Today was the final day of Ines’s funeral. After a week of mourning, it was time for the deceased to find peace.

The remaining funeral proceedings were simple. After saying final goodbyes to the body resting in the coffin, it would end with the burial.

And Carlos didn’t appear until the mourners had paid their last respects to the deceased. Just as everyone was about to criticize the king who hadn’t even shown his face at his wife’s funeral.

Carlos, who had been in seclusion, finally appeared. It was right before Ines’s coffin was to be placed in the burial ground.

Carlos looked terribly gaunt as he crossed the royal cemetery. People’s gazes turned to him. Not seeing the lifeless man’s haggard appearance, they whispered about Carlos who had only now shown his face.

“I heard His Majesty had confined the Queen to her room when the fire broke out.”

“Yes. I heard she couldn’t escape in time because she was confined. I also heard the maid who was guarding the Queen died in the fire.”

“Oh, how pitiful…”

Every word was one of sympathy for Ines. Even the nobles who had criticized the queen while she was alive now lamented her futile death and reproached Carlos.

Their whispers couldn’t have missed Carlos’s ears. He silently listened to the criticism directed at him and agreed with their words.

There was nothing he could refute. Everything they whispered was true.

All of this tragedy was his fault. If he had just not tied Ines’s hands, she could have escaped easily enough. If he had not been so greedy in trying to keep Ines, she wouldn’t have met such a horrible death.

If only he had listened when she asked to be sent to a convent saying she couldn’t marry, she would have lived a somewhat peaceful life. The situation escalating to this point was all his fault. But now no amount of regret could bring anything back.

Having reached his destination, Carlos stared vacantly at the closed coffin. According to custom, the coffin should have been left open for final farewells to the deceased, but due to the terrible state of the body, it remained closed.

As that fact was recalled once again, Carlos bit his lip. The severe condition of the body that prevented even opening the coffin lid showed just how painful Ines’s death had been.

Just as he was biting his lip at the horrific reality being reminded of again, Jeff approached and whispered to him.

“Your Majesty, it’s time to move the coffin to the burial site.”

The time had truly come to bid farewell to Ines. It was time to let her go.

Carlos’s clenched fists began to tremble. He wasn’t ready to let go of Ines yet.

Perhaps it was because it felt like her soul would depart forever once the funeral was over. Like someone foolishly trying to hold onto even Ines’s soul, he had tried to avoid attending the funeral.

But at Jeff’s words asking if he would let Ines go alone like this, he had no choice but to come here in the end. He couldn’t let her be alone even at the very end.

For that reason alone, he was barely able to be here, dragging his legs that were weak enough to collapse.

Under Jeff’s direction, his body had been washed and dressed in clean clothes. His face, which had been unkempt with a beard, had been restored to its original neat appearance.

But his eyes were dead. Though alive, they weren’t the eyes of a living person.

Carlos shifted his gaze to Ines’s portrait beside the coffin. She looked much younger than now. It was from when he first met Ines at that age.

Soon the coffin was moved by people’s hands. Carlos’s eyes were hollow as he watched it.

With the priest’s prayer, the coffin was lowered into the ground. Ines was sleeping inside there. This was the eternal farewell with her.

In this reality, Carlos barely restrained his body that unconsciously tried to rush forward. He clenched his fists. Even now, he wanted to shout not to bury Ines in the ground.

But contrary to the desperate cry in his heart, soil gradually piled up over the coffin.

The more the coffin was buried under the mound of earth, the further away Ines seemed to become.

Some nobles approached and seemed to offer him words of comfort, but he couldn’t hear any sound. The ringing in his ears swallowed all other sounds.

Carlos raised his head to stare at the portrait placed to one side. Ines’s figure smiling at him was elegant and beautiful. It was now a sight he could only see in paintings.

“It’s all over now.”

With someone’s murmur, Carlos awoke from his thoughts. When he lowered his head, the coffin was completely covered with earth.

Now everything is over.

“…Your Majesty.”

Jeff approached to announce the end of the funeral, but Carlos didn’t move at all. As time passed and mourners left one by one, Carlos was the only one remaining at the grave. Though there was no reason to stay any longer, he stood there endlessly.

Jeff, judging that Carlos needed time alone, quietly withdrew. Some time passed like that.

Someone came running, calling for Carlos.

“Y-Your Majesty…!”

Carlos turned his head at the urgent cry calling him. There was a familiar man desperately calling out to him while being held back by knights.

“That person…”

Who was it? After briefly searching his memory, Carlos quietly spoke the man’s name that he finally recalled.

“Viscount Delmonsi.”

His appearance was shabby like someone who had barely survived a battlefield. He looked like he had fled in the night.

More importantly, why was he here?

Delmonsi should have been in the underground prison right now. Carlos remembered that when Herman captured the Marquis’s remaining followers, Delmonsi had been captured as well.

He gestured to the guards holding Delmonsi. Soon after being released, Delmonsi ran to him and fell to his knees.

“I-It’s unfair! Your Majesty! What wrong have I done for you to try to kill me!”

What? Kill?

Carlos frowned at Delmonsi who suddenly grabbed him and shouted about injustice. Carlos hadn’t given any orders yet regarding the disposition of the remaining followers. Naturally, he had never ordered Delmonsi’s death either.

“I-I only told the Marquis that the Queen had healing powers. So why are you doing this to me? What did Herman tell Your Majesty?”

Carlos’s body, which was about to press Delmonsi, suddenly flinched.

“…Healing powers? What are you talking about?”

“Pardon…?”

Rather, it was Delmonsi who was taken aback by Carlos’s reaction. Somehow, the response wasn’t any different from when he first told Herman about it.

‘What’s going on here? I definitely told Herman.’

Come to think of it, there had been no particular action taken for a long time after he told him. As expected, his plan had gone wrong. He had thought Herman would surely have told about the Queen’s healing powers.

Looking back, everything was strange. A few days ago, he noticed a strange smell from the food he was given. Delmonsi, who was well-versed in poisons, could immediately tell that the smell was suspicious.

After refusing meals for a while after that. A few hours ago, Herman suddenly came to see Delmonsi. Then he tried to put him in a carriage, saying they needed to move prisons.

That’s when Delmonsi’s sharp instinct kicked in. That something had gone wrong. Realizing that Herman was trying to kill him quietly away from people’s eyes, Delmonsi pretended to follow him obediently and took the chance to escape.

And knowing today was the last day of the Queen’s funeral, he headed straight for the royal cemetery. After all, he would soon be caught if he tried to run away with nothing to his name. So he decided it would be better to meet the king and beg for his life.

But everything was going against his expectations. The king himself seemed to know nothing.

‘Why didn’t that bastard tell him about the Queen’s healing powers?’

Herman was the king’s most trusted servant. It made no sense that such a person wouldn’t have reported news about the Queen. As Delmonsi was racking his brain with this strange feeling. Suddenly remembering that Herman had a sick sister, Delmonsi’s head snapped up.

The Queen’s sudden death. And Herman suddenly trying to kill him.

The scattered puzzle pieces came together. At this, Delmonsi urgently shouted to him.

“The late Queen had healing powers. She was the one who healed Your Majesty’s legs!”