Author: greyrani
Genre: romance, angst

DAY 750

It’s been nearly a month since I deliberately confessed about my feeling for you, my queen. Even until this moment I still pondered whether it was too reckless of a move. You had cried hard that day, but I could not decipher the meaning of your tears. I had held you until you calmed down, but you never gave me an answer. That’s fine for me, at least for the time being.

As I told you, we announced your pregnancy the day after that. I threw a royal banquet to celebrate with my minions. My honored Mother looked pleased. She sent you many gifts and visited you once in awhile to check on you and your pregnancy.

I wasn’t sure why, or perhaps it was just me, but everything somehow escalated quickly after the news of your pregnancy spread out, and unfortunately it was for the worse.

What I hated the most was your pregnancy encouraged my mother and some ministers suggest me to take another wife. I almost cut their neck the moment they mentioned about you not being able to serve my need while you’re pregnant. Did they think I was made only of lust? How could even my own mother told me to cheat on you? Yes, they called it a custom, but I wasn’t going to follow the old habit. How could I take pleasure from other women while you were struggling to keep our child safe and healthy? When the issue of me taking another wife was concluded impossible, they dropped it right away. If not, I swore I would make them regret for ever mentioning that.

Focusing on the political affair, I found more serious problem brew. Fight among the houses of lords were getting intense, mainly between Shida House and Amakusa House. Far in the border, another rebellion was rising. I heard the Near Kingdom’s intelligence had something to do with the rising but I had not found evidences yet. I sent more of my soldiers to guard you, more to patrol the city, and way more to keep watch at the borders.

Yuri sent me messages that he was getting so close to find the poison maker of Shida House but he needed more time to get a hand on the clue. Before that, he had sent me document which listed names of political and military figures of the Kingdom, and sadly all those listed were already dead. Thus I and my private council, that were Yuma and Keito, assumed that possibly it was the list of the poison victims. We had yet collected the medical record of the said deaths, and the problem was that I could not just order my men to take it out from each of the house without arousing suspicion in your family.

Beside that, I was also presented with the documents which became a valid evidence to the accusation of power abuse and corruption did by my own family, Amakusa House. Since it was the easier among the case, I pointed to resolve the case first before the others. The result? My mother went livid, so did my uncles. I called on their trials, excluding my mother which had listened to my warn to stay out of the way, and what surprised me was that your family brought more evidences about the case. It just fueled the fire between the two most powerful houses in the Kingdom. However bad it was, I had to decide. So, despite it was my own family, I couldn’t evade from signing the edict of their exile.

In these hard days, the only time I found peace was when I visited your quarter, which I rarely got a chance to lately. Even though you avoided me, and had chosen not to talk to me for most of the times, it was enough when I saw you and our soon-to-be-baby was safe. That was why, to avoid creating any distress on you, I then chose to visit so late at night and left before you woke up. However, tonight I didn’t found you in your chamber. Your servants told me that you were taking a night stroll in the garden, so there I went to get you. Lucky that I met you midway when you were returning with Captain Nakajima and a couple of your servants. I couldn’t deny I felt jealous, but I shook the feeling away.

I took your hand and led you back to the bedchamber. Once we were inside, I let you go and you immediately walked away, sitting on the edge of the bed, while I chose the chair across you.

“Why weren’t you sleeping?” I straightly asked, wondering whether you would answer.

“I couldn’t sleep,” you said. “The air is somehow suffocating.”

I leaned back, relaxing my body, “Night air is not good for your health. You shouldn’t be too often taking night stroll.”

You only nodde