May Every Wound Be Fatal - Chapter 77.1
But there was no one who would tell Reyna the truth.
“I know nothing, Your Majesty.”
Whenever she tried to grab someone to ask anything, they all cried out the same thing, as if rehearsed. She hadn’t even said anything yet, but they would start trembling—it made her feel guilty for even stopping them.
Moreover, there were few people she could ask.
The only people she could meet were one handmaiden and a few elderly or young servants. Come to think of it, the blue-cloaked knights standing at regular intervals like stone statues seemed never to speak at all.
“It was a great accident, Your Majesty. You hovered between life and death for a long time. You may feel fully recovered, but not that much time has actually passed.”
“But His Majesty is alone like that…”
“Would you wait just a little longer, please?”
Even Thales, who had always silently nodded as if taking her side, spoke with a strangely desperate voice, and Reyna finally fell quiet.
***
“That is… I dare not say it, Your Majesty.”
In truth, the moment Aileen had answered that way, Reyna instinctively sensed that she had approached a truth she was not meant to know.
Even so, she kept stopping passersby and asking—not so much out of defiance, but because she had hoped that someone, anyone, would tell her that it was all in the past, that she would be fine.
But the truth seemed to be more shocking than she could have imagined.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty…”
Aileen already seemed to find the silence unbearable. So Reyna refrained from testing her by mentioning the platinum-haired child she had seen in the garden.
A high-born lady sometimes had to pretend not to know certain things. Reyna instinctively knew that now was one of those moments.
Not knowing is what keeps my present life safe, isn’t it.
Pretending not to notice wouldn’t be so difficult. Wasn’t everyone hiding the truth and striving to help her like this?
It wasn’t surprising that the servants were hiding something from her. From long ago, no one had ever told her anything important.
Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was spiraling out of control, beyond her reach.
Just then, Aileen brought her good news.
“Oh, and His Majesty has passed the critical point and is slowly recovering.”
Reyna could no longer smile as if nothing was wrong.
That night, as if it had been waiting for this moment, the nightmare came.
***
Reyna walked along a secluded forest path.
Not a single lantern was lit, but the starlight made it easy to walk.
Though the scenery was unfamiliar, her feet moved on their own toward somewhere. As if she had walked this path many times before.
As she passed each dense tree trunk, the surroundings seemed to grow quieter and quieter. The only sound was the rustling of her own footsteps. It felt as though she was the only person left in the world.
Walking as if entranced, Reyna suddenly realized that all of this was a dream.
At the same time, she naturally understood that this was the very dream she had woken up from last time, tears streaming down her face, and had completely forgotten.
Perhaps that was why walking alone through a dark forest in the middle of the night didn’t feel particularly frightening. As always in dreams, deeper thoughts wouldn’t follow.
At some point, she found herself sitting on a protruding tree root. When she looked up, instead of the thick leaves that had covered her head, the night sky stretched out above her, as if the stars might pour down.
Reyna stared blankly at the beautiful sight. Then she absentmindedly looked around. She sensed no presence. Somehow, that fact made her feel like crying, and she buried her face in her knees.
Only then did she realize that she was waiting for someone.
He was someone who would never come, no matter how long she waited. Yet she couldn’t give up hope.
Reyna hated him for not coming, and she hated herself for foolishly continuing to wait for someone like him. So in the end, she burst into tears again.
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