May Every Wound Be Fatal - vanish into fiction

“Oh, heavens, my Queen. That is not true.”

Allin quickly knelt and firmly took hold of Reyna’s hands. In Reyna’s transparent green eyes, which were fixed on some distant, empty point, tears were already shimmering and pooling.

“His Majesty is, well…”

While a frantic Allin’s mind went blank, Reyna abruptly turned her head away.

“Enough. You leave as well. I wish to be alone.”

“B-but, being alone is…”

“Do you not hear me telling you to leave?”

Reyna did not want to show this hideously broken version of herself to anyone. She felt so ashamed that tears kept threatening to spill over. It was the one state she least wanted to be discovered in.

Only then did Allin recognize Reyna’s feelings; she bowed her head and was forced to leave the room.

Click.

As soon as the sound of the door closing reached her, Reyna began to weep silently. She wanted to curl her body up, but she could not even do that because of her right leg, which was fixed in plaster.

That fact suddenly made her feel so sorrowful. She could not adjust at all to her life, which had changed overnight. It felt as if she had simply closed and opened her eyes only to find herself abandoned in a remote, alien world.

‘My leg hurts so much. I am scared….’

Reyna, who had been sobbing under her breath, fell asleep before she knew it and had a dream.

It was her bedroom, the safest and most luxurious place in the Crimson Citadel.

She heard Karla’s pleasant voice.

Romantic scenes from chivalric literature unfolded in her mind.

The late afternoon sunlight graced her.

The gentle touch of the attendants waking her greeted her.

To her, having lost her memory, those things were familiar.

The world had always been kind to her, and that was a very natural thing.

…Except for one person.

“Your husband loves you. That is why it will be a problem.”

Excluding the old woman from Dochioin who had suddenly poured out curses upon her.

“Nevertheless, one thing is certain. Because you and he love each other, you will be miserable.”

“In the end, you will beg him to please kill you.”

“But you will not even be able to die. You’re the daughter of a murderer.”

At the curse of the old woman, which she had lived with completely erased from her memory, Reyna woke up screaming.

It was a sensation like rising to a great height only to plummet downward in an instant, and soon her heart began to beat terrifyingly fast.

“Ah…!”

For a moment, unable to distinguish between the dream and reality, Reyna twisted her body as if to flee, but she froze instantly upon feeling a pain that seemed to pierce through her right leg. Convulsions began regardless of her will. It was a seizure she had thought was over.

Save me, save me.

Reyna screamed while breaking into a cold sweat, but in truth, not even a groan could escape her mouth.

It was then.

Solid arms supported her neck and back, then tightly embraced her shoulders and waist.

The strength was so great that it felt suffocating and painful. Nevertheless, she finally felt as though she could breathe. Reyna instinctively buried her face in the nape of his neck and gasped for breath urgently.

She could not tell how much time had passed like that. It must have been a long time.

The convulsions gradually subsided. Her breathing, which had been on the verge of breaking, also slowly regained its stability. As she gradually regained her senses, her distant perceptions also woke up one by one.

“…Do not go.”

And the sound of sobbing in a low voice reached her ears.

Only then did Reyna realize that the large frame embracing her was trembling precariously. Soon, she realized quite naturally that the owner of this embrace was the King, whom she had been waiting for all this time.

Reyna blinked blankly, wondering how this had happened.

She did not know exactly when he had come or how he had ended up in such a state. However, he did not seem to have any intention of letting her go, and at that fact, Reyna felt an indescribable sense of relief.

At this moment, for some reason, she did not feel anxious. It was suffocating and her body ached as if it were being crushed, but if possible, she wanted to stay in his arms like this all day.

The relief surging like a wave and a strange, unknown sorrow became tangled together, and Reyna murmured as if she were dreaming.

“Why have you only come now…?”

In the next moment, she felt his entire body go stiff against hers. Reyna, who quickly forgot what she had just murmured, kept her eyes closed as if she would fall asleep at any second, responding a few beats late.