life.
In an instant, sorrow and joy, despair and hope, all erupted within her. Memories from the last five years flashed quickly through her mind, from the time she first met him and fell in love, to the young man with a flushed neck shyly smiling, and the king’s face gradually hardening with shock and contempt.
Reyna gazed blankly out the window, struggling to calm her heaving chest. She closed her eyes quietly. Karla silently took her hand, as if to say everything would be alright.
‘Yes, it is alright. Everything will be alright…’
She repeated those words to herself while wishing the carriage would hurry and leave unbearable Elmaril behind.
Suddenly, the carriage stopped.
At first, she thought the coachman was simply waiting for the drawbridge across the moat to lower. But soon an attendant approached with a troubled expression and tapped on the window.
Feeling a foreboding sense, Reyna asked,
“What is the matter?”
Someone was blocking the palace gate.
“Who dares block the queen’s carriage?”
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
