Chapter 5

I drew my whip, cracking it against the floor.

Sera shrieked, clutching her head. "Elias, save me!"

Elias, who had been kneeling, suddenly lunged forward, shielding Sera with his body.

"Your Highness, Sera is frail. She cannot withstand your whip."

Hah!

I laughed, a chilling sound. "Elias, I ask you, where is Luna?"

Elias's eyes darted away. "In the Dukedom's ancestral chamber."

I flung my sleeve, turning to walk towards the crypt.

But Elias blocked my path.

"Your Highness, Luna Blackwood is malicious and consumed by jealousy. Yesterday, she pushed Sera into the pond, nearly harming her own sister."

"I merely confined her to the ancestral chamber for a day to teach her some decorum. Your Highness, please do not interfere."

I looked at Elias, whose face was twisted with disgust at the mention of Luna. It was laughable.

During those years at the border, Luna spent her free time working with the common folk to improve wheat strains. The famine-stricken Veridia now saw its granaries overflowed, and no one went hungry.

A few years prior, when the plague raged, it was Luna who, regardless of her own life, risked it by testing medicines on herself, saving countless lives.

How could such a kind and compassionate woman become the malicious, jealousy-ridden person he described?

Sera stood behind Elias, softly weeping. "Elias, my presence only makes my sister unhappy. Perhaps I should just leave."

She said she would leave, but Sera didn't move an inch.

Elias and Alaric, however, panicked.

Elias grabbed Sera's arm. "Sera, if anyone's leaving, it's that venomous Luna, not you!"

Alaric chimed in. "Precisely. She's merely an unofficial daughter of a lesser branch. Just because she was Lady of the Dukedom for a few years doesn't mean she can forget her place."

Alaric turned to me, lecturing. "Cassandra, you should also distance yourself from that venomous woman."

"You don't know, ever since Sera arrived at the Dukedom, Luna has constantly targeted her—poisoning her, pushing her into the water…"

Elias's confidence swelled. "Your Highness, if it weren't for the fact that she saved my life once, I would have divorced her long ago!"

"She married above her station, greedily seizing Sera's engagement. Sera, in her kindness, didn't pursue the matter. Otherwise, what right did an obscure relative have to marry into the Dukedom?"

I felt as if I’d heard the greatest joke in the world.

"Sera told you all this?"

They said nothing. I understood everything.

I brought my whip down on Elias, then stormed straight to the ancestral chamber.

Such a fool. He was unworthy of my Luna.

I would take her away.

Kicking open the heavy door to the ancestral chamber, in the cold, dark threshold, I saw a person, lower half covered in blood, lying in a pool of it.

A trail of dried blood stretched from inside the crypt to the doorway.

"Luna?"

Luna, ever since taking that arrow, had become terribly sensitive to the cold.

My voice trembled.

Elias followed behind, his voice laced with disgust as he looked at Luna on the ground.

"Luna Blackwood, stop faking it!"

I knelt and cradled Luna in my arms. Her face was ashen, her breath long gone.

In her blood-soaked, scraped hand, she clutched a crimson-stained letter.

It was my letter to her. She had been waiting for me.

"Luna Blackwood, even the cheapest street performer couldn't fake it as well as you do!"

"You had plenty of strength when you pushed Sera. I only gave you twenty lashes, not enough to kill you! Get up now!"

"Still not moving? Do you want me to divorce you, leaving you with nothing, not even a place as a mistress?" Elias continued his relentless threats.

My body was ice cold. I let out a low, chilling laugh.

Elias Thorne, Seraphina Thorne. You killed my Luna.

Now, I will ensure you all die a gruesome, pathetic death.

"Sister, stop pretending! I'll give Elias back to you!"

Elias's forehead immediately bulged with anger.

He lunged forward, grabbing Luna.

"Luna Blackwood, stop this immediately—"