Chapter 637 Blood on the Palace Road
But it was obviously too late.
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Blood kept pouring from the wound in Alaric’s abdomen, soaking through layer after layer of fabric until a dark crimson stain spread rapidly across his clothes. The pain in his chest twisted harder with every breath he took, sharp enough to leave his vision swimming. His legs finally gave out beneath him, and he crashed heavily onto the cold stone roadway outside the royal residence.
Daphne was still pinned to the ground by the King’s Guard, her cheek pressed against the rough pavement, yet she strained desperately to lift her head high enough to look at him.
The moment their eyes met, the hatred in her face only grew stronger.
She spat toward him viciously.
“I was blind back then! If I’d known from the beginning that it was you, I never would’ve agreed to marry into the Crown Prince’s Wing! You disgust me. Everything about you disgusts me!” Her voice rose into something shrill and furious. “You deserved to lose every single thing you had! And Ella loving you when you were younger? That’ll always be the greatest humiliation of her life!”
The instant he heard Ella’s name, something inside Alaric’s chest clenched violently.
He stared at Daphne with bloodshot eyes. “You saw Ella?”
Daphne let out a harsh laugh full of mockery. “What if I did? What if I didn’t? Either way, you’re never seeing her again, Alaric. Save your regrets for your next life.”
By the time she finished speaking, she was laughing openly now, loud and almost hysterical, the sound echoing all along the palace road beneath the afternoon sky.
The noise grated against Alaric’s skull, but he no longer had enough strength left to stop her.
Everything hurt.
Cold sweat slid down the side of his face and mixed with the blood staining his clothes while his breathing turned increasingly ragged.
He looked once toward the wildly laughing Daphne, then toward the long empty roadway stretching between the palace walls.
Finally, his gaze settled on the two guards restraining her.
Neither of them!
Their
remotely shocked.
d and detached, and neither moved to interfere further, as
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Chapter 637 Blood on the Palace Road
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though they had expected this exact scene from the very beginning. It almost felt as if none of it mattered to them at all.
A chill slowly crept through Alaric’s mind.
Something about today felt wrong.
The more he thought about it, the stranger everything became.
Daphne had been locked away in the Secluded Wing.
That place might have been isolated, but it was still guarded day and night, so how had she escaped?
And where had she gotten a knife?
Most importantly, how had she known he would pass through this road at this exact time?
How had she managed to avoid everyone else, wait here for him, and stab him twice before anyone intervened?
A terrible realization suddenly slammed into him.
This was all planned. Someone wants me dead.
Alaric’s pupils tightened violently. Who?
Then Daphne’s earlier words echoed through his mind once more.
Ella loving me back then… Was that really the greatest humiliation of her life?
Ella… Was it really her?Does she actually hate me that much?
The shrill sound of Daphne’s laughter and cursing gradually faded from his ears until all he could hear instead was Elowen’s voice.
The first time they met, she had stood beneath the spring sunlight with soft eyes and a sweet smile while saying gently, “My name’s Elowen, but everyone calls me Ella. You can call me that too. What about you? What’s your name?”
Later, after she dragged him out from beneath the path of a runaway carriage along the crowded street, she had clearly been bruised and hurting herself, yet she still grinned brightly at him before nodding with playful confidence. “Alright then. If that’s how it is, you’re responsible for me from now on.”
And in another lifetime, she had sat waiting for him inside the Crown Prince’s chambers dressed in crimson bridal silk while candlelight flickered around the room. When he lifted the veil from her face, she had looked up shyly and called him softly, “My husband.”
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But later, she stopped smiling.
Her face became pale and painfully thin, so fragile she looked as though the slightest wind might carry her away.
Yet when she stood before him that final time, her expression had been
terrifyingly calm.
“Alaric,” she had said quietly, “let’s end this marriage. I’ll give you and Daphne what you want. In return, let me go too.”
But those voices already felt impossibly far away now, as though separated from him by layers and layers of heavy fog no matter how hard he tried to reach them.
When was the last time he saw Elowen?
What had she said to him then?
Alaric could not remember at all. All he knew was that Elowen hated him now.
She hated him enough to want him dead.
And yet, even now, he still desperately wanted to ask her something.
He wanted to ask whether she had truly loved him once. Whether those years they shared had ever meant anything to her at all.
He also wanted to ask whether she remembered their previous life too.
Did she remember everything that happened?
Did she know how deeply he regretted losing her afterward? But he would never have the
chance to ask.
Alaric slowly fell backward onto the stone roadway, staring blankly up at the sky overhead.
The heavens above were brilliantly blue without a single cloud in sight. Warm sunlight spilled down across his face, across his blood-soaked clothes, and across the jeweled hilt of the dagger buried in his chest.
Yet his vision continued growing blurrier and blurrier.
He could no longer tell whether it was because death was finally approaching… or because he was crying.
Not long after midday, Elowen had only just fallen asleep when a loud crying fit suddenly pulled her awake.
The sound came from the neighboring nursery chamber, bright and powerful enough that she
Chapter 637 Blood on the Palace Road
immediately recognized it as Phoenix.
For some reason, the little boy had woken up in tears and was currently screaming with impressive determination, each cry louder than the last.
Elowen lay there listening for a while, but when it became clear nobody was calming him anytime soon, she let out a soft sigh and slowly pushed herself upright. After slipping a robe over her shoulders, she padded toward the door in her slippers.
Just as she reached for the handle, a woman’s soft voice drifted in from outside.
“Your Grace… maybe he simply doesn’t like sleeping alone tonight. If you stayed with him for a
le and held him, perhaps he’d settle down…”
oice sounded hesitant and sweet, carrying a careful sort of gentleness.
en recognized it immediately.
elonged to Lenora, the wet nurse she had personally selected for the manor.
Before giving birth, Elowen had carefully interviewed several wet nurses herself.
Lenora had been one of them.
She was only in her early twenties, with delicate features and naturally gentle eyes that made her look fragile enough to stir sympathy at first glance.
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Awakening Love: Reborn to Be His Duchess
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.

Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Love's Unexpected Awakening Elowen's Choice
Excellent literary piece!...