I Was The Perfect Queen But He Forgot My Name Chapter 67
A Minor Character’s POV
In the official histories, King Julian died after five years on the throne.
He had no Luna Queen and no children. The throne passed to a royal nephew he had personally selected.
Martin Hale used every method he knew to prolong the King’s life. Not long after the young King died, Martin, too, fell ill.
In the end, the old man never did return to the countryside to feed his long-lived turtle.
After a summer rain, the small country courtyard in Cedar Ridge smelled of damp earth.
Tessa heard the doorbell and went to answer it.
A plain-faced young man stood outside.
“I’m Lucas, Owen Reed’s younger brother. I’m in charge of the special guard His Majesty left behind. I have something to deliver to Miss Genevieve.”
He showed his credentials, and Tessa brought him into the yard.
Beneath the shade of a tree sat a woman in a white dress.
She was Genevieve Carver.
After leaving the capital, she had traveled, studied, and published books on territorial education and individual choice from a female wolf’s perspective. She had become well known throughout the kingdom.
She had never married.
Lucas told her that the King had died.
Her fingers trembled slightly.
Then he brought out two urns.
“This one is Rowan’s.”
“He ordered us to search inch by inch along the Lorne River. In the end, we found Prince Julian’s remains. The one buried in the public royal tomb is Julian, and everyone will remember King Julian.”
“But no one knows that the person who truly ruled the kingdom day and night was Rowan.”
“Miss Genevieve, please remember his name.”
Lucas began to cry as he spoke.
Martin’s ashes were also returned to the land he had always wanted to go back to.
From winter into summer, the royal family first completed the secret succession, then waited for the capital to stabilize before the special guard was allowed to bring Rowan here.
It was the act of delivering a man’s ashes to the person he loved.
And of allowing another to return, at last, to the homeland he had been promised in childhood.
The place truly was beautiful—clear mountains, clear waters, a wide-open sky.
Lucas tried to hand the urns to Genevieve, but she didn’t take them.
She stared fixedly at the R on the box, a fury she could not suppress rising in her face.
“He had to scheme against me even in death.”
“He could have made his identity public if he’d wanted to. He was the Alpha King. How could he not?”
Just like that glass of wine he had knowingly drunk.
Rowan had never cared whether the world knew him.
He had only wanted to force her to never forget the name Rowan for the rest of her life.
Lucas set down the urns and hurried away—only to circle back quietly, using the hidden techniques of the special guard.
Rowan had left orders: from now on, this guard would answer to Genevieve, protecting her and Cedar Ridge.
Even the new King had been chosen by Rowan—a man who would maintain friendly ties with the Carver family.
In the yard, Genevieve still did not touch the urns.
Suddenly, she swept every vase and cup from the table with one motion.
Porcelain shattered across the ground.
Only the urn in the center remained untouched.
Genevieve had always been composed.
But Rowan always managed to make her lose control.
She must have hated him to death.
Amid the wreckage, she sat down beside the urns, covered her face, and wept in silence for a very long time.
The green plum tree in the yard was fruiting.
The sapling planted five years ago now shaded half the courtyard.
The plums were nearly ripe.
But fruit that has not fully ripened is always tart and bitter.
Years earlier, Rowan had pushed her out of the royal castle and told her to keep walking, not to look back.
That day, in the end, she had looked back.
Only now did she know that it had been the last time she would ever see him.