“Listen to me.”
Zoltan gasped heavily, breathing out with difficulty. He was in unbearable pain every time he breathed.
“S, Sir Zoltan.”
The smell of blood made Agnes dizzy. There was an absurd number of corpses all over the place.
Agnes couldn’t scream because her body stiffened so much that even breathing was difficult.
It was her first time seeing corpses this close.
“This, this is, no. heuk with this…”
Agnes fumbled to pull a handkerchief from her pocket. The moment it touched the wound, it absorbed blood.
Zoltan groaned, touching his torn stomach.
“Ugh, this is not the end. I’m sure the king will send more troops. “
He struggled to talk. Five days after leaving the city, they had encountered the king’s knights three times. They managed to escape from the first and second pursuers but their luck was exhausted by the third.
“Don’t, don’t talk any more. That’s right, I’ll go down to the village and get a doctor…”
She trembled and knelt down in front of Zoltan.
Her clothes were dirty with dust, but she had no mind to care about it.
“The horse couldn’t have run far. It’s a trained warhorse. Ugh…ride the horse and go to the south.”
“You want me to leave you and go to Cyclosiro alone? That’s impossible. I can’t.”
Scared, Agnes shook her head.
“Don’t be silly.”
Zoltan’s eyes gleamed. Although he shed a lot of blood, his gaze became sharper as time passed.
“Why do you think I came all the way here?”
“That’s….”
“You still don’t understand why my brother is trying to send you to Cyclosiro?”
It sounded like a beast’s roar. As she clenched her fist, her fingernails dug into her palm.
“Sebastian.”
She gasped like a fish out of water. All three attacks were blatantly aimed at her. If Zoltan hadn’t intervened, she would have lost her life.
“Why is he trying to kill me?”
Her ambition for the throne had long since abandoned. When she was born, she already had three siblings.
Furthermore, after one was killed by Sebastian and another became disabled, her desire to live grew stronger. Rather than engaging in a futile struggle for the throne, she wanted to live quietly.
“I have no intention of doing that at all.”
“Is the princess’ will even important? The plague killed both the princes. The queen is still in shock and barely functioning. And in such a case, if the king is hit by a blind arrow and dies, who will be the next king?”
The Kingdom of Nirseg was in dire straits. Not only were there few children born into the royal family, but those who survived to adulthood were even rarer.
Given such circumstances, even a married princess retained her right to the throne.
There was actually a case where a princess who was married off to another country ascended to the throne after the king died without any children.
“Haa, if I knew this would happen, Ugh, cough!”
Zoltan coughed violently and vomited blood at the same time. The handkerchief in her was soaked in blood.
Her face turned pale in a flash. The pool of blood on the floor was now deep enough for a bug to drown.
“Sir Zoltan. Stop talking. I’ll call a doctor.”
She held onto her trembling legs and managed to get up.
“No. This is the end for me.”
He spoke more firmly than ever.
“My brother sacrificed his life for the princess. Don’t waste it on me.”
When the king sent an envoy, he remembered Laslo’s stiff face. He knew that Sebastian had surrounded the castle to kill his younger sister.
“I thought Duke Arpad didn’t like me.” She muttered.
From the first day of marriage, they lived indifferently for three years. Like any other nobles, their existence had no impact on each other.
She was disappointed but gradually adapted. After all, she hadn’t married him expecting affection.
“Would you risk your life for a woman you hate?” Zoltan tried to laugh but he didn’t have the strength to laugh, so all he did was lift a corner of his mouth.
Then a rustling sound was heard in the distance. Zoltan looked around frantically.
“Hurry up and go!”
He shouted with his last breath. Agnes stepped back under his pressure.
“Don’t die.”
It was more of a threat than a plea or request.
“If the princess dies, ugh. If the princess dies, we risk our lives for nothing. So survive. That’s all I can do for you.”
“Sir Zoltan.”
“Quick!”
“I’m sorry.”
