Silent Crown: The Masked Prince's Bride-Chapter 274: To Feel Betrayal

Cedric looked back once, then twice, before running.

He wanted to stop. To turn around. To grab Emma and drag her with him to safety. The woman she served was not one to forgive, and Emma... she was too soft, too kind. Lazira would crush her.

He almost stopped. Almost.

But he needed to get to Zara first. To see if she was alive. If they got him, he wanted to see what they had done to Zara. He had to bring her to safety. That had to come first.

When he reached the end of the tunnel, two burly men emerged from the shadows. Cedric stumbled, slipping on the damp stone, but caught himself just in time. His heart lurched. He turned, only to find two more guards blocking the other side.

"Emma!" he shouted, his voice echoing through the tunnel.

Emma’s eyes widened. She raised her hand and pointed to the other end, and Cedric obeyed instantly, sprinting toward the path she’d shown him. But the moment he reached it, he stopped short. More guards.

Six of them.

Trapped between Lazira’s men, men known for their cruelty, Cedric, who had once walked through battlefields without flinching, felt his thighs tremble.

"Emma!" he called again, desperate now. Earlier, she had merely lifted a hand, and the guards had obeyed her. Maybe she could still save him.

But Emma didn’t move. The tears that had stained her cheeks still glistened, but her lips... her lips had curved into something foreign.

A smirk.

Cedric froze. He had never seen that expression on her face before. Not in all the years he had known her.

"Emma?" he whispered, disbelief cutting through the air like smoke.

She didn’t answer. She wiped the tears from her face and squared her shoulders. The tremor in her hands was gone. When she waved her hand this time, the guards did not leave.

They raised their whips.

"Do it until he faints," she said, her tone steady, controlled. Then she turned her back to him, her cloak brushing the stone floor. "And when he regains consciousness..."

She paused. The silence stretched, broken only by the soft drip of water from the ceiling. When she spoke again, her voice carried like a blade through the darkness: cold, regal, unflinching.

"Kill him."

The words echoed, bouncing off the tunnel walls.

Cedric stared at her, breath caught. Her voice... it didn’t sound like hers anymore.

It was deeper. Detached. The voice of someone who had killed before; not the cheeky, chatty girl he knew.

"Emma... what is this?" he asked, his voice cracking between disbelief and pain.

He had expected to die when they captured him. But not like this. Not by her hand.

Was this Lazira’s plan all along? To make him die betrayed by the one friend he’d had all his life, before he even knew what had happened to Zara?

Emma didn’t answer. She just turned and began to walk away.

"Emma, don’t do this!" he shouted, desperation thick in his throat. It looked like she held all of Lazira’s authority now that her mistress was gone.

"Why can’t I?" she asked, pausing mid-step.

"You can’t be the one—" Cedric’s voice shook. "Why? Because of Zara?"

Emma laughed. And that sound... that laugh, chilled him to the bone. It wasn’t hers. Not anymore.

"Zara?" she said. "Is everything about Zara?"

Her voice had deepened, roughened, and when she turned, the warm sparkle in her eyes had been replaced by something cold and menacing. Something unfamiliar.

"Do you even know what you’ve done, you nincompoop?" she hissed, walking toward him. Her hand rose, trembling, ready to strike, but she stopped herself. Her lip curled instead, as if touching him would stain her.

"Because of you, Sylvia almost died. Sylvia, my friend." Her tone was sharp enough to cut skin. "You betrayed your prince, the man who trusted you for five years, the one you swore allegiance to. And then—" she scoffed, face twisting in disgust, "you dared to act like you’re the wronged one."

"You hate me..." Cedric muttered, the words barely leaving his lips.

She had been crying for him moments ago. He had seen the worry in her eyes. For a second, he’d thought she still cared, that she still held a torch for him in her heart.

But now... her face was carved in fury.

"I hate you!" she shouted. The tunnel walls carried her voice like thunder. "I mourned the friend I once had, but you—" her voice broke, then steadied again, colder, "you are not him. No traitor deserves an easy death. You need to feel what betrayal feels like before you die, you bastard!"

Cedric’s chest ached. "Traitor? Who betrayed who first?" he rasped.

Wasn’t it Leroy who betrayed them, by hurting Zara for his wife?

Wasn’t Lorraine the traitor who poisoned the woman who stood by her husband’s side on the battlefields?

Emma scoffed. "I don’t even know who you are anymore. My friend died, Cedric. I buried him. You—" she spat the word— "you’re nothing."

She turned and gave a sharp nod. The guards raised their whips.

Cedric gasped as the first lash struck. He still didn’t understand what he had done wrong. He had forgotten that it was he who had sworn loyalty to Leroy, not the other way around.

He couldn’t see that Zara’s obsession with another woman’s husband had set all of this in motion.

He couldn’t understand that he had chosen love over duty, and loyalty had demanded a price.

"Haven’t you still figured it out, yet, Cedric?" Emma asked, looking at him, her lips curved. "You didn’t "find out" anything? That you were trapped and you took the bait like a stupid fish?"

Cedric’s eyes widened. The way he found out the room, Lazira’s true identity... was he played? Really? Was Lazira that smart?

"It was the Prince," Emma said.

Cedric gulped. So... this was how it all going to end. But he still had one thing to do.

"Zara..." he whispered hoarsely, voice shaking.

Emma didn’t stop walking.

"She’ll be waiting for me," Cedric shouted through the pain. "She only has me! Take care of her — please... spare mercy for her. That’s all I ask — for our friendship, if you ever thought of me as your friend."

Emma’s lips curled. Even now, even at the edge of death, he was trying to use her heart.

"Mercy?" she said. "You never spared it for my friends. Or for my princess."

She turned slightly, her eyes glinting with something darker. "I won’t touch Zara. If she has the destiny to survive, she will. Otherwise..."

She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.

Her cloak swept behind her as she disappeared into the shadows.

Cedric’s screams echoed after her, mingling with the sound of lashes and dripping water.

"Emma! Help Zara! Please—!"

But Emma didn’t look back. Her eyes were steady. Her lips pressed tight.

She had once thought her mistress and Sylvia were too cruel, too merciless. She still saw goodness in everyone. But now, at nineteen, she understood something she hadn’t before.

Some people deserved cruelty.