Chapter 76: Chapter 76: The Mourning Of The Morning

Morning in the Kingsbane Castle was very unusual today.

In the center of the courtyard, a black coffin sat upon a simple wooden trestle, looking small and strikingly lonely against the backdrop of the Duke’s sprawling polished castl

​Millia knelt in the dirt with her forehead pressed against the polished wood of the casket.

“Madam…”

Her sobs were heart wrenching.

She didn’t care about the judgmental stares of the other servants or the coldness of the stone beneath her knees. To her, the woman inside wasn’t just a maid or a illegitimate concubine, she was the gentle soul who had shared her meager bread and offered a kind word when the rest of the world offered only thorns.

​Her mother, the Head Maid, stood a few paces back. She looked stoic, but her knuckles were white where she gripped her apron.

She looked at the coffin and then toward the veranda, where the Duke sat in a high-backed chair, as still and cold as a funeral monument.

The duke hadn’t shed a single tear. He simply watched the box containing the woman he hadn’t dare to call as wife.

Cluck. Cluck. Cluck.

​The somber atmosphere of mourning broke by a pair of sharp heels.

​Duchess Clementine strode into the courtyard, her silk gown rustling with every aggressive step.

She didn’t look like a woman in mourning though, rather she looked like a woman who had been inconvenienced by a late dinner.

Her overly make-up face quickly turned into a scowl.

​”Butler! Why is this..object… still sitting in the middle of my courtyard? Do you all have no sense of purity or respect for the living? The dead belong in the dirt, and they should be down there immediately.”

​The butler, an elderly man who had served the Kingsbane family for decades, bowed so low his back groaned.

“My Lady, please understand. We are waiting for Young Lord Adonis. He is on his way from the Capital. It is only right that a son sees his mother one last time before she is returned to the earth.”

​Clementine’s face became ugly. She cast a glance of utter loathing at the black coffin, as if the mere presence of Adelaide’s body was a personal insult to her status.

​”Young Lord?” she spat the title as if it were poison.

“You mean that bastard. And since when does a house of this standing halt its schedule for the whims of a stray? The rot will spread to every corner of this estate if you leave her out here. The air is already foul with the scent of her.”

​She stepped closer to the coffin, her shadow falling over Millia.

“Move aside, maid. Butler, call the gravediggers. If the boy isn’t here, that is his misfortune. I will not have this house turned into a morgue for a common servant a moment longer. Bury her. Now.”

​The Duke neither supported nor stopped his wife.

The servants exchanged terrified glances. Millia gripped the edge of the coffin tighter. Her knuckles turning purple as a low growl of grief and fury building in her throat.

​It was at that exact moment that the heavy iron gates of the estate groaned open.

​The sound was not the gentle creak of a carriage, but the violent scream of metal being forced aside.

Instantly a dark and oppressive pressure began to spread into the courtyard, making everyone feel an invisible chill.

​”Who is that?” Clementine turned toward the gate with an indignant scowl.

​But the words died in her throat when a carriage, pulled by horses whose eyes glowed with a maddening, supernatural terror, thundered into the yard and slid to a bone-jarring halt.

The door was kicked off brutally.

​First, Adonis stepped out.

​He didn’t look like a student. He didn’t even look human. His eyes were pits of absolute, violet darkness, and the ground beneath his feet cracked as the Chaos and Dragon physique burned within him in response to his broken heart.

Behind him, Valentina stepped out nervously.

​Adonis didn’t even take a look at the Duke. He didn’t look at the Duchess.

His eyes were solely focused on the coffin. His legs were trembling as he took each step forward.

Once he loomed over Millia, a silent teardrop fell from his eyes.

“Open it!” he said after wiping the tear away.

Millia opened the cover while letting her tears fall even more.

When Adelaide’s beautiful face, marked by brutal bruises and wounds, flashed before his eyes, his heart bled.

He knelt down, touching the woman’s face with his shaky hands.

“Mother… who did this to you?” his lips quivered as more tears fell nonstop.

“How am I going to live without you? In this whole wide world, you were my only guiding light, my only motivation. Your smile, your tears, your anger are still so vivid in me. How am I going to live with those memories?”

His heart-wrenching wails earned Valentina, Millia, and Lucia’s tears. Some of the crowd only felt quiet pity. The rest held no expression.

Clementine let out a snort.

“Butler! We can now begin burying her, right?”

“Who said anything about burying her? She’s not going anywhere,” Adonis shouted instantly, the words sounding as though they came straight from hell.

The Duchess was startled by the bastard’s aura, but she kept up her pretense.

“Have you lost your mind, boy? If your mother’s body is not buried soon, her soul will never find peace. She will wander without reaching heaven.”

Adonis stood up and turned back, his eyes terrifyingly red.

“She’ll go, but she will not go alone. I am going to send her killers after her. Only when every one of them is slaughtered will I think of burying her. Until then, she will not leave.”

“Outrageous!” she scowled and turned to the Duke. “My lord, did you hear the blatant disrespect coming from that boy? I have warned you before. This wretched bastard will drag us and this entire Dukedom into the gutter one day.”

The Duke still remained silent, quietly watching Adonis.

Adonis strode over to the monstrous Duke’s side, watching him with undisguised disgust.

“They call you the King of the North,” Adonis said with a mocking laugh.

Then he leaned slightly closer, his furious red eyes gazing at the Duke’s calm ones.

“But now I know something….

They are all fucking liars.”

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