Veil of the Dusken Rose - #ambw (18+)

31장 || Solitude's Revenge

Crown prince pov

Neeria's fingers fluttered to my chest as I leaned in, forestalling the kiss I intended. Despite welcoming the caress a moment before, her touch was now gentle yet firm in its halt.

Brows drawing together, I searched her suddenly too-bright eyes. "What troubles you, my love?"

Neeria glanced aside, teeth worrying at her lower lip. She blinked fiercely as if to banish welling tears. The gesture sent a pang through my chest. What burden was she carrying alone?

I reached to brush along her nose, and beneath her eyes. She shivered at the contact giving her a moment of calm. When at last her gaze met mine again, I read profound sorrow there alongside the edges of her eyes. Neeria sucked in a steadying breath.

"There is something...painful...I must tell you," she managed at last, voice strained. "I fear causing you grief, yet to withhold truth would be a greater betrayal."

I cradled her cheek. "Let me put it this way." i stated. "I would rather weep with open eyes than dwell deceived." Smoothing my thumb over her skin.

She searched my face before giving a tremulous nod. Taking my hands in her smaller ones, Neeria guided us to sit upon ornate cushions as she organized turbulent thoughts. I schooled my expression to careful neutrality, allowing her space.

After a lingering silence, Neeria found the words. "Lady Minyoung's hands are steeped in blood," she whispered.

I folded her rigid fingers between my own.

"Which is why she's, she's being held where she is..."

"Not just for the general, Jeoha..." she began.

I felt Neeria's hands tremble within my gentle grasp as she forced herself to continue.

"She... she also took the late queen's life," Neeria's voice broke over the words.

"..." I parted my lips to speak, however, I closed them again. I swayed where I knelt, her fragmented confession landing like physical blows.

Neeria's confession reverberated through me, the words searing into my psyche even as my mind struggled to comprehend them. Lady Minyoung - once beloved enough to be considered as a bride - had murdered my mother.

I couldn't control the violent trembling that overtook my body. Wordlessly, reflexively, I pulled my hands from Neeria's comforting grasp.

Her touch, though meant to soothe, scalded my skin which now felt too raw, too exposed. I couldn't bear comfort, sensory input, any outward stimulus. My entire world had collapsed inward, funneling down to one horrific truth.

Minyoung's poison had claimed my mother. I saw again my wild-eyed younger self fighting against the guards' firm grip as I screamed at the lifeless queen to wake up, pleaded with uncaring gods to give her back. While beyond that chamber door, just out of sight, a gloating viper dwelled.

Neeria's teary voice filtered through the roaring in my ears as she spoke again. But I could not reply. What words existed to encapsulate this cataclysmic pain, this ultimate violation of trust by one I had nearly placed beside me as co-ruler of Joseon?

I had known Minyoung's soul harbored darker impulses. But never had I conceived the depths of her cruelty, her capability for destroying innocent lives to grasp power.

In those reeling moments I was a young again - lost, betrayed, clinging to the last rags of a world I had understood while this newer, uglier truth stared me in the face. I had known loss before. But never duplicity so vile committed by so familiar a hand.