I Got Married to a Yandere Queen-Chapter 48 - 47 - To Become the Blade

She lowered her gaze for a moment, looking at the lump of twisted metal resting cold in her palm.

"If my will alone isn’t enough to destroy something... then I’ll destroy it with my own hands. And if even that’s not enough, I’ll create something capable of destroying it."

Her hand clenched tighter, as if crushing something unseen. Her voice remained level, but beneath it, there was a burning intensity—like embers grinding against bone.

"And everything I want to destroy... will be destroyed."

She lifted her head and locked eyes with Riven.

"Even if I have to do it over and over again."

Silence crept back in like a fog.

"I was born to destroy," she whispered, like a sacred confession. "And nothing can stop me."

Riven didn’t know how to respond. His body was rigid—not exactly from fear, but from a sharp awareness, like standing at the edge of a cliff and peering into an abyss whose depth he could not measure.

In front of him sat a woman he had once saved from the brink of death... now claiming to be destruction incarnate. And somehow, some deep part of him refused to dismiss her words as madness. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

If it had been anyone else saying those words, Riven might have laughed.

But coming from this woman—after everything he had seen—he couldn’t dismiss it as mere talk.

Ashtoria looked at him with a cold gaze. She could tell—he was shaken by her words. His eyes had changed. His shoulders stiffened. He even looked down for a moment, as if to avoid her gaze. It was brief, but enough for her to wonder silently: Are you afraid of me now?

Her hand tightened again around the warped metal in her palm. If she could, she would’ve crushed it into nothing.

But the whispers around the tavern didn’t stop. Voices dripping with venom.

About her.

About the Mad Queen.

About the bloodthirsty monster who ruled Belmore.

Every word stung. Every rumor poisoned her mood further.

She was about to speak again—

But suddenly... Riven looked up.

Their eyes met.

Ashtoria was taken aback. She searched his eyes for fear, or for rejection—anything to confirm that he, too, would push her away like the rest of the world.

But it wasn’t there.

Instead, she saw confusion. Curiosity. A quiet hunger to understand.

And that—strangely—made her heartbeat quicken.

"...Please explain it to me," Riven said softly but firmly. "What did you mean by that? How did you come to believe something like that?"

His voice was deep and sincere. No sarcasm. No scorn. Even though her words had been soaked in darkness, he heard something else—something that resonated. Something that felt close to an answer he didn’t know he needed.

Ashtoria hesitated, still staring at him. For the first time that day... she didn’t know what to feel.

But she answered anyway.

"What I mean is..." she began slowly, her voice lower and more grounded, "If you believe you can cut through anything... then you have to believe it with every fiber of your being. Even if that belief kills you."

She leaned in slightly, her gaze sharpening.

"No. More than that. You have to become the cut itself. A will that cannot be denied. It doesn’t matter who you’re facing. It doesn’t matter what you’re cutting. You have to cut—as if it’s the reason you exist."

She paused.

"But if you can’t truly believe it—if you can’t accept it from the deepest part of your soul..."

Her voice lowered even further.

"If your affinity really is related to cutting, then maybe, yes, you’ll be able to slice through stone, or even metal. But nothing more than that. Not the impossible. Not everything, like you claimed."

Riven said nothing. He sat in deep thought, absorbing every syllable, letting them echo within. For a long moment... there was nothing else in the world except the quiet between them, and the gravity of her voice.

Mira, sitting between them, lifted her face after finishing the last bite of meat on her plate. She looked left—Riven still had half his food left. Then right—Ashtoria was only idly poking at her meal.

She opened her mouth to ask—

But before she could say a word—

Riven and Ashtoria, in near perfect unison, pushed their remaining pieces of meat toward her. No words. No thought. Just a natural, unconscious reaction. As if they instinctively knew what she wanted to say.

Mira blinked. Confused for a second... and then giggled.

"Hey... what’s wrong with you two? You’re being so serious," she said cheerfully, grabbing the extra food with both hands. "But thanks! This is really tasty!"

Riven and Ashtoria looked at each other, realizing what they’d just done. For a brief moment... they both smiled.

Their first genuine smile since sitting at that table.

.

.

.

After their meal, the three of them walked through the city in silence. Riven, Ashtoria, and Mira strolled side by side through the winding streets, bathed in the golden light of late afternoon. The sun dipped lower, staining the sky in shades of orange and crimson—a twilight that felt like the closing of something quietly significant.

Mira skipped ahead, occasionally pointing at shiny things in shop windows or laughing at birds fluttering between rooftops. But Riven and Ashtoria walked slowly behind her, their steps calm and heavy.

They didn’t need to speak.

They both understood.

Their parting was near.

They wandered through narrow alleys toward the town square. The roads were still lively; a few vendors were setting up for the evening crowd, and footsteps echoed gently across the cobblestones. Time felt slower, as though the world itself wanted them to savor this silence.

At last, they arrived in the heart of the square. There, in the center, surrounded by wide stone tiles, stood an old statue—of a forgotten hero with his sword raised high, cutting through the last rays of the sun.

The wind blew softly, carrying the scent of the nearby river.

Mira stood on Riven’s right, Ashtoria on his left. For a moment, all three of them stood still, staring up at the sky without speaking. The peace of it was almost fragile.

Riven finally broke the silence.

"So... this is where we part ways?"

Ashtoria didn’t answer right away. Her eyes remained on the sky. Then they dropped, slowly, to the statue.

She thought for a moment before nodding.

"Yes."

The word was quiet. Steady. But there was something else inside it—something that lingered.

Riven nodded in return. He didn’t know what else to say. The questions he had held onto suddenly felt meaningless.

Still, they stood there in silence, under a sky bleeding red.

And then, after a long pause.

Ashtoria drew a slow breath. Her eyes flicked sideways, toward Riven’s face. Her expression was unreadable.

But then she spoke.

A quiet question. One she’d held back until now.

"...What kind of person do you think Queen Astoria Belmore really is?"

The question hung in the air, heavier than it should’ve been.

Riven turned his head slightly, caught off guard.

He didn’t answer right away.

As if he truly needed time to find an honest answer.

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