May Every Wound Be Fatal - vanish into fiction

Despite the regular intimacy and the maids’ efforts, good news was slow to come.

Then, a rumor began circulating that the queen was barren, and eventually, it reached the queen herself.

Karla, the queen’s maid, was upset as if it were her own matter and secretly shed tears, but Reyna said nothing. She herself sensed that something was off.

Since resuming intimacy with him, Reyna’s menstrual cycle had become noticeably irregular. For a few months without menstruation, the scholar briefly suspected that a child might be on the way.

Reyna’s menstruation finally began.

Feeling a dull pain in her lower abdomen, Reyna curled her body and thought to herself.

‘I really might be incapable of having a child…’

It was not entirely despairing.

If the queen could not bear a child, the king would have no choice but to take a new queen with a healthy body.

‘Then I can return to Kaldirac.’

Thinking that way, it seemed rather fortunate.

‘Yes. In the end, it comes to this.’

At the same time, she felt a certain emptiness, which made her lie in bed all day. The maids seemed concerned about her yet again.

“Do not just lie there. How about taking a walk for a while? The weather is very nice today.”

Reyna absentmindedly turned her head and looked out the window.

Before she realized it, the hot summer had passed, and the sky had grown high. The season when she first met Elizer had returned.

“Ah…”

Realizing this, Reyna impulsively got up and, without much thought, stepped out of her room.

The place she unconsciously sought was the king’s garden, where she had first met Elizer.

In truth, it was closer to a small hunting ground. Small game could have been released for hunting, but hunting was not Elizer’s hobby.

Karla, forced to stop at the garden entrance, spoke with a worried tone.

“Do not stay too long.”

Reyna gave a reassuring smile and began to walk slowly.

As queen, she was free to enter the garden, which was now accessible only to the royal family, unlike seven years ago.

Having been queen for five years, Reyna visited the garden almost daily, just in case she might encounter the king, her husband.

But after Priscilla stopped clinging to him and began residing in the palace, Reyna naturally stopped visiting as often.

Entering the garden after some time, everything seemed unchanged. Of course, the place was managed daily by the servants, but she could not explain the strange feeling it gave her.

Like the time she had walked following the sounds of instruments and laughter under the night sky, Reyna moved as if spellbound.

However, unlike before, the surroundings were quiet, and the place she reached was a dead end, not where she had first met him.

The man who had looked at her with wide eyes and a shy smile was naturally not there.

Reyna let out a weak, bitter laugh.

“…What am I doing…”

She turned to go back the way she came.

Rustle.

Though she thought no one was there, someone was. Reyna turned her round eyes toward the sound.

It was not him.

A woman with neatly coiled black hair and gray-brown eyes stood there, looking at her with a noticeably surprised expression.

It was Priscilla.

‘Why is she here?’

For a moment, Reyna was at a loss, caught between confusion and anger, but then she remembered that Priscilla was the widow of the late Prince Kassian. She had no grounds to be driven out of the garden since she was also royalty.

Meanwhile, Priscilla, with her usual expressionless face, inclined her head toward Reyna.

“Your Majesty.”

After coincidentally meeting her in front of the king’s office, this was the first time they had met like this. At that moment, Reyna’s mind had been completely blank, and she had not even wanted to look at her.

“It has been a long time.”

The woman, rumored to have gone mad after her husband’s death, looked slightly thinner, but otherwise appeared perfectly normal.

A moment of awkward silence passed.

Reyna could not bring herself to converse pleasantly with her. She did not have the confidence to meet her gaze without betraying her own feelings. She had no idea what her expression must look like.