Chapter 242: Eyes of Coldness
Hearing the queen mother’s order, the soldiers stepped towards Basil. Just as they did, Igor gave them an order.
“Step down.”
“Igor!”
Igor gritted his teeth towards the queen mother. “Have you forgotten already, mother? The king of this nation is none-other than me!”
The frail bed-ridden appearance of the man was nowhere to be found, as he had already returned to his usual self. As the queen mother flinched by his voice, Basil used that moment to push away the hands of the soldiers. Basil then kneeled down next to the bed and reported with tears in his eyes.
“Right now, the queen is inside the jail.”
Igor could not understand his words for a moment. Although he did wrap his body around hers, she must have fallen down the stairs together with him, so her body shouldn’t be all that well either. She should be in bed recovering from the wounds, why would she be in jail?
“Jail? Why are you saying she’s there?”
“She was put in there for suspicion of betrayal for Chrichton.”
“Betrayal? What in the world are you saying…”
“Letters that were being sent back and forth were found in the queen’s room. Those became the evidence and…”
Igor knew that as Rihannan’s elder cousin brother became the crown prince, she had exchanged letters with him for quite a while now. However, those were only just the sort of average conversations between family members. Did they think the contents of the letters were suspicious?
As Igor pondered about that suspicion, he noticed that Basil was constantly staring at his mother with contempt and hatred in his eyes the whole time. His mother in return completely turned away and denied to even look at Basil.
At that moment, Igor remembered. There was a letter that detailed the incident where his mother gave sensitive information about Arundell in return for inciting the poisoning of the Chrichton royal family that he once threatened his mother with.
“…Was it your fault, mother?”
Even as he asked with his voice shaking, he hoped desperately in his mind that that wasn’t the case. It was certain that his mother loved and cared for Rihannan, even though her methods weren’t quite the average. He never expected her to do such a violent and cruel thing to Rihannan like that. She wouldn’t have done such a thing, by the fact that she wouldn’t disrespect her very own son that way.
“Please tell me. Mother, did you frame your crime onto Rihannan?”
He wished for her to say she didn’t. That he was misunderstanding something. However, his mother kept her mouth shut still.
“It hasn’t even been that long since the queen had miscarriage. Thinking of how she is stuck inside a prison in her state made me feel like my heart was being ripped to shreds. But I couldn’t possibly have any power in me to stop them…”
Basil couldn’t stop himself from wailing out loudly. Igor realized the truth that he had even lost his own son. Feeling of misery washed over him rather than sadness. Not even tears could come out from his eyes. No matter how much he felt sad, there was no way he could fathom the feeling of sadness one has from losing the life they were protecting inside their body.
After a long time, Igor finally opened his mouth again.
“…First, let’s bring Rihannan out from there.”
The first thing he needed to do was to bring her out from the prison. He planned to do that first before carefully figuring out what had happened the whole time he was unconscious and try to solve those problems.
Basil lifted himself up right away with joy in his face.
“Then I shall bring the queen here right awa…”
“It’s too late.”
The person that suddenly interrupted their conversation was Leticia. Between the frames of the wide open door, she was wearing a dress that was even more extravagant than the queen mother. Before Igor could even ask why she is here, Leticia spoke.
“That b*tch is already dead. I gave her poison just a moment ago.” Leticia stared at Igor’s face that froze up in an instant and cackled. Her laughter was filled with insanity. “She took the poison I offered without any hesitation at all. She stupidly believed the lies I made up, saying that you were going to execute her the very next day. I’m sure that b*tch must have resented you over and over again in her mind until the very last breath she took. How does that make you feel?”
In that moment, Igor felt for the first time extreme pain run through his chest, so painful that he had to clutch with his hand. His heart felt as if it had stopped in that moment, and his vision became completely black in darkness. He couldn’t breathe at all. She asked how he felt about that. The feeling was nothing more than having death itself. If something really did happen to Rihannan, then his life was over right then and there.
Whether it’s his life, or his soul.
“Basil, you go to the prison first. I’ll be behind you shortly.”
Hearing his order, Basil didn’t even reply before racing out the door. As Igor stepped off the bed and followed outside afterwards, the queen mother ran to him and tried to stop him.
“Igor! I said you shouldn’t move yet…”
Igor turned his gaze towards the queen mother. In that very moment his gaze met with the queen mother’s she couldn’t bring herself to speak another word and took a step backwards in fear. His eyes were shining with terrifying piercing light. They were not of a normal human being. They looked as if they belonged to a berserking beast, ready to destroy everything in front of it’s vision.
“Put the queen mother and that woman in custody.”