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Chapter 10
There once was a woodcutter who lived in a house deep in the mountains with his beautiful wife.
Having grown up together since childhood, they naturally fell in love and eventually married.
The woodcutter spent his days cutting timber while his wife cultivated medicinal herbs, and together they lived a quiet, happy life.
Then, one day, everything changed.
The woodcutter returned from the forest carrying a wounded man covered in blood.
Even at a glance, the stranger’s luxurious clothes marked him as a nobleman of distinguished birth.
The woodcutter and his wife cared for him with all their devotion.
They did not do it in hopes of a reward.
If anything, they only wished to avoid becoming entangled with someone of such high status.
Thanks to their care, the man recovered quickly…
But that was where the tragedy began.
He fell in love with the woodcutter’s wife.
Revealing his noble status, he courted her, promising a life of wealth and glory.
But the woodcutter’s wife loved her husband.
She rejected him.
The man appeared to accept her refusal. After making a full recovery, he quietly left the couple’s cabin, and it seemed their peaceful life would continue.
But he had no intention of giving her up.
He returned with his soldiers.
The man beheaded the very woodcutter who had saved his life…
…and stole his wife.
He brought the stolen woman back to the royal palace and imprisoned her in the Eastern Tower.
After his second wife died, he took her as his third queen.
The man who committed such a monstrous betrayal of human decency…
…was none other than King Blake Clayton of Molvian.
“And that beautiful, unfortunate woodcutter’s wife… was Mother.”
As Ariana walked toward the deepest part of the palace, where the queen resided, a faint, bitter smile crossed her lips.
Perhaps the king himself knew how shameful his actions had been, because he had embellished the story of their “romance” before spreading it throughout the kingdom.
According to the official tale, the wounded king had been rescued by a woodcutter and the woodcutter’s “younger sister.”
When he later returned to repay their kindness, the woodcutter had supposedly already been killed by a wild beast, leaving only his pitiful younger sister behind.
After mourning the woodcutter, the king had brought the young woman to the palace to repay his debt of gratitude.
There, they had naturally fallen in love.
“How many people actually believe the story that the queen, jealous of the king’s ‘true love,’ tried to murder my mother, failed, and then took her own life?”
Molvian recognized only one lawful spouse, but remarriage after divorce or widowhood was perfectly acceptable.
The second queen had entered the palace after the first queen died shortly after giving birth to a son.
What had she thought when, not long after giving birth to twins herself, she learned that her husband had hidden a commoner woman away in the Eastern Tower?
And what if she had then discovered…
…that the woman was pregnant?
“I would’ve tried to kill her too. What about you, Maia?”
Ariana glanced over her shoulder at Maia, who followed quietly behind her.
“I don’t know, Princess Ariana.”
“An excellent answer.”
There were many things one was better off not knowing inside the royal palace.
The more one knew, the sooner one died.
Anyone who wished to survive had to remain ignorant.
In that regard, Maia truly was an exceptional head maid.
“By the way, Maia. Did you know there’s a hidden story behind all this?”
“…Pardon?”
In truth, it wasn’t Mother the second queen had wanted to kill.
It was the child she carried.
Killing the king’s beloved woman would have brought consequences too severe to bear, so instead she intended to kill the unborn child and leave the woman unable to conceive again.
Her plan only half succeeded.
After drinking the poison the second queen had sent, the woodcutter’s wife went into labor prematurely and was left unable to bear another child.
But the baby the queen had tried to kill…
…was born safely.
Not even the twins knew that, enraged by the thought of losing the woman he loved, the king had personally killed his second queen.
That was the hidden story.
But the true secret was something else entirely.
“The child the king believed his beloved was carrying… was actually the woodcutter’s child.”
Ariana had learned that truth directly from her mother before her regression.
“I was already carrying you,” her mother had confessed.
“To protect you, I accepted the king.”
