Chapter 51
: Sunflower (5)
Fortunately, Reina’s wounds were not deep.
Because the dagger was very short and had avoided all vital organs, the doctor said she only needed to lie down and recover for a while.
Leaning against the bed, Reina smiled brightly, almost uncharacteristically cheerful for a patient, her abdomen tightly bandaged.
“Thank you so much, Your Majesty! I really like it here—it’s so warm! And the clothes are lovely too!”
In the North, they decided to notify everyone of her injury and temporarily postpone the negotiations.
They knew that the longer negotiations were delayed, the more disadvantageous it would be for the South, but they had no choice until Reina recovered.
As more time passed, Elena began to gradually shake off the vivid images from her dreams.
Yet it was difficult to dispel the lingering memory of the little girl who had smiled like a sunflower.
Carefully, Elena asked her about her childhood.
“That’s right, that’s right. We were in the same orphanage. Why do you ask all of a sudden?”
Reina, lying on the bed, nodded cheerfully at Elena’s question.
“But didn’t that orphanage seem… strange? It was surrounded by tall walls, right?”
“Huh? Uh… I think… it was.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
“Well… I was too young back then… The adults just told us we had illnesses and needed treatment to get healthy.”
Elena pressed her again.
“Do you remember where that orphanage was?”
“Of course!”
Reina, who had been speaking energetically, suddenly faltered.
“Of course… huh? Where was it? Ouch…”
Muttering with shaking eyes, she clutched her head with both hands.
“Reina? Are you okay? I’ll call the doctor!”
The problem was that Reina’s memories were also blurry because she had been so young at the time.
Perhaps due to trauma, whenever she tried to recall that place, she suffered from inexplicable headaches and dizziness.
“We… we were just kids. It’s not a good memory anyway, so you don’t have to force yourself to remember, Elena.”
Reina smiled innocently, still wearing that sunflower-like expression.
Yes. Elena’s intuition that the smile seemed somewhat forced was correct.
It was a smile Reina had painfully created, with tears.
And it was… a scene completely familiar to Elena.
Pretending to be okay, forcing a smile when she wanted to cry—her own past.
Seeing Reina smile felt like looking into a mirror reflecting herself before arriving on My Island.
Elena decided not to press further and to wait until Reina recovered.
Elena immediately shared what she remembered with Iiago.
“There were several children locked up. I think they were injected with some kind of substance every day.”
Elena carefully recounted the details she had seen in her dream, one by one.
Iiago’s expression, as he listened seriously, gradually hardened into a cold glare.
“They experimented on you.”
He said in a calm, deep voice.
His composure sent a chill far worse than any rage could have.
He was simply angry that such experiments had been conducted on him during his childhood.
“The important thing is not that.”
It was undoubtedly a terrible thing, but it was a memory stored in Elena’s body, not his own.
After a brief hesitation, Elena finally voiced the thought that had been tormenting her all this time.
“…It’s suspicious.”
The injections, the experiments…
And the appearance of the priestess in the North right when strange weather started on the island.
“Iiago, maybe I’m not a priestess at all… maybe I’m something they created…”
“No, that’s not important at all.”
Iiago shook his head firmly, cutting her off.
“What matters is that they were so depraved as to experiment on you and innocent children.”
He spoke with a ruthless, almost inhuman face.
“You don’t need to dwell on this.”
“But…!”
“I will send spies to the North to investigate what kind of experiments took place. …No one involved will be spared.”
‘No one involved… including the king and crown prince of the North?’
Elena went pale as she realized the implication of Iiago’s words.
“I have endured this as much as possible to prevent a second war on this island. So that I will never become a monster again…”
He murmured, looking down at his large hands.
The bloodstains on his otherwise clean hands seemed visible only to him.
But soon he clenched his fists, his expression more resolute and merciless than ever.
To Elena, it seemed as if he was trying to erase his former self entirely.
“If they are that depraved… I will no longer hold back. From now on, I will not hesitate to go to war.”
The Black King declared.
Elena could hear the fragile peace shatter.
The flames of war were blazing.
She watched him, now fully the Black King, with a conflicted heart.
The kind, gentle person she had known…
In her past self, she would have actively supported his decisions.
An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.
Enemies who blocked her path should be crushed so they could never rise again.
But…
‘Happy Island. Second Paradise.’
Is war truly the only solution to this problem?
What experiments did they conduct?
Am I a priestess, or an experiment born from human greed?
Elena gazed out the window, troubled.
In the distance, the green mountains, where eternal snow had melted, stood proudly as always.
Following the doctor’s advice to avoid overexertion for a quick recovery, Reina obeyed diligently.
Yet being confined to bed was inevitably boring and lonely.
“There’s no one I know here… even the attendants are strangers.”
Every day, Reina would call Elena to her side.
Then, smiling brightly, she chattered endlessly about her childhood.
Most of the stories were trivial, and Elena occasionally noticed exaggerations or lies.
But she didn’t point them out, simply sitting quietly by the bedside.
Because the face of the scrawny child who had cried out, “I’m the older sister!” kept overlapping with her memories.
Her own past self, suffering from masked depression, too.
And so, today as always, Elena sat by Reina’s bedside—until Iiago suddenly appeared in the room.
“Iiago? Your Majesty, what brings you here?”
He gave a slight, perfunctory nod to Reina and then spoke gently to Elena.
“I have something to give you. Shall we step outside for a moment?”
“All right, then…”
“Oh! Then I’ll come along too!”
Reina’s cheerful voice rang out.
“The doctor said I can start moving a little now! Is that okay, Elena?”
“What? No…”
“That won’t do.”
Startled by the cold tone, Elena turned her head.
“I asked you, Elena, not her, to accompany me.”
“Oh.”
Reina, hurt by the indifferent reply, briefly shrugged her shoulders.
But she quickly forced a smile and said innocently:
“Well… I guess there’s no choice! You two have a good time!”
Even though her morale clearly dropped, she forced herself to smile, and that image stuck in Elena’s mind like a thorn.
“Then, let’s go, Elena.”
Iiago’s tone softened slightly as he guided Elena.
“…Okay.”
Elena answered softly, forcing a smile.
It was an awkward, mask-like expression, one she had worn often before.
“We haven’t had our ‘happiness mission’ for a while.”
Iiago led her to a glass greenhouse right next to the Sun Palace.
The place was warm and humid, filled with the scent of plants.
When it was just the two of them, Iiago spoke comfortably and gently.
“I don’t know how long it’s been since I was alone with you like this.”
“Now that you mention it, it has been a while.”
Elena smiled softly in return.
She had been keeping watch over Reina these past few days and hadn’t had time to meet him.
Listening to him speak about various things, she felt her heart calm in an unusual way.
“What’s today’s big mission?”
“Ah, not really a mission. I have something to show you.”
“Show me?”
“Yes. This is a secret from everyone else too. We’ve had many secrets between us, haven’t we?”
Iiago smiled brightly and took Elena’s hand.
Elena smiled back and took his hand naturally.
They walked through the greenhouse together.
‘But… aren’t we heading deeper into the forest?’
Elena looked at the dense trees overhead with a puzzled expression.
This was no longer just a “garden” or “greenhouse.”
The temperature and humidity rose as if they were in the middle of a jungle.
‘I don’t remember the greenhouse being this large.’
Elena suspected there was some kind of magic inside.
Since there had been no war, the palace preserved its ancient architecture and contained many extraordinary magical spells.
After walking through the forest for a while, something became visible on a rock in the distance, between the trees.
‘So this is the “thing” he wanted to show me…’
Elena’s eyes widened at the unexpected sight.
