Once Her Betrothed, Now Her Judge Chapter 10
(Third Person POV]
“General Ward used himself as a target, drawing our arrows to wipe the enemy out.” The commanding officer was already incoherent from his tears. “I once asked him whether he was afraid, facing tens of thousands of enemies ahead alone.
“He said that he had nothing to fear with a million arrows covering him. But when we finally ran out of arrows, no further messages ever came from him…”
Aurum Hall was silent for a long, long time. Only the occasional sighs and muffled sobs rose and fell in the stillness.
“Court is dismissed. I am… tired,” the empress said.
On the other side of the palace, Winona was locked up in the imperial prison.
“Gideon, please forgive me. You’ll always be my husband; we’ll never be apart again.”
She curled up in a dark cell, her eyes bloodshot as she manically carved words into the wall. The words “I’m sorry” covered an entire wall.
She had no tools, so she dug into the stone with her bare fingers. All ten fingertips had been scraped down to exposed bone.
“Gideon loves me so much. As long as I apologize properly, he’ll definitely marry me,” she muttered.
The prison warden thought she had gone insane. With a look of pity, he said, “Your Highness, stop torturing yourself. General Ward died on the battlefield. Her Majesty is already preparing the state funeral.”
“What?” Winona suddenly let out a shout. “My Gideon! No! That’s impossible! He waited for five years just to marry me. How could he leave me?”
She howled until her voice was ragged, trying to convince the prison warden otherwise, but her tears wouldn’t stop falling.
“This can’t be. Gideon hasn’t had me yet. How could he bear to leave? It must be because I’m not apologizing sincerely enough. That’s why he’s mad and hiding from me. Yes, that must be it!”
She dug even harder at the wall, muttering to herself. She kept at it until she lost too much blood and collapsed in a dead faint.
Three years passed in the blink of an eye. With no more war at the borders, the entire realm flourished and prospered.
That year, the empress decided to tour the nation once more. Her first stop was the frontier pass. For this trip, she ordered a particular prisoner transferred from the imperial prison to accompany her.
All the court officials were baffled.
The empress stood atop the city walls and silently gazed into the distance. She stood there the entire day, from dawn until dusk. No one knew what she was thinking.
At her side stood a filthy, hollow-eyed prisoner who suddenly began to laugh and clap wildly. She ignored everyone around her and climbed down from the wall, walking straight toward the boundless desert.
“My Gideon is waiting for me. Darling, I’ve come to marry you.” Raving like a madwoman, she ran forward, not noticing that she had just crushed a scattered pile of bones underfoot.
They were the remains of Shane, who had thrown himself from the city wall three years before.
Winona laughed and cried as she stumbled into the desert, running wildly. In no time at all, the shifting yellow sand swallowed her whole. She never stood up again.
The empress visited several veteran soldiers who had survived the war. Whenever Gideon’s name was mentioned,, their faces filled with respect.
“Although General Ward came from a family of scholars, his courage far surpassed that of most career soldiers. When I first joined the army, I was placed under his command. Back then, I asked him how he managed to go into battle without fear.
“He had laughed and said, ‘No one is truly fearless. But if, in the end, I’m the last one left standing, then I’ll have nothing left to fear. Even alone, I can still stand as an army.””
The empress remained at the border city for half a month, never announcing the next stop on her tour.
Only then did everyone finally understand that her so-called inspection tour was merely a pretext. What she truly wanted was to come to this city in memory of someone.
That night, the empress once again stood on the city wall. “Gideon, I truly have to leave now. I still have so many things I never got to say to you. After tonight, I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance to return to this place in this lifetime. So, I’ll leave something behind to keep you company.”
