“AHHHH!!!”I screamed at the top of my lungs and Helena flinched away from me, shocked at what was happening. I can’t process where the pain comes from. It feels like every inch of me is aching. Especially my hips. It was just so excruciatingly painful that I had to stand up from my seat and prop my arms on the balustrade of the balcony, begging for someone to help me.“Help me, please! My baby!” I screamed but no one made a single step forward to see my condition. My eyes are getting blurry and I am in a deep panic. My whole body is already trembling in pain.“Get her inside,” Helena commanded the soldiers, and two of them pulled away from the balustrade to push me inside that building. I have no idea what kind of building it is but I saw that there are rooms inside. Helena led me and the soldiers inside until she finally stopped in one of the rooms and opened it.“Get her inside.”They dragged me inside the room and placed me on the bed. I can’t do anything but clench my teeth, supp
The rocking motions were the first thing I felt before I slowly opened my eyes. I couldn’t move any part of my body. I feel like I am being paralyzed from my neck down to the tip of my toes and my head is killing me—-as if someone knocked my head against a solid brick wall.My vision is so blurry. All I could see was darkness and the stars twinkling up in the sky. Then I heard the sound of the carriage slowly getting louder and louder into my ears and the warmth that kept me away from the cold was three blankets covering me from my neck to foot.I moaned in pain as I turned my head to my right.“Eodelle…”Tears fell down my eyes when I saw Aster’s face under the faint light of the moon. His eyes glistened as he leaned closer to me and kissed my forehead with his warm lips.“Aster,” I sobbed as soon as I recognized those gray eyes looking silver under the lunar light. I can feel the cold breeze against the bare skin of my cheeks as Aster caressed my hair while staring at my pale face.
[ASTER’S Point-of-View]“Aster!”I ignored it even if it was Laurent who yelled my name. I am preparing myself to return to Headow Stronghold with a bunch of Talaphatian Soldiers with me to make Helena think that I just came from the peace meeting just like I told her before I left the palace.“You don’t have to go back to that place! That’s suicide!” Despite walking with a stick after his fast recovery from all the horrible injuries he took from his attackers, Laurent still managed to find me at the back of the camp. I was a little surprised to see him walking already but even though I saw the worry in his eyes, he can’t stop me from going back, especially since Helena has my son."I have to, Laurent. In case I fail to come back, please take care of Eodelle and find my son… I will do my very best to save him from Emyr and Helena. If I ever die, promise me you will get him back to Eodelle…" I said to him and clenched my teeth as I prepared my horse for the journey, "You are the only
“Explain to me what you did, Helena! Why are you on my throne!” I snarled at her, glaring straight into her eyes.I can feel the weight of everyone’s stare at me while I wait for Helena to answer my question. I never thought something like this could happen…that she had completely lost her mind in just a matter of a week. But then I noticed something—in her belly. A small heartbeat I used to hear in her womb was now silent as dead. Is that mean…Helena raised an eyebrow at me, “What are you looking at, Aster? I gave birth to our child while you were gone and here he is! He looks so much like you…” she said the words with so much love that I have never heard from her lips for a very long time. She stared at my son with glittering eyes, adoring the baby.My eyes widened for seconds, realizing what was happening.“I don’t need you anymore, Aster. I already have everything I need,” Helena coldly uttered the words, her face returning to her usual condescending expression. Everyone looked
For two days I have been trying to stand up on my own feet, wishing the effect of the poison that was given to me by that healer would finally be gone. Despite my anger and my demand not to see her again, the healer still comes into my tent to give me an antidote from the poison for my fast recovery. She had been asking for forgiveness for what she did to me and what happened to me and my baby but I refused to talk to her, letting her guilt eat her inch by inch. Without my baby in my hands, I can’t find any sympathy to give her. My heart is just filled with revenge and a huge desire to have my child and Aster back. To save Nina and make Helena pay for everything she did to me and to the people important to me.I have been suffering from a high fever and with the level of dizziness I feel, I could barely get up from my bed. My body feels like I am inside an oven, slowly being cooked into ashes. I am sweating so badly that the maidservants in the camp had to replace my bedsheet thrice
[ASTER’s Point-of-View]Now I understand how terrifying it must be for Eodelle when I threw her into this very dungeon. Dark, cold, stinking… I am a monster for making her suffer the first night we met. What a tragic first meeting we had. I totally hate myself just thinking of it.I promised Eodelle I will bring our child back. But I failed. I underestimated Helena and I was overconfident that I could still have her trust. I never thought that while I was gone, she had lost our child. I should feel bad about it but what she did to Eodelle is beyond forgiveness.I heard someone sniffing not too far from my cell in the middle of my mooring. The voice was familiar to me as I listened to it carefully.“Nina?”The sniffing stopped.“Your Grace? Is that you? Why are you here?” she asked in shock. I don’t know what cell she was in but her voice was clear. She is careful enough not to make it echo inside the dungeon.“Long Story. But can you tell me what happened?”Nina was very detailed when
I have to make him believe I have the ability to rule the Kingdom just like a true Wycliffe does. I can feel the blood of my ancestors running through me as my inner wolf convinces me that I am not the same Eodelle who used to fear a lot of things. King Laurent and Lady Marian looked at me with their brows angled upward, worried that I might fail to convince the Northern King to join the alliance. King Laurent cannot guarantee that he can beat the Headow Stronghold after the Southern Kingdom already pledged its alliance with Helena and the Western side was still indecisive about it.“Eodelle, you don’t have to. We all know…” Laurent whispered to me as he stood on my left and Lady Marian on my right. They still have no idea that I have finally had my wolf. But to be honest, I am scared I won’t be able to control myself once I unleash and shift into my werewolf form. It will be my very first time and I am aware I will have to endure a hell of pain once the process of physical change ha
The council meeting with the Northern Kingdom and the Western Kingdom was not good. There was tension between the two Kings and I can feel that even Laurent felt a little frustrated about it. King Anthony never liked the arrogance of the King of the West who was Katrina’s father. His grumpy face reminded me of my father and I can’t deny that each time he looks at me with his mouth curved downward and his eyes judging, piercing eyes penetrating through the stoic facade I have been practicing because I never wanted them to think I am scared of them.We are all in a place—a carved cave the northern men use as the council chamber. In the middle is the wide wooden table with the map of the continent carved into it with wooden pieces representing each Kingdom and the Headow Stronghold. King Lauren and Lady Marian never left my side even when we entered the chamber. King Anthony never wanted his little sister to join the war meeting with me but she insisted because she is also part of what