From Shadow to Crown

The attendant was just heading out with the letter when Paul walked in. He snatched it and eyed it suspiciously.

“What’s this?”

Melissa’s heart leapt into her throat. Forcing a casual tone, she said, “I’ve decided to live openly as a woman again. I’m writing home for their consent.”

Paul’s tense expression softened. He handed the letter back to the attendant, closed the door, and began helping her undress to tend to her wounds.

“Last night, I brought in a top doctor for Brian. At dawn, I rushed to the Brian family to mediate,” he explained, his voice low. “I paid them five thousand taels of silver, and I leveraged an old, deadly scandal involving his father to pressure them. That’s how I got them to back down. That’s why I’m late.”

Melissa bit back her tears, refusing to expose his lie. Calmly, she asked, “Why didn’t you just ask me why I wounded him?”

“That scholar?” Paul said coldly. “He couldn’t possibly be after you. He doesn’t even know you’re a woman. Besides, Janet heard everything. With so many witnesses, I couldn’t show you too much favoritism.” He paused, his tone shifting. “Melissa, a mistake is a mistake. It’s not like I can’t handle it for you.

“Since you’re willing to give up the Imperial Examinations and marry me peacefully, I know you love me. Rest assured—in fifteen days, I won’t let you down.”

Melissa lay face down on the bed, her hands clutching the quilt, trembling uncontrollably.

He had believed Janet’s testimony without question but had never once trusted her.

He’d clearly been out with Janet, yet he lied about running errands for her sake.

At this point, any defense was futile.

Melissa closed her eyes and said no more. She just wanted to get through these fifteen days quietly, then go their separate ways.

But two days later, Janet rushed in, sobbing, and threw herself to the floor, bowing her head to the stones again and again.

“Mr Melissa! I was wrong! My mother is already dead because of you! Please, spare the rest of my family... I beg you...”

From Janet’s choked pleas, Melissa pieced together a ‘truth’: out of hatred, she had hired thugs to drag Janet’s ailing mother to death behind a horse.

Melissa forced herself upright. “I didn’t! What proof do you have it was me?”

“If not you, then who?” Paul stormed in, fury rolling off him, and hauled her outside. “Two days ago you wrote home. I thought you meant what you said, but it was just to vent your anger!”

He flung her hard onto the stone steps. Before her lay the bloody corpse of Janet’s mother, the sight draining the color from Melissa’s face.

Even more terrifying—she saw her own mother, hands bound, tied to the back of Paul’s horse.

“Paul, what are you doing to my mother?” Dread washed over her, cold as a plunge into ice.

“Doing?” Paul’s face turned to stone. “The agony you inflicted on her mother by dragging her, your mother will now taste.”

Before his words faded, the horse reared and charged. Kelly was dragged off like a weightless scrap, her screams piercing the air!

Melissa lunged forward like a madwoman to stop it, but Paul seized her arm, his fingers digging in like a vice.

“Apologize to Janet.”

“Paul, I didn’t do it! Believe me!”

Her mother’s screams suddenly grew faint. Desperation tore at Melissa’s soul—how could she confess to something she hadn’t done!

“Ten more laps!” Paul ground out the order through clenched teeth.

The horse completed a circuit of the street and returned, a long trail of fresh blood drawing closer.

Melissa could no longer care for her own reputation. She fell heavily to her knees before Janet. “I’m sorry, Miss Janet! Please, make him stop! My mother is frail, she can’t endure this...”

“Your mother can’t endure it? What about mine? You killed her! Don’t you see?”

Janet wept even harder than Melissa, her body going limp as if to collapse. Paul caught her swiftly, his eyes filled with concern.

Heartbreak forgotten, Melissa clung desperately to Paul’s legs, begging him to spare her mother.

He finally relented, raising a hand to halt the rider. Scooping Janet into his arms, he turned to leave, his final words icy as he tossed them over his shoulder. “Don’t let there be a next time.”

As if granted a reprieve, Melissa staggered to her mother’s side.

“Mother, I’ll take you to a physician!” She held her blood-soaked mother, forcing herself to stay calm.

She couldn’t panic. She mustn’t panic! Her mother’s head was gashed. Beneath the torn clothing, there wasn’t a patch of unbroken skin...

She had to get her to a physician!

With her last strength, Kelly trembled as she gently touched Melissa’s frantic face.

“I regret it so much... I shouldn’t have let my own selfishness make you live as a boy for fifteen years... I’ll die without ever seeing... you in a dress...”

Her hand went limp and fell. Her wide, staring eyes never closed, as if straining for one last look at her daughter.

“Mother—”

*CRACK—*

A bolt of lightning split the sky. Thunder roared, swallowing Melissa’s piercing cry.

Torrential rain poured down, instantly washing the long street clean of blood.

Something seemed to clamp around Melissa’s throat. A few choked sounds escaped before she collapsed, unconscious, before her mother’s body.