Three months.
That's how long it took for everything to go wrong.
"You can't do this! Joan, please don't do this!"
Xuma struggled against the restraints of the servants. The iron grip on her arms rendered her efforts futile. With growing mortification, she stared wide-eyed at the man she once loved, the one she once trusted with all her heart, snatch the bowl of abortion medicine from the hands of the eunuch.
"Xuma, I'm sorry for causing you pain. However, you'll thank me for this in the future."
With a cold expression, he stalked towards her like a predator and leaned down. Squeezing her jaw with an agonizing grip that brought tears to her eyes, he wrenched her mouth open and pressed the bowl to her lips.
"Drink it."
"No, Joan…please…please…the child's innocent." She didn't want to lose her child.
No matter how it was conceived, the small life in her belly was her flesh and blood. It was innocent. It hadn't committed any sin for it to be smothered in the womb, to be deprived of the right to enter this world.
However, her desperate pleas fell on deaf ears. With the little strength left in her, she tried to turn her head to the side, away from the bitter concoction. But the earlier struggle had drained her. And in one move, Joan poured the contents of the bowl down her throat.
"Urg…gurgle…gurgle…"
Her eyes burned. She choked and coughed, but he didn't allow her to spill a single drop. With a fresh flood of tears dripping down her face, she emptied the bowl, and sagged onto the floor like a wilted flower.
Her child was dying.
She felt it leave her as her insides burned, and a stabbing pain like that of a thousand nails piercing her womb blinded her vision. Felt the slackening of her inflated belly, the rush of sticky warmth sliding down her thighs before the metallic scent of blood engulfed her senses.
So…this was the feeling of losing a child.
It was an agony that could not compare to the sorrow of her father's death. Then, she had only felt her heart break, and shatter into a hundred pieces.
However now, she felt as if she was being split in two, her heart being gnawed on by a thousand poisonous bugs.
She curled into herself. Her arms wrapped around her womb as if the act would stop her child from leaving. But she knew, as well as the silent man looming over her huddled form did, that the deal was done, and there was no going back.
The bitterness of the soup seemed to seep into her heart. It shriveled and twisted the organ, until slowly the overwhelming sorrow and grief gave birth to bitter resentment.
Him and her…they could no longer have a future together.
"You're going to be in pain for a few days. Bear with it. We will have our own children in the future, and by then, you will forget about that vile spawn."
She didn't respond to his words, and he wasn't expecting her to. Throwing the bowl, he turned to the servants and said, "Look after her. Take care of her health. If any complications arise…"
The servants immediately knelt and vowed. "Rest assured, Your Majesty. We won't let anything happen to Concubine Xuma."
Satisfied, he cast a lingering glance on her. But she neither raised her head nor moved a limb. Releasing a long sigh, he waved at his train of guards and strolled out of the chamber.
What went wrong?
This question plagued her mind for the past two years.
Xuma stared at the pearl lamp hanging from the ceiling with vacant eyes. After losing her child, she lost the will to live. She barely ate, and blood leaked from cracks on her lips due to dehydration.
In the beginning, that man visited her every other day. He reprimanded the servants for not taking good care of her, killed some in a moment of anger, and took it upon himself to force-feed her. He behaved as if nothing happened.
As if he hadn't killed her child.
She hated him. Abhorred his very presence the same way she once abhorred that Emperor. One trampled on her home. The other broke her heart.
While one took her father. The other took her child.
They were one and the same, and she cursed the day they entered her life.
Her hatred consumed her heart and seeped into her bones. Without a cause or a reason, she lost the ability to move.
And just like that, she laid on her back like a paralyzed doll, served and fed by different servants as she vomited everything that went into her stomach.
A week later, his frequent visits began to decrease.
By then, she knew she had lost her youthful beauty. There was no meat on her skin, and the bones in her body jutted out like thin sticks.
Long-term vomiting led to starvation, turning her into a creature that could neither be called human nor a ghost.
She reveled in the hunger pangs. It distracted her from the hollow void in her chest.
And when two years passed in this manner, she waited for her death in the putrid stench of her urine and feces. By this time, he no longer came to see her. What was there to see in a ghost-like woman who looked no better than a skeleton?
But this didn't affect her.
Somewhere along the years, her hatred for him had dulled into indifference, until he became no better than a stranger to her.
She had no attachments to anyone. No desire to keep living. Though she got her revenge on the Empire that destroyed her home, she wasn't able to escape its stone walls.
Death would give her that escape.
However…what went wrong?
After the Emperor's death, wasn't she supposed to be free? After a year, weren't they supposed to leave together? Where and why did things go wrong?
Why?
"Emperor Joan's wedding will settle the unrest in the Empire. Future Empress Ainaz is the adopted daughter of Minister Maaz."
"Minister Maaz? Isn't he…"
"Yes, the former Prime Minister of the Stone Empire. Do you see why this marriage is beneficial now?"
Ainaz. Wasn't that her stepsister's name? How did she become the daughter of Prime Minister Maaz?
A ridiculing sneer stretched across her cracked lips. She was an individual waiting for death. What did the affairs of the world have anything to do with her?
"Sigh. I hope their union will bear fruit. The death toll is rising."
"Who would've known? Not only were the warriors of this Empire cold-blooded, but even their ministers had a stone for a heart. If things continue to develop in the current direction, the Stone Empire will be known as Corpse Empire in a matter of three years."
Xuma froze. What were they talking about? The Stone Empire…known as Corpse Empire?
With great effort, she turned her head towards the servant girls. They were huddled in the far corner of the room, munching on corn grains as they gossiped with uneasy expressions.
Her jaw ached, black spots filled her vision. She struggled to open her mouth and ask the question in her heart.
But at this moment, something sharp pierced her throat.
The familiar sticky warmth, more than the dull pain, made her lower her head, causing the sharp object to sink deeper into her throat.
No sound left her mouth. The flow of warm blood slid down her neck, then…mysteriously disappeared as it touched the green fig with cherry blossoms.
Her nation's emblem.
She had forgotten she still carried it on her body.
No. After that day, it wasn't that she forgot. But the fact that she was carrying it had slipped her mind, as she hadn't felt it.
For two years, the servants washed and cleaned her, before changing her clothes. But even then, they hadn't seen it either.
'If I die, would it be buried with me?'
That would not be so bad. Though she couldn't return it to her homeland, she would still be able to take it to her grave.
At the thought, a bitter smile surfaced on her face.
It had happened as she had used her body to complete their mission. The accidental conception of an unintentional child.
Was that what went wrong?
Did it shake the foundation of their years of love?
If so, then what was love?
As her vision dimmed, and her breath turned shallow, this single question plagued her mind.