Supreme Spouse System.
Chapter 220: A Queen’s Lonely Cry [Part-2]

Chapter 220: A Queen’s Lonely Cry [Part-2]

A Queen’s Lonely Cry [Part-2]

He spoke barely, his voice no louder than the wind, "Because you are Sona. My Sona."

His word wasn’t poetry.

wasn’t epic.

But those words cut deeper than anything ever had.

Her eyes shook, her mouth opened, and for a moment, the world froze around her.

She didn’t step back.

She didn’t remove his hand from her cheek.

Rather, she drew in shakily—fragile and overwhelmed.

He gave a gentle, stabilizing smile, and in the silent face, she found something she hadn’t for years: hope.

And then. she grinned. A shattered, bitter grin.

"You see, Leon..." she breathed, her voice little more than a whisper, "I’ve always asked myself... what would have been... if I had married you, rather than that king."

Leon’s grin fell away. And his heart missed a beat.

Her eyes dropped, lashes quivering as feeling surged in her chest.

"I’ve been holding something for a long time," she whispered, voice just above a whisper. "Something I never had the nerve to tell you."

Her hands curled slightly at her hips, shaking.

"But now... I have to. I don’t think I can keep it inside any longer."

She gazed up at him, directly into his eyes, her breath shaky.

"I liked you—no. I loved you. For a very long time. Maybe even before I truly understood what love really was."

She shut her eyes, as though protecting herself from the burden of these memories, but they came anyway—vivid, haunting, beautiful.

"Your eyes... your laugh... the way you stayed tall even when the world tried to shatter you. You were my peace in the turmoil, Leon. And I loved all of you."

Leon froze. His chest expanded and contracted, but he did not make a sound, a movement—as if even breathing too loudly would break the moment.

She blinked open her eyes once more, and for an instant, their eyes met.

But I never told you," she breathed. Her voice was trembling, delicate yet determined. "Do you know why?"

Leon remained silent. He couldn’t.

Her blue eyes glimmered, not with happiness—but with the tears she’d hidden for years.

"Because I was afraid," she went on, her voice rough. "Afraid that if I did tell you, I’d lose you forever... or that you wouldn’t love me the same.

The quiet that came after was heavy—full of regret, of memories, of the unspoken love for so long.

"Do you know why?"

He didn’t respond. Couldn’t. The knot in his throat was too big.

"Because I was scared," she whispered. "Scared I’d lose you. Scared you’d look at me differently. And then... when I mustered up the courage to tell you..."

She stopped, her voice shaking.

"...my beauty turned to a curse."

She gazed up at the sky, lit silver by the moon.

"My family was in debt up to our ears. A low-born house with no power—nothing but an ancient name and dying honor. You recall, don’t you?"

Leon’s chest constricted. He recalled all too vividly.

"And that very moment, the royal court started looking for a bride for the crown prince," she told him. "They desired the most lovely lady in the kingdom."

Her lips curled into a bitter smile.

"Alas... that was me. The untainted flower of Moonstone."

He flinched. The recollection of her wedding day—a party to the kingdom, a death to his heart—came flooding back.

"I pleaded with my father not to send me," she went on, her voice breaking. "I told him I didn’t want that life. I said I loved someone else. But he..."

Her fists curled into themselves, her nails digging into her palms.

"He said if I refused the proposal of marriage, he would take his own life. That he couldn’t watch our family sink any further into ruin."

Her eyes glistened.

"So, I acquiesced. I yielded to duty and silence—for the sake of my house and what my father thought was right," Sona whispered. "I left my heart behind... my passions... and entered into a gilded cage. I could not stand to see my father in anguish. I married into the crown, and since then I’ve lived alongside a man I never loved, simulating to be a queen when I barely felt alive."

Her words sliced through Leon like blades. He had experienced pain before, but this... this was worse. Dripping with ice.

It all made sense now—why she rarely ever talked, why she rarely ever glanced back, why her smile had always seemed... insincere.

"Do you know what it’s like," she went on, voice shaking, "to lie beside someone you can’t bear to look at? To smile for a kingdom when your heart is long dead?"

Leon swallowed hard, a knot in his throat.

"I did try," she whispered. "I really did try, Leon. To live that life. To be a good wife. A proper queen. But all I got for it was silence. Neglect. A golden prison. The only thing I ever really wanted—was you."

Tears glimmered in her eyes as she looked at him.

"His man... he never once looked at me as a woman. He never touched me again after the birth of Lira. He kept me imprisoned, like a porcelain doll in a glass cage."

Her voice trembled.

She gazed at him again.

Her eyes—once reserved—now smoldered with unbridled, hurt emotion.

"And tonight, when I saw you... laughing, surrounded by light, radiating like the man you were always supposed to be... I was proud."

She smiled, then—a genuine smile. But it shook.

"Proud. And so... so completely alone."

Leon did not reply.

His golden eyes were softly quiet, unreadable but bursting with meaning.

He comprehended.

Deeply, truly comprehended.

For the recollections of the old Leon—the boy who had once loved her—were no longer shards of glass. They were a part of him now. And in this moment, he did not behold a queen.

He beheld Sona.

The girl who stood waiting beneath the ancient training tree. Who slipped him treats. Who laughed once and so hard she rolled into the lake—and him with her.

And now?

She was shattered.

And yet still beautiful.

Still his.

He opened his mouth to say something, but the words would not come. His voice betrayed him—lost under the weight of feeling—and all he could do was stand, frozen, while the woman he loved fell apart in front of him.

She wasn’t screaming.

She wasn’t furious.

She was shattering.

The sparkle in her eyes wasn’t moonlight—it was the tears she’d kept back for much too long. Now they balanced at the tip of her eyelashes, delicate and