I Got Married to a Yandere Queen-Chapter 49 - 48 - The Fragility of Monsters

Riven turned to her, his gaze locking onto Ashtoria’s face. There was a seriousness in her eyes—calm as always, but beneath that calm, something trembled. A flicker of hope, fragile and unspoken, shimmered in the red glow of her pupils.

He furrowed his brows slightly, hesitating... then threw the question back to her.

"Why are you asking about Queen Ashtoria Belmore?" he asked softly. "Do you have a connection to her?"

Ashtoria didn’t answer at first. In her heart, she wanted to say it—to confess that she was that woman. The queen whispered of in every corner of the kingdom. The tyrant, the mad ruler, the one painted in blood and fear.

But just like every truth she had sealed away... she swallowed it again.

"I’m just curious," she said flatly, trying to sound unaffected. "Curious about what you think... of a queen everyone calls terrifying and monstrous."

She didn’t fully understand why it mattered so much. Perhaps because she wanted to know how he saw her—not Anna, not the mask she wore these past few days—but her true self. The real Ashtoria. No throne, no crown... just a woman standing before a man she couldn’t stop thinking about.

And for some reason, his answer felt like it might change everything.

Riven took a long moment, his expression unreadable, before he finally exhaled a breath and shook his head slowly.

"I don’t know," he said honestly. "I’ve never seen her myself... only heard the stories."

Ashtoria looked at him more closely, her usual icy grace now tinged with something more vulnerable. Her lips parted slightly, her breath catching. The air between them was thin, charged.

Riven continued, voice steady but quiet, as if speaking from somewhere deep inside himself.

"They say she’s cruel... bloodthirsty... a cold-hearted woman who’d kill anyone who stands in her way."

He paused, eyes flickering.

"They say she made pacts with demons. That she slaughtered her own kin just to seize the throne... and worse things than that."

The words hung in the air between them, heavy and dark. He didn’t speak them with judgment, but they landed like stones in water, rippling through her.

Ashtoria’s expression didn’t change. But he could feel the subtle shift. The way her lashes trembled. The way her gaze hardened, not in rage—but in a wounded silence.

Riven’s tone softened, his voice falling to almost a whisper.

"But honestly... it all sounds like a story spun to frighten children. I don’t know what’s true. But I do know people fear what they don’t understand. And people like her... people with power... are always turned into monsters."

His gaze lifted to meet hers directly.

"Most of them have never even seen her. They’re just echoing someone else’s fear."

Ashtoria said nothing. Her body stood still, but inside... her heart stirred violently.

The strange feeling again. That pull she always felt around him—deeper now, like a wave rising inside her. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it wrapped around her chest, tightening.

Her heart pounded. Not in terror. But in something far more dangerous.

She wanted to know. Needed to know what he thought, of her.

Riven had no intention of lying to her. His thoughts might be tangled, but his heart didn’t know how to lie. Everything he had said, and everything he would say... would be the truth, raw and unpolished.

And truth, he knew, could be cruel.

He took a breath.

"But still... rumors often carry a thread of truth. Even if only a sliver of it remains real."

It came out gently, but it pierced. A delicate knife through silk.

And she felt it.

A part of her cracked. Softly. Invisibly. But undeniably.

’So... that’s what you think of me? You believe I’m a monster... even if just a little.’

The warmth in her chest, the trembling anticipation—all of it froze in an instant. Like porcelain dropped in silence, something inside her cracked.

A chill crept in, slow and absolute, like frost spreading beneath her skin.

Her beauty didn’t fade—if anything, the golden twilight made her look even more ethereal, almost untouchable. But her eyes... her eyes were no longer warm.

They dimmed—not with rage, not with sorrow.

But with something far colder.

Disbelief.

Disappointment.

Possessive silence.

She stepped forward, her voice low and tight with restrained emotion.

"You still haven’t answered me," she said, barely above a whisper. "I asked what you think. You... not others."

Riven held his breath, feeling truly cornered.

He couldn’t pretend anymore.

That look in her eyes. The tone of her voice. The quiet tremble behind her question—all of it screamed the truth she hadn’t said aloud.

He had tried, truly tried, to deny it.

But how could he now?

If she acted like this, if she asked like this... if she looked at him like this...

How could he not recognize her?

Anna—the woman he found wounded. The woman who taught him to be a Lawbearer. Who guided his sword hand. Who once stood before him without shame, unarmored in every sense. Who kept appearing in his thoughts, even when he tried not to.

She was Queen Ashtoria Belmore.

The tyrant sovereign of Belmore.

How heavy that title must be... for someone like her.

And before he could say a word, she moved.

She stepped in sharply, trembling fingers grabbing the collar of his shirt, yanking him forward until their faces were inches apart.

"Tell me," she breathed, her voice a sharp whisper, almost desperate.

Riven froze.

He could smell roses in her crimson hair. Could see every line, every tremble in her expression. Her lips slightly parted. Her brows drawn close. And her eyes—those mesmerizing blood-red eyes—burned with something too human to name.

But more than anything, he felt it.

The longing.

She didn’t ask because she doubted who she was.

She asked because she needed to know—

If she stripped away everything... would he still see her?

No crown. No title. No bloodstained history.

Just a woman, standing vulnerably before a man who might be able to break her heart.

The world held its breath. The air trembled with tension.

Only the two of them remained—in that small space where silence was louder than words, and touch was more honest than truth.

Riven’s hand rose slowly, gently touching the fingers clutching his shirt. Their eyes stayed locked.

And in that moment... something fragile and terrifying bloomed between them.

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