May Every Wound Be Fatal - vanish into fiction

Only after the bedroom had grown dim did Elizer’s lips, which had been lying still like a dead man’s, suddenly move.

“…Reyna.”

A wretched, grating metallic sound escaped between his dry lips.

The bodies of those standing guard beside Elizer all flinched at once. Perhaps because they had been waiting for the King to regain consciousness for so long, yet the silence had stretched on—both the scholars and the servants scrambled in confusion. Lyman rushed to his side in a single bound and knelt on one knee. Catching on to what Elizer was about to ask, he quickly whispered.

“Her Majesty the Queen is safe.”

Only then did Elizer exhale a tepid, faint breath. After a long pause, as if catching his breath, he slowly lifted his eyelids again. His gaze was hazy, as if a translucent film had been cast over his blue irises.

“How much time has passed.”

Quietly swallowing a groan, Lyman barely managed to keep his voice steady.

“…Half a day. To be precise, just over twelve hours.”

Elizer’s brow furrowed. More time had passed than he had expected.

He tried to move his arm to raise himself up. But his body would not obey his will.

As bewilderment flickered across the King’s face, Lyman couldn’t help but let his own expression twist. In a grim voice, he whispered.

“Your Majesty, it is poison.”

“…Poison.”

“Yes. The scholars say it is a well-refined herbal poison, a type that does not reveal itself through heat or odor. It is not an immediate lethal poison, but rather closer to a paralytic… however, if repeated, they say you may not awaken again as you have this time.”

In truth, nothing was more effective against Elizer than poison.

Unlike other royals or nobles, he had never had the opportunity to build up immunity to poison from childhood. He was inevitably vulnerable even to common poisons, and that remained his glaring weakness.

“They say you will not be able to move freely for several days.”

“…Can the perpetrator be caught?”

“It will take some time. There was nothing wrong with the wine itself, but poison had been applied to the inside of the goblet. Since the goblet passed through many hands…”

It had been only a year since the Dazbel ducal house, which had instigated rebellion, was destroyed by Elizer’s hand. The nobles who had feared the young King and couldn’t even meet his eyes seemed to have already forgotten that affair.

Perhaps because he had long had an intuition that after all the vengeance was over, he too would meet a death similar to those who had gone before him—Elizer was not particularly surprised that he had been poisoned.

It only felt that the time had come a little sooner than expected.

The nobles of Eldamar had never truly regarded him as King.

The central nobles, in particular, despised bastards.

When the two princes died and Elizer ascended the throne, there was not a single noble who welcomed it. They considered it a disgrace to bow their heads to a bastard. It was only because it had been the choice of Duke Leonard of Dazbel—called the King above Kings—that no one dared voice their discontent.

Now Leonard was dead, and they had Lucian, the son of Prince Cassian whom they had believed dead—a legitimate bloodline of the royal family.

So this incident was likely a provocation and a warning that the occupant of the throne could change at any time.

Elizer had been prepared to accept death. No, he had fervently awaited that moment ever since Cassian and everyone else had died.

But the situation had changed. Reyna was alive. So he had to survive.

One mistake would be enough.

It didn’t matter who was behind the poisoning. For him, it was an opportunity that had come around.

His previously tangled mind felt lighter than ever. He felt as though he could accept whatever outcome might come.

Then it suddenly occurred to him.

He couldn’t recall exactly when, but he felt that he had known from long ago that it would eventually come to this.

***

Thales unwrapped the bandages wrapped around Reyna’s right leg. Every time she saw it, the scar was something she couldn’t get used to, and Reyna unconsciously held her breath.

Meanwhile, Thales examined her right leg from various angles, nodded to himself, and gestured to his assistant. His assistant, who had been standing against the wall, sprang forward as if waiting and held out a wooden cane.

It was the very thing Reyna had been eyeing with displeasure all along. As she looked at Thales with a *surely not* expression, he explained as usual.

“If you lean on the cane, you will be able to walk for longer periods.”

Ominous premonitions never seemed to miss their mark.

“…….”

Reyna could not readily accept the cane. She felt an uneasy fear that once she started using it, she would end up depending on it for the rest of her life.