CH 79

“Madel…”

“I have nothing else to say, Lady Elena.”

Elena felt that her heart, which had already been broken into pieces, was being crushed. She lowered her head and didn’t say anything else, thinking that there was nowhere for her to stand in this place now.

* * *

With the help of her maids, Lydia put on a dress and draped a warm fur coat over her shoulders to protect her body from the cold. A gloating smile hung distinctly over her lips.

“Fools. I knew it,” she muttered. Lydia had carefully chosen the father of the child in order for the baby to have red hair. Although the baby’s gender wasn’t up to her to decide, she had given birth to a girl. Lydia had taken this as a sign that heaven was on her side.

If her child had been a boy then her plan would have failed, but everything worked out perfectly in the end, even the part where she rolled down the stairs. ‘It would have been better if I slapped Elena on the cheek before doing so, but… Well, no, it was a success because Gareth showed up right after and saw my stillborn child. This was definitely a success.’

The smile on Lydia’s lips grew more captivating as she thought back to how Gareth had said Adelia’s name with a trembling voice. Lydia thought his voice sounded as if he was praising her for the hard work.

“Ha! ‘Adelia…’ Oh, Gareth,” Lydia mocked. She thought of Gareth’s emotional side as attractive as well, but that wasn’t what she was after. She wanted his raw, violent, and powerful side, and she wanted others to cower in fear simply at the sight of him.

“He must be willing to side with me now to exact revenge on the king, right?”

Lydia had not seen or heard of Elena’s whereabouts since the day of her miscarriage. It seemed that the woman had crawled into a mouse hole.

“You won’t be able to endure it any longer, Elena.”

Lydia was clearly convinced that there was no longer a place for Elena in Gareth’s heart when she had seen him kick her out of the room a few days ago. This meant that Gareth was no longer affected by her.

‘I will never forgive you for killing my child, Elena,’ Lydia thought in determination, then smirked. The first snow of the season began to fall outside the window as if to bless her. The snow soon began to pour, and eventually grew into a blizzard.

* * *

It had been four days since Gareth and his men had started their hunt. They had hunted like madmen and killed every nuisance in sight for the past few days. By doing this, they had thoroughly nipped the bud of wolves and outlaws in the forest, confirming the notoriety of their name and blanketing the forest with fear.

Gareth and his men were in the middle of tracking down some outlaws who had fled after establishing a base in the forest when they encountered the king’s messenger. With his body stained with blood, Gareth stared at the messenger as he wiped the blood off his sword with a cloth. Behind him was a pile of wolf bodies. The king’s messenger stood in front of Gareth, trembling in fear.

“What brings you here?” Gareth asked.

Shaking like a leaf, the messenger managed to take out the king’s letter from his inner pocket and handed it over to Gareth. Gareth unfolded the parchment with his blood-soaked hands and read the letter immediately.

After a moment, Gareth nodded lightly and spoke with a soft voice, “Kill him, Giggs.”

“I-I’m just a m-messenger!” the man shrieked in fear. “Help me, please. Please have mercy on me.”

Gareth ignored the messenger’s pleading words and kicked the shoulder of the man who was now clinging to him. “Tear him into pieces to make it look like he was killed by wolves.”

Giggs was taken aback by Gareth’s order, as it was more brutal than usual, but did not refuse. He immediately grabbed the man who was sprawled out on the floor and dragged him away. A desperate scream rang throughout the forest soon after.

Gareth calmly burned the king’s letter in the bonfire with an expressionless face. The letter wasn’t a proposal, but an order for him to marry Lyla. In addition, the king had written:

If you meet Lydia, send her back to the capital. You can kill her if she decides to rebel.