May Every Wound Be Fatal - Chapter 42.2
One thing was certain: he could not kill her.
“Reyna. Do you want to live?”
Thus, Elizer began to weave an absurd proposition.
“Have a child, Reyna.”
“What…”
“Carry the King’s child to escape execution.”
He could swear that he had not come to see her with the intention of bringing this up.
“…It is difficult to understand you.”
“I feel the same way.”
He knew better than anyone that this was not normal.
Nonetheless, Elizer wanted Reyna to live.
So, he whispered to her desperately and repeatedly as she tried to push him away in her confusion.
“You must save Karla and the child.”
Burning with fever, she was unable to think straight. The hand that had been weakly trying to push him away vanished, and Elizer, as if he had been waiting, lowered his head and pressed his lips against hers.
Once he had made up his mind to save Reyna, his head no longer ached. He felt the tangled mess in his mind slowly begin to clear.
In the brief moment their lips parted, she asked.
“Is this also revenge?”
“…Perhaps it is.”
Elizer desperately hoped that this foolish choice stemmed from a lingering attachment to a love that could never be, and a resentment toward the woman who had placed him on the throne against his will.
***
It was immediately after the massacre that would go down in history.
The nobles feared the young King. They desired the execution of Leonard Dazbel’s daughter, but they only watched one another’s reactions as the King suddenly began acting as if he cherished her. Once the rumor spread that the Queen had conceived, the voices demanding her execution vanished entirely.
Priscilla, meanwhile, remained strangely quiet.
It was a natural reaction.
Elizer had put her under surveillance to prevent her from approaching Reyna, and she was not unaware of that fact. She must have felt a considerable sense of betrayal.
“The next owner of the throne will be Lucian.”
But Elizer had sworn he was not betraying his sister-in-law and nephew.
He simply needed time. Time for the madness regarding the execution to subside slightly, and time to find a new residence where Reyna could live safely.
Priscilla, her brow slightly furrowed, suddenly asked.
“Why can you not kill the Queen?”
“…She does not know what the Duke has done, and she has killed no one.”
When Elizer finally managed to find an excuse, Priscilla let out a scoffing laugh.
“She has killed no one, you say… Did Lady Percy and Maria kill someone to deserve being murdered?”
When Leonard’s massacre ended, the Percy household had been burned beyond recognition, and the bodies of the two women could not even be found.
Seeing Elizer’s expression harden terrifyingly, Priscilla quickly realized her mistake and bowed her head.
“I have just spoken out of turn. Please forgive me.”
However, that did not mean she understood what Elizer was trying to do.
“Your Majesty, she is the daughter of the Duke. If you let her live, she will seek revenge.”
“Reyna is… she is different from the Duke.”
“…I wonder. I am not so sure.”
“There will be nothing to worry about. I will certainly return everything to the way it was. So…”
“…Yes. I trust Your Majesty.”
A sharp tension flowed between Elizer and Priscilla, and suspicious glances began to be exchanged.
Amidst this, Reyna’s cherished maidservant, Karla, lost her child due to a difficult labor and hovered between life and death.
Reyna trembled with fear that she might die, and Elizer felt a similar anxiety to Reyna’s.
Reyna was barely clinging to life to protect her people.
Among them, Karla was special. He felt that if she died like this, Reyna would simply crumble.
It seemed Priscilla saw that clearly as well.
Karla died suddenly.
The scholar stated that she had died by swallowing poison of her own accord.
There was no evidence, but he could guess who had placed the poison in Karla’s hand. Elizer went to see Priscilla.
Priscilla merely gave a faint smile and feigned ignorance.
“Why would I do such a thing? I trust Your Majesty, after all.”
And Elizer had to protect Priscilla. That was Kassian’s final command, and Priscilla knew that fact.
“Do not worry. I will not be the one to kill the Queen.”
Elizer could not believe those words.
Returning from the detached palace, he increased the guards at the Queen’s palace and obsessively checked on Reyna. However, Kassian’s wife knew the royal palace better than he did.
Reyna vanished without a trace.
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