May Every Wound Be Fatal - vanish into fiction

Reyna began to cause a scene, coming to his study and demanding an audience with the king.

“Can you not move aside?”

In truth, her anger was closer to a sorrowful sob than a shout. Perhaps that was why it had been hard to listen to continuously.

At some point, Elizer had been standing at the door. Until then, he had no intention of opening it.

“Elizer…”

However, the moment Reyna pressed herself against the door and whispered to him in a voice that seemed on the verge of tears, he opened the door as if entranced.

Reyna looked surprised, as if she had not really expected the door to open. In fact, Elizer himself did not know when or why he had opened the door.

Meanwhile, her eyes wavered, and her face twisted with shame.

Reyna awkwardly avoided his gaze. Her reddened eyes and her disheveled appearance after struggling with the knights seemed to bother her.

Only then did Elizer realize.

Reyna was changing too.

She looked sad and uneasy. She did not look at him with the same eyes as before. Elizer had changed, and Reyna could not remain the same.

She spoke, trying not to tremble.

“…Do your duty.”

It was something Leonard had often said to him.

Elizer was reminded once again that Reyna was the daughter of a duke. His heart, which had been racing uncontrollably, gradually calmed.

After that, whenever Reyna came on the day prescribed for the king to share her bed, Elizer would open the door. What followed was formal and perfunctory intimacy.

Reyna could not overcome her shame and bit her lips. She endured the tears that threatened to fall, preserving her last ounce of dignity.

When it was over, Elizer would leave the bedroom first. He did so even knowing she would cry once again alone in the bed.

“Tell the king I came.”

Perhaps out of stubbornness, Reyna sometimes showed up unexpectedly. She even dared to threaten the king, invoking her family’s authority.

Each time, his knights skillfully intercepted her.

As Elizer expected, Reyna could not endure it for long.

At some point, she stopped invoking duty and no longer came on the appointed nights. Unable to find a place for herself in the unfamiliar castle, Reyna had no choice but to cling to her family and father.

The more she did, the more naturally Elizer could distance himself from her.

***

Another two years passed.

During that time, the duke’s followers in Elmaril dwindled while Elizer’s increased. Soon, the high fortress was filled with the king’s people, and it seemed as if Elizer had become the master of Eldamar.

Yet in that vast palace, Elizer sometimes felt a suffocating tightness in his throat.

He fully understood why Cassian had once called the castle a prison, and why he himself had struggled to leave it.

At night, Elizer wandered the dark palace like a sleepwalker, going wherever without purpose.

One day, he found himself stepping into the king’s garden, which he had not visited intentionally.

The garden, visited after such a long time, seemed frozen as if time had stopped.

It was silent, as though he were the only person left in the world. For a moment, it was a satisfying impulse. That is, until he saw Reyna crouched alone under the starlight.

“……”

Elizer realized that Reyna had been waiting for him at the place where they had first met.

Unconsciously, he hid in the shadows, watching her.

She stared blankly at the sky, occasionally glancing around before resting her face in her knees.

Curled up, she seemed very small. She looked thinner than the last time he had seen her.

After a long while, Reyna lifted her head. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and stood.

Elizer remained hidden behind a wooden pillar, holding his breath until she passed right by him.

Once her presence had completely disappeared and the perfect silence of being alone in the world resumed, Elizer felt an inexplicable anxiety. It almost felt like fear.

After that, he never returned to the king’s garden.

Around that time, Priscilla had entered the star palace.