Chapter 498

Chapter 498

Princess Mia Finally Decides to Take Revenge

Uh-oh. This is not good.

As she coughed some more, the dull, familiar feeling of fear started to creep back in. She almost finished. It was almost time for her to cross the finish line. But in the end, she was the one who held the hot potato. As the last person to speak, it was her job to give the most important word. And her throat was scratchy on top of that!

I think I can make this into something good. If I cough like this, maybe someone else will talk for me.

A wave went by! She only had to understand it. She was almost ready to jump on the likely helpful wave when a knock was heard on the door.

It was Anne, her most loyal servant, who came in.

“Excuse me, Mia-sama. I brought you a drink because I thought you might be thirsty from dancing.”

A glass of juice was sitting on a plate she held out.

“My goodness, Anne, what perfect time! Hack, that was really nice of you!”

Even though her throat hurt, Mia hesitated as she looked at the glass. Her throat would feel better if she drank the juice, even though it looked good. She would have to talk if she didn’t cough. Then she has to choose what to do with Echard.

I can’t get out of this mess. I should have thought about this while everyone was still talking. I wish I knew...

She took the glass from Anne and very slowly drank. She could stall for longer if she drank more slowly. A cool, sour but pleasant taste spread across her mouth. A lemon smell caught her attention. She enjoyed the moment.

This tastes like a sip of dew from a flower deep in the forest that was just waking up to the spring weather... The cool sweetness makes me think of mushrooms— Aall newest chapters on n.o./velbi/n/(.)com

She stopped herself before she added “juice” to her list of people who would like to be experts.

Okay, calm down. Now is not the time to be poetic. I need to think of a clever thing to say to get Sion and King Abram to shorten Echard’s term...

She raised an eyebrow in thought, then took it back in surprise when Anne spoke again.

“Mia-sama, Ludwig has a message for you.” Anne’s face showed that she was very serious.

“My... What is it?”

.

“Every flower, no matter what it looks like or what it smells like, starts as a seed. After the seed is planted, it needs to sprout, grow, and bloom before it can bear food that is useful. But it takes time to do that. We should give Prince Echard some time. He will get what he has sown one day, but we should let that day come, right?”

She asked for more time.

“So, you want to suggest...a suspended sentence?” Sion asked.

Mia gave him a nod that said, That took the words right out of my mouth.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

But getting the time wasn’t enough. We had to use that time.

“In addition...” She then explained what the pardon was for. “If he plants more seeds after that... Not the same. Good ones. And a huge number of them, then maybe...”

Her eyes became very far away, as if she were looking through time itself at a past that could never be recovered, looking for the shape of a loyal subject she would never see again.

“Maybe even seeds of guilt can be killed in their tracks, never to grow...”

A little shaking went through her voice, like when someone prayed really hard for something. In her words, there was an earnest prayer that Mia from a different time had been pleading with god to hear. A hope. A wish. one that she had shared with eyes that were filled with nostalgia. They had fought together, painfully aware that they had to reap the ruinous seeds that were sown so deeply in Tearmoon soil while still trying to find a way to keep them dormant. The Mia of that time had worked hard but in vain to make something else happen, one in which the seeds would fall to the ground without sprouting.

She tried to make things right. She might have been stupid to do that. Maybe there is no such thing as forgiveness, and the reaping of seeds sown was as certain as the sun and moon going around and around.

But that makes no sense! Do I deserve to be destroyed just because I made one mistake? Without a chance to make it up? Not acceptable! I’m going to show you right now that that can’t be how it works! Using Prince Echard!

Mia had a dream. In that dream, Echard went back to Sunkland atoned and victorious. In his dream, people cheered for all the good things he did, glad that his death had been avoided. It was also a dream about herself, about a past that was cut short and a future that could have happened.

She was going to make her dream come true. When she did, she would finally tell those seeds what she had been meaning to say for a long time.

“Serves you right!”

To laugh as you stand over their dry bodies, their threatened consequences forever rotted. That would be her revenge.

I wasn’t given a second chance before, but I’ll take it this time! I’ll give out so many! Everybody gets a second chance!

Cause and effect could go eat dirt. They couldn’t reap because she brought a hammer instead of a sickle!

—

“I see... So that’s what the Great Wisdom of the Empire thinks,” Sion said in a low voice. He smiled. “Mia, every time you’re...”

He got off track, and the feeling that wasn’t said was lost in the endless void of thoughts that were unvoiced. He turned to Echard and let out a short sigh.