Free Web NovelChapter 357: Chapter 357
When the royal carriage came to a stop before the towering gates of her family’s mansion, Elka peered out through the small window at the house she had called home all her life. It was the same house she had been born in, where she had learned to walk, where she had grown from a child into a woman. Nearly every memory she possessed, both tender and painful, had been shaped within those walls. Yet now, as she stared at it from a distance, she felt nothing.
There was no pull of belonging, no quiet longing to return. The final thread binding her to this place had been severed the moment her family wrapped her up like an unruly offering and delivered her to a man who had looked at her with something dangerously close to disgust on their wedding night.
Now she regarded the house as a stranger might.
The footman came around the carriage and opened the door, offering his hand to help her down. As her shoes touched the ground and the door shut firmly behind her, she turned slightly and her gaze immediately fell upon a familiar figure stationed some distance away.
It was him. The guard who had spotted her trying to flee only days before the wedding. The same man who had seized her arm without hesitation and dragged her back to her father’s study to receive the punishment that had followed for her offense.
A rush of emotion surged through her—anger, hatred, and something sharper that lodged deep beneath her ribs. Had it not been for him, she might have escaped that night. Her fate might have unfolded differently. Even despite the fact that she would have been alone, uncertain, and vulnerable in a world that showed little mercy to women without protection, that would have been leagues better than the life her father wanted for her.
Because of this guard, her one chance at freedom had been torn from her grasp.
The rational part of her mind whispered that he had only been doing his duty, that he had been no more than a tool in the grand scheme of things. It reminded her that she couldn’t apportion blame to him.
But Elka completely ignored that tiny voice of reason chiming in her mind. The bitterness and anger within her burned too fiercely, with no outlet and no release.
The guard did not meet her eyes. He stood rigidly in place, his gaze fixed straight ahead.
After a few long seconds, Elka looked away and walked toward the entrance. frёewebnoѵēl.com
She sensed the difference the moment she crossed the threshold. It was midmorning, a time when the household should have been alive with movement, voices echoing through the halls, servants still hurrying about their duties. Now, it seemed closer to a graveyard with how uncharacteristically silent it was when it was usually filled with her father’s raised voice that was often carried in the air. Now the air in the house felt stiff. The servants moved around the house on silent feet, as if afraid of being heard and noticed.
Her mother was not difficult to find. Elka made her way directly to her brother’s private chambers, already certain of where she would be.
There, seated beside Galen’s bed, was their mother.
Elka stepped into the room and closed the door as quietly as she could manage. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the figure lying atop the bed. Galen lay shirtless and unnaturally still against the sheets, his skin deathly pale. The loss of blood had left him looking hollow, like he was clinging onto life. Sweat beaded along his forehead despite the coolness of the room, and his breathing was shallow, and uneven. He was barely conscious.
Elka came to a stop at the foot of the bed. Her mother did not look up. She did not acknowledge her daughter’s presence at all. ƒrēewebnovel.com
"Mother," Elka said, her voice wooden, stripped of warmth. Whatever affection that had once lived there had long since withered. "I came as soon as I received the news."
Several seconds passed in silence.
When her mother finally spoke, she did so without lifting her gaze from Galen’s limp hand clasped tightly in her own.
"Your father and brother were targeted by roadside bandits," she began, her voice low and trembling. "They took everything they could get their filthy hands on, yet that was not enough. They still hurt your father badly. And Galen..." Her voice faltered. "They stabbed him. The blade was poisoned. They stabbed him and left him there to die."
Her words dissolved into a broken, hysterical sob as she clutched Galen’s hand more tightly, as though sheer force might keep him from slipping away from her.
The queen, Elka realized, had not been entirely honest when she delivered the news. She had never mentioned roadside bandits, nor that everything of value had been stripped from them while they were abandoned, injured and bleeding, at the side of the road.
Elka stared at her mother, her expression blank. In the past, she would have rushed forward without hesitation, knelt beside her, offered comfort, and whispered reassurances. She would have done anything to ease that pain and grief painted so clearly on her mother’s face.
Now she remained where she was, unmoving. And no matter how hard she tried, she could not summon even the smallest fragment of sympathy.
All she could think about was how her mother had only ever looked this shattered when it was her son’s life in danger. Never when Halric had raised his hands against Elka. Never when he had loudly threatened to kill his daughter if his demands were not met.
She had never done anything in the several dozen times that Halric had been violent towards Elka.
Now, with her precious son lying wounded, her mother wept and trembled like a devoted parent. But she had never done the same for her daughter.
Elka did not pity her mother. Instead, she found herself feeling faintly vindicated as she watched the woman suffer. Even that, however, paled in comparison to the relief washing through her at the knowledge that soon one of her tormentors would never again be able to lay a finger on her.
