I Don't Want to Be Loved

The man who caused such commotion was Basil. Igor realized the strangeness of the situation as Basil threatened the royal guards, who were approaching him with swords in hand.

Shouldn’t his Grand Chamberlain be among the people by his side as soon as he opened his eyes? Why were they trying to block him from entering the room?

“Basil, what’s all this…?”

“Igor!” Basil started crying when he saw him. He threw his sword and quickly went to Igor’s side.

“So you are really awake. The Queen is…”

“Basil!”

The Queen Mother yelled with rage.

“What are you trying to tell someone who’d just regained consciousness? Don’t say useless things and leave, now!”

“Your Majesty, Queen Dowager! You can’t do that. I need to tell His Majesty the truth immediately!”

“You dare oppose my orders? I’ve been to indulgent with you for too long, and now you dare talk back to me? Guards! Take him!”

Upon the Queen Mother’s orders, the guards approached Basil. However, they were stopped by Igor.

“Back away.”

“igor!”

Igor grit his teeth. “Did you forget, mother? The ruler of this nation is me!”

Igor’s strength came back to him, his fragile appearance gone. While the Queen Mother was astounded, Basil quickly freed himself from the guards and kneeled beside Igor’s bed with teary eyes.

“Right now, the Queen is in prison.”

Igor could not process his words.

He did shield her with his body, but she fell down the stairs nonetheless. She couldn’t possibly be without injuries. Shouldn’t she be in bed, recovering? Why would she be in prison?”

“Prison? Why?”

“She was imprisoned under suspicion of treason.”

“Treason? What the hell are you talking ab-?”

“The letters. They found the letters the Queen used to exchange. Those letters were used as evidence and…”

Igor knew that Rihannan’s cousin became Chrichton’s Crown Prince. He also knew that Rihannan used to exchange letters with him since long ago. However, those letters only contained friendly banter. Why would anyone accuse her of treason based on her letters?

While Igor pondered about this, Basil was blatantly staring at the Queen Mother with unmistakable loathing in his eyes. His mother, on the other hand, had her face turned away, avoiding Basil’s gaze.

Just then, Igor remembered something. There was one letter, but it wasn’t Rihannan’s. A letter that detailed the incident in which his mother sold off secret Arundell information in exchange of the poisoning of Chrichton’s royal family. Igor had previously threatened his mother with this.

“…was it you, mother?”

Igor asked with a shaking voice. He desperately wished for his worst suspicions to be false. His mother surely loved and treasured Rihannan, even in her own strange, unconventional ways. He never thought his mother would be capable of doing such a terribly cruel thing to her. What’s more, wasn’t Rihannan pregnant with his child? She would never undermine his child that way.

“Please tell me, Mother. Did you frame Rihannan for your crime?”

Igor really wished she’d deny it, that perhaps he was misunderstanding something. His mother, however, remained silent.

“It hasn’t been long since the Queen suffered a spontaneous abortion. Just thinking that she is trapped in prison right now… my heart is breaking. But I have no authority to stop this.”

Basil couldn’t stand it anymore and started crying loudly. Igor then realized that he’d indeed lost his child. An overwhelming feeling of despair, not sadness, enveloped him. He couldn’t even shed tears. The life that was within Rihannan, the life that he’d fought so hard to protect, was gone.

Finally, after a long while, Igor spoke.

“First, let’s get Rihannan out of prison.”

He had to get her out of there first. He wanted to solve one thing at a time so he could then carefully investigate what had happened while he was unconscious.

Basil’s face immediately lit up. “Then, I’ll bring the Queen here, right n-…”

“It’s too late.”

The person who’d interrupted their conversation was none other than Leticia. She was standing by the door frame adorned with a dress even more extravagant than the Queen Mother’s. Before Igor could ask her why she was here, Leticia spoke.

“That bitch is dead. I gave her poison a while ago.” Leticia looked at Igor’s frozen face and laughed. There was madness in her eyes. “She drank the poison I gave her without second thoughts. I told her you’d have her executed the very next day, and she stupidly believed it. I’m sure that bitch held a grudge against you until her very last breath. How does that make you feel?”

For the first time in his life, Igor felt a searing pain across his chest. The pain was so extreme that he had to hold his chest with his hand. He felt his own heart stopping, and his vision turned dark. He couldn’t breathe, either.

Leticia had asked how he felt. He felt death coming for him. If something had really happened to Rihannan, then his life was already over.

His life or his soul. It was all over.

“Basil. Go ahead. I’ll catch up to you soon.”

Hearing his order, Basil didn’t even answer back but hurriedly ran out of the room. When Igor stood up from the bed and walked after him, the Queen Mother tried to stop him.

“Igor! I told you, you shouldn’t move yet…”

igor shifted his gaze on his mother. She couldn’t muster a single more word and stepped back in fear. Igor’s eyes were shining with a menacing spark. It was the gaze of a crazed beast, ready to tear apart whomever stepped on his way.

“Place the Queen Mother and this woman under arrest.”

“Igor!”

“You should pray over and over again that Rihannan is alive. If she is not…” Igor lowered his voice and whispered. “I’ll tear you all to pieces.”

The Queen Mother fell to the ground. Igor didn’t react at all and simply walked towards the Palace prison.

He had been trapped in the hospital bed for so long, so he struggled to move his legs appropriately. His whole body felt numb, and every step he took made him sweat profusely. His face was drenched in sweat since his first steps, but he didn’t care.

He wished he wasn’t too late. He wished Rihannan hadn’t taken the poison. He wished she’d waited for him. if not for him, at least he wished she feared death so much it made her doubt.

If that was the case, he’d kneel to the ground and beg for her forgiveness. For making her lose their baby due to the misunderstandings he’s caused. For allowing them to imprison her in such a way.

However, when he reached the prison cell, he say a teary Basil holding the corpse of a woman.

Her body was already growing cold.

These painful memories from the past flooded Igor’s mind, wave after wave. He was standing in front of the cabin door. Igor grit his teeth and charged against the door, breaking its lock.

Slam!

The inside of the cabin was pitch dark, without a single ray of light. There was no sound, either. His body unconsciously started shaking.

This was exactly like in his past life. By the time he’d arrived to her cell, everything was dark and silent. There was no trace of life, only desperation and death. Basil quickly left Igor alone without saying a single word, so there were only the two of them left inside.

She was lying on the floor, with numerous blood splatters everywhere, as though she’d spilled all her blood. When he approached her, he saw that her white clothes and silver hair were also stained with blood. The crystal bottle next to her was clearly empty.

Igor realized that Rihannan must have spent her last moments twisting in pain and anguish. He noticed that her nails were bloodied and broken, as if she’d scratched the walls.

Rihannan!

He called out her name, but there was no answer. Only then did he realize that he’d never truly called her by her name. Not really.

He uselessly repeated her name many times to no avail. Kneeling besides her corpse, he screamed in anguish. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at the face of the woman that’d died. His voice was like that of an injured beast.

The woman he’d loved more than anyone else in the world had died in the most miserable way, in the lowest place of the Palace. And everything was his fault.

“Rihannan…”