She couldn’t bring herself to thank him shamelessly. Agnes pushed herself up with force on her tiptoes. Her hands were shaking, but the pressure to live somehow made her move.
She sprinted into the forest. As Zoltan said, a horse was grazing in the field.
Agnes pulled her cloak tightly around her and mounted the horse. She rode madly to the south.
When she completely disappeared, two men in black appeared in front of Zoltan.
“Captain.”
“Ughh, why are you guys h-here?”
Blood oozed from Zoltan’s mouth, making his words garbled. The man wept and said.
“There’s no hope for me, so protect the madam….”
“…Yes.”
Zoltan closed his eyes. His brother was that kind of man. Stubborn and foolish, putting his wife’s life before his own until the end.
“Go. Secretly guard the princess.”
“Yes Captain.”
“That’s our final wish.”
When he opened his eyes again, there was no one in front of him. Finally, Zoltan could smile.
ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚
“Is that really true?”
“Oh, really! Do you think anyone wants to stay here voluntarily? Haven’t you heard that Sutmar is in complete chaos right now?”
“Sutmar? What’s that? Some noble’s territory, isn’t it? What’s going on there to cause such chaos?”
“There’s a rebellion.”
A man carrying a bottle of beer jumped in.
“Rebellion?”
The buzzing noise in the bar gradually diminished. In the farthest corner, a figure in a gray cloak discreetly observed the rowdy men.
“Yes! That’s why all the roads to Sutmar are blocked now. All the food that needs to be delivered is rotting. This is such a damned unfortunate situation. Tch!”
He spat yellow phlegm on the floor.
“It’s not just that.”
The server put the beer down on the table, looked around once, and continued.
“I met some traders from the North today, and they said the king had hung one arm on a pole.”
“An arm?”
“Who does it belong to?”
“Whose else could it be.”
For some time now, no one in the tavern had spoken except for them. The server nonchalantly replied.
“It’s Duke Arpad’s.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a loud thud was heard.
In a second, everyone’s eyes were drawn to the noise. A wooden chair crashed on the floor.
The figure in a gray cloak strode over and firmly grabbed the server’s arm.
“Is that true?”
“Uh? What? Let me go.”
“Is it true?” She shouted. The momentum was so strong that the server stuttered without realizing it.
“I, it’s true. I heard it from the traders this morning.”
“Where is it?”
“Eh?”
“That pole. Where did you see it?”
“B, beyond that Hazel hill.”
She staggered a few steps back. Agnes could not stand upright as her vision darkened.
“The traders said that the Duke resisted till the very end and had killed more than a hundred soldiers by himself.”
“….”
The server added a few more words, not noticing that her breathing was becoming rough.
“They say that the king was so upset that he had all of his limbs cut off while he was still alive.”
“Ah….”
“The right arm is in the south, the left arm in the west. And the two legs are in the east…”
“No.”
Even as the server spoke, he shuddered at the king’s gruesome actions.
Agnes gritted her teeth.
“They said his head was hanged at the castle’s gate.”
“No. That can’t be!” She shouted endlessly.
No matter how crazy Sebastian is, Laslo is a Duke. He shouldn’t have killed him so miserable without a fair trial.
Agnes ran to the inn’s stable and pulled the horse’s reins.
She felt her ears hurt as her heart pounded so fast. She bit her lip to the point of bleeding.
‘This must be a lie. It can’t be.’
She constantly muttered those words while riding the horse. It took half a day of riding before she could see the pole that the man had told her about.
It wasn’t difficult to find where it was. A flock of birds had gathered in one place making loud cries..
“Go away!”
She got off the horse and ran under the pole.
The smell of decaying flesh entered her nose as she got closer. The foul smell made her nauseous but she endured it.
How many days has it been under the sun?
Agnes took the cloak wrapped around her body and drove the birds away.
“Go! Shoo!”
The birds rushed at her fiercely but Agnes shouted.
Thanks