A deathly silence fell over the throne room, interrupted only by the rhythmic tapping of Chu Yun's fingers on the armrest.
"It was you?" Ru Long roared, straining against the guards keeping him in place.
Chu Yun smiled to himself.
He had been entertaining that possibility ever since the conversation with the Third Princess, in which she revealed her suspicions that her mother was involved in the King's 'mysterious illness'.
While Chu Yun and Xiao Zai knew for a fact of Ru Long's involvement, the Third Princess' words prickled the back of his mind.
Ru Long would have needed help from someone within the palace to achieve his goals. He couldn't have done everything on his own -- especially since it concerned the Su treasury, and constant absences from court while he pursued his goals elsewhere.
Someone needed to cover for him.
Su, like Zui, had ministers and advisers that must be kept abreast of national matters. As the Crown Prince, and in his father's absence, Ru Long should have taken a more active role in court matters.
Instead he spent the past years travelling through Xin and Zui.
It made sense that the Queen Consort had enough authority to justify his prolonged absences, and take matters into her own hands, if the ministers raised any trouble.
The only question was why.
Chu Yun couldn't quite understand why she would ally herself with the child of her husband's lover.
In fact, his goal with mentioning the Queen Consort's role in Xiao Yao's fate was finding exactly that out.
The Queen Consort of Su advanced towards Ru Long, but the Zui guards didn't move from their position. Ru Long himself retreated further into their midst, and away from her.
"Please, Long-er, you have to understand. When I discovered that it was a way for me to gestate a child, something that for so long I thought was outside the realm of possibility, I was overjoyed. It didn't matter to me that your father had gifted it to someone else first. But..."
She looked down at her balled fists, her jaw closed tight.
"But then I found out it took 40 years for the pills to be refined, and that the cultivators that produced them had just started on a new batch. Your father had taken the last of their supply."
Her shoulders shook, but no tears came. Chu Yun had a feeling the Queen Consort of Su had cried them all out.
He felt a tightness below his chest. He was well aware of what had become of the last of those pills. Perhaps the Queen of Su didn't know her husband had gotten two to begin with.
At this point, it was best if she never did.
For his part, the King of Su looked despondent. His already wan complexion had grown even paler. "Those pills were meant for the use of human males. There was no telling if they would work on an alpha wolf, but just the same, no guarantee they would work on a female woman, either."
The Queen Consort turned towards him with a snarl and hit the King with both of her closed fists across his chest. The King staggered backwards, but didn't stop her.
"And yet you tried! Why not offer me the choice? Have I not done enough? For you, for our kingdom? Couldn't I have this one thing..."
Slowly, the King of Su lifted his hands and held on to the Queen's shoulders, keeping her in place as he looked down into her eyes. "I loved him, that was why..."
Han Guilan broke away from her husband with a pained exhale. "Your love for him, and your lack of it for me, got the two of us about the same thing."
She held the King's gaze for one last charged moment, and stalked out of the throne room without a single look back.