“And I deliberately drank the medicine the second queen sent so it would appear you were born prematurely, hiding how far along my pregnancy truly was.”
“I kept my distance from you all these years because I feared that if I openly cherished you, the suspicious king would begin to question your birth.”
“You are the precious child I conceived with the man I truly loved.”
“So you must not die here.”
As her mother stroked her cheeks over and over, tears streaming endlessly down her face without trying to hide her love any longer…
…Ariana had found herself unable to say a single word.
“We’ve arrived at Her Majesty’s garden.”
How long had she been lost in those memories?
Maia’s voice brought her back to the present.
Looking around, Ariana saw a garden overflowing with wildflowers and herbs that looked more like untamed plants than carefully cultivated flowers.
Could this really be called a garden?
Yet the king referred to it as the Queen’s Garden and had permitted her to grow whatever she wished there.
Before bringing her to the palace, he had personally witnessed her tending herbs and wildflowers in the mountains.
Those very herbs had healed his wounds.
Perhaps, whenever he looked upon this garden, the king reminisced about those “happy memories.”
But Ariana knew what this garden truly represented.
Thinking of the king’s sentimental nostalgia, she swallowed back a mocking laugh.
“Mother tends this garden herself, doesn’t she?”
“Yes. She cares for it with great devotion.”
“Then we’d better be careful not to step on anything. This is a place filled with Mother’s ‘love.'”
She meant those words sincerely.
Watching each step with care, Ariana crossed the garden until a beautifully decorated door came into view.
Without realizing it, she held her breath.
She was about to meet her mother.
The tension she felt was entirely different from what she had experienced before meeting Rashan.
“Greetings, Princess Ariana.”
The maid standing guard at the entrance had served the queen until the very end.
Like Maia, she owed the queen an unrepayable debt.
Before Ariana’s regression, she had even sacrificed her own life trying to save the queen.
“Is Mother inside?”
“Her Majesty is waiting for you.”
“I’ll wait here.”
After giving Maia a small wave, Ariana stepped through the door that the queen’s head maid held open.
The room beyond was filled with sunlight…
…and countless green plants.
The space felt like walking through a forest.
Taking in the scenery, Ariana drew a slow, deep breath before moving forward.
It was a room that embodied her mother’s lifelong longing for the forest…
…and for the husband she had truly loved.
When she reached the large window at the far end, she finally saw her.
Golden curls that gleamed brilliantly in the sunlight.
Green eyes like the first sprouts of spring.
A beautiful woman who looked almost exactly like Ariana herself.
The unfortunate woodcutter’s wife.
Marianne Clayton.
“I greet you, Mother.”
Following Molvian court etiquette, Ariana bent her knees in a graceful curtsy and lowered her head.
She remained that way until the queen answered.
The atmosphere was nothing like when she dealt with the king.
It was quiet…
…and rigid.
“You may rise.”
“Thank you.”
Straightening at the queen’s permission, Ariana looked at her mother.
Will I look like that when I grow older?
No.
She could never possess such quiet elegance.
Looking at her now, who could possibly call this woman a powerless queen of common birth?
“How did you know Maia was my person?”
“It just… happened.”
Still standing where she was, Ariana smiled faintly as she watched her mother avoid meeting her eyes.
Once, that had only hurt her.
But now…
“It just happened… and I came to learn many other things as well.”
Without waiting for permission, Ariana slowly approached.
She knelt at her mother’s feet and looked up at her.
“So, Mother… you don’t have to keep pushing me away to protect me anymore.”
“…What are you saying…?”
“They say my eyes resemble yours, don’t they?”
At that moment, the queen’s eyes widened.
For the first time in years, she looked directly into her daughter’s eyes instead of avoiding them.
Was the reflection she saw there beautiful because of the love she could no longer hide?
Unable to speak easily, the queen remained silent.
Ariana quietly asked the question she had carried with her for so long.
“Ethan Denil…”
“…Do I resemble him very much?”
