In the fireplace, the burning firewood made crackling sounds, and emitted a warm yellow fire light that casted a halo on the person at the door. The phantom figure that appeared in front of the King when the bard plucked his strings was no longer blurred.

The best queen of Kriya, the Queen Dowager of Legrand.

His mother.

For more than ten years, the Duke of Buckingham kept a secret that could not be revealed. He guarded the mad queen in order to protect the Kong, as well as protect the queen dowager herself…..He was only waiting for the mad queen to become lucid, and able to be the King’s mother.

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This was the last gift left to him by the Duke of Buckingham.

He did everything he could for the King.

The King was sitting on the ground with his head raised upwards. For a moment, he couldn’t tell whether everything was an illusion or reality. Bitter and breathless…..all the complicated and unspeakable emotions came like a surging tide.

Queen Eleanor with black hair and green eyes walked over, tears streaming down her thin face.

She half knelt down before the King, stretched out her hands and embraced him in her arms. She had lost the whole world, and now she had it all again, her child, her little Pureland.

Fate was too cruel to them.

Eleanor pressed her forehead against the King’s silver hair, and her hands that once picked up the bloodstained lance and sharpened a piece of iron into a sharp blade trembled at this moment. Her lips trembled, and she couldn’t say a word for a long time. When looking at the King in the Rose Palace, Eleanor once thought about what she would say when she saw her child.

She thought of so many things, but now she couldn’t say a word.

Fate was too unfair to this family.

Her child should have been the most noble and respected king in the world, but he was sitting on the ground by the desk, holding the letter, and was so filled with sorrow that he was just a child who had lost too much.

“My child, my little Pureland…..” Eleanor finally spoke, choking with sobs. She hugged him tightly and whispered, “I am here, I am here.”

Therefore, there was no need to suppress the sadness anymore, someone would wipe away your tears when you cry, hug you tightly, and prevent you from being attacked by the cold wind.

“He’s gone.”

The King said hoarsely.

Gone forever and never coming back.

His tears finally fell down.

A hug that was warm enough, a pair of trembling hands, a mother who was lost and found again…..After so many years, after struggling to survive in hatred and coldness, someone finally taught him how to let his tears flow when he was so filled with sorrow. At this moment, he was the same as all children who had lost their loved ones.

A pair of hands gently patted his back, as gentle as in those vague memories.

Queen Eleanor, her black hair falling over the King’s silver, held her child tightly.

Like holding a newborn baby, she hummed a familiar lullaby in a low and hoarse voice in the warm fireplace light. She once hummed this lullaby to lull the young King who wanted to see his father to sleep, and now she hummed this lullaby again, hoping to soothe the sadness in her child’s heart.

The night covered the land, and the crows flew up in surprise.

All partings, all encounters, all sorrows…..would pass through the long night.

…………

Southeast of Legrand, the port of Koszoya.

Today’s Captain Hawkins was quieter than ever before, and the young sailors on the ship toast secretly to celebrate not having to suffer torment from their neurotic captain, but some older pirates were silent.

Captain Hawkins, wearing a black slanted hat, sat alone on the railing of the bow deck, the back of his figure looking like he was about to commit suicide by jumping into the sea. He was holding a wine bottle in his hand and was throwing his head back, trying to pour some more down his throat. After shaking it a few times, two drops of wine fell into Captain Hawkins’ mouth. With a “tsk”, he threw the bottle into the sea.

The Witch shrouded in a black dress looked at the captain who was rarely quiet without the first mate, and didn’t bother him.

Gulu, gulu.

A small wooden barrel rolled to the Witch’s feet and bounced slightly upward.

The Witch understood that it was Jenny who wanted to talk to her.

The contract she signed with Jenny was different from others, and she was the only one who could communicate directly with Jenny.

The Witch stretched out her hand and pressed it against the railing.

Jenny’s voice sounded in her mind: “Griselda, Griselda…..that bastard who almost burned my sail back then…..Duke Buckingham, can’t he come again?”

The Witch was slightly taken aback. Jenny had always been like a little girl, she didn’t expect that Jenny would feel this keenly.

“Just like William?”

The Witch looked up at Captain Hawkins who was drinking alone, and responded in a low voice.

The sails on the ship suddenly drooped listlessly, and no longer floated upwards.

The wind blew all night at sea, and Captain Hawkins sat on the rail and drank all night. When the eastern sky became lit by dawn, he stood up unsteadily on the railing, staggered from the railing and fell into the sea with a “plop”, splashing water high.

