May Every Wound Be Fatal - Chapter 42.1
The confined Queen collapsed after spending the entire day pounding on the door.
That night, Elizer slipped out of his bedroom without anyone knowing and impulsively visited Reyna.
Pale moonlight rested upon her face as she slept as if she were dead. Had he not heard her labored breathing, roughened by fever, he might have truly believed she had passed away.
Sitting cautiously on the edge of the bed, he absentmindedly moved his hand to stroke her disheveled red hair.
After lingering over her hair for a long time, he eventually reached out a bit further.
Her face was so small, and her skin was so translucent it looked as though it might shatter at a mere touch. Perhaps that was why the fingers caressing her thin cheek trembled so violently.
Reyna suddenly opened her eyes.
It seemed for a moment that their eyes met, but her pupils were unfocused. Due to being intoxicated by medicine, it was difficult to say she was truly awake.
“…”
Elizer simply stared at Reyna in silence for a while as she blinked blankly.
Then, he suddenly moved his hand again and wrapped it around her throat.
At that, Reyna, who had been blinking slowly, quietly lowered her eyelids. It was as if she knew what was about to happen to her, as if she were accepting that fate.
Cold sweat poured down his spine, and his breathing quickened as if he were cornered.
The hand gripping her neck shook uncontrollably.
In the end, Elizer could not kill her.
His hand fell away from her throat, and Reyna slowly opened her eyes as if puzzled.
She asked, sounding as though she were talking in her sleep.
“Did you not come to kill me?”
Her voice was so hoarse that he could barely understand her by reading her lips.
“…”
Despite having just attempted to murder her, Elizer looked at her as if he were the one in shock.
“When… when do I die?”
Reyna asked as if she were someone who had been waiting only for death.
The mere imagination of her death made Elizer’s stomach churn. It was at that moment he turned away to flee from the woman who craved her own end.
“Your Majesty.”
Finding a sudden surge of strength, Reyna sat up abruptly and grabbed him. However, her legs immediately lost their strength and she collapsed helplessly.
Elizer, catching her almost reflexively, lost his balance for a moment and sank to the floor with her.
Reyna did not miss the opportunity. She clung to him desperately and began to beg him to save her people.
It seemed she would do anything for their sake. At that, Elizer felt a strange sense of hope.
“I… I was wrong about everything.”
However, he hated seeing and hearing Reyna prostrate herself and frantically beg for forgiveness.
“That day, I should have pretended not to know you. I am sorry. It was because I was stupid and foolish, Your Majesty.”
It was because she sounded as though she regretted everything. This was true even though he, too, regretted meeting her on that night when stars poured from the sky.
He tried to pull her up to make her stop, but Reyna resisted, her body trembling like a fluttering bird.
“I just… I liked you so much, that is why I did it. It was not out of malice, or to torment you…”
At her soul-shorn murmurs, Elizer’s lips slowly parted.
“I only wanted to be your wife…”
Elizer thought to himself. A long time ago, he too had harbored thoughts similar to hers.
He liked the Reyna who whispered of love while knowing nothing.
‘Someday, I too, to her…’
Elizer’s face distorted helplessly. He silently swallowed the sobs that tried to escape.
Eventually, Elizer wrapped his arm around Reyna’s waist and lifted her up.
Reyna was light enough to disappear at any moment. Thus, he could not let her out of his arms for a long while, continuing to hold her close. Completely exhausted, Reyna stayed still in his embrace.
“…Your Majesty.”
“…”
“Elizer, please.”
Elizer suddenly remembered.
How much joy and excitement he had felt when she first called his name.
Reyna likely does not know that fact. It was one of the things he had desperately wanted to tell her one day, but he could not quite remember when that was. Too many things had happened.
Once again, he knew something was going wrong, but he felt as though he did not know where to start or how to handle it.
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