The pirates who came to clean the deck in the morning happened to see this and thought their captain had gone crazy again, jumping into the sea to wash his brain again.

The Witch smiled wryly and ordered for Captain Hawkins to be quickly picked up from the sea.

………………

Rose Palace.

The sun had just risen, and the light fell on the spiers of the magnificent palace and castle. The King and Queen Dowager Eleanor stood together in the stone pavilion where the Duke of Buckingham rested when he took a walk with the King.

Winter had receded, and in the Rose Palace where the temperature was higher than outside, roses had begun to bloom again. The rose vines coiled around the stone pavilion had already begun to be decorated a little bit by new green buds. Wearing a scarlet cloak, the King stretched out his hand to hold on to the railing. He had already suppressed his emotions again.

Queen Eleanor looked at her child.

Time passed quickly, and in the years she wasn’t involved, her child had grown up to be as strong as his father.

Always remembering his responsibility as a monarch, and restraining himself from drowning in sorrow.

“Time flies, you’ve grown up.”

Queen Eleanor revealed a complicated smile.

According to the original secret spell, the King’s soul existed in two worlds at the same time. But the baptism of the Holy Court made the King’s soul carry the breath of the Holy Spirit, and coupled with the various illusions she saw at that time, this made her mistakenly believe that the secret spell failed and the King was replaced by the Holy Spirit.

Would her child have an easier and happier life if she hadn’t been crazy for so many years?

She failed to fulfill the responsibilities of a mother, she failed to shield her child from the wind and rain.

The King sensed the remorse hidden in the queen mother’s voice.

He turned his head and looked at his mother.

“No.” The King gave her a gentle hug. “You saved me, many times.”

In the last letter left by the Duke of Buckingham, he told the King the reason why Queen Eleanor had been insane for so many years——she had witnessed her child die time and time again in front of her own eyes.

When he saw this, the King understood everything.

When he was “Zhu Chi”, he would have nightmares again and again, but after waking up, he would forget what happened in the dream, leaving only a feeling of powerlessness and rage behind. When the Holy Court used the secret method of baptism to carry out an assassination, he got the answer from the Devil: that was the power of the secret method of baptism.

Yesterday he remembered everything.

All nightmares had the same content…..He would be in various dangers, and he faced death again and again.

“You saved me.”

The King repeated it again.

“Again and again.”

In those nightmares, he felt so weak and powerless, he felt that the whole world wanted to kill him, he was a person who was out of place and not tolerated by the world. But every time, there would be a voice, and a figure would hold him firmly in the darkness.

It was because of that voice and those hands that he didn’t lose himself in the constant cycle of nightmares and struggled to survive again and again.

Before, he forgot. Before, he didn’t know what it was.

Now he knew.

The one who protected him again and again in his dreams…..was his mother who was in pain and suffering under madness because of losing him.

In her painful illusions, she saw her child face danger time and time again, so she reached out her hand again and again trying to hold him. From a world apart, from such a long distance, her love traveled through time and space, like the wings of a goshawk, protecting her chick and allowing him to grow up safely.

The King finally understood why he wanted to survive by all means.

Because he was not hated by the world, he was also loved by someone.

He must come back, he must come back to Legrand.

Here was his family, this was his country, his land.

“Are you going back to Kriya?” The King asked his mother. “I met a bard. They still miss you. They will be glad to know that you are still alive.”

Eleanor straightened the King’s collar. She looked at her son, who she hadn’t been able to get a close look at yesterday. His blue eyes were the same as William III’s. His thoughtfulness was also exactly the same as his father’s. They were both not good at expressing themselves, nor good at dealing with soft emotions.

The queen mother understood that the King wanted to distract her from her guilt.

She shook her head: “I can’t go back now. In the eyes of the world, I have already died of illness. If I appear rashly, it will cause them trouble. Moreover, I will defend your kingdom in the shadows. You are the only monarch of Legrand.”

Her voice was gentle but firm.

The Master of the Households stopped at a distance from the mother and child who finally met. He looked at the former mistress of the palace, his eyes slightly moist, and he murmured in a low voice: “How wonderful.”

You c an fi nd t he la te st cha pte rs at ( th e bl mu se . c o m )

How wonderful, that at least not everyone had left.

“Come over.”

The King sensed his steward’s arrival.

The Master of the Households was here to report on the preparations for the Duke of Buckingham’s funeral.

It would be a funeral, and it would be a declaration of war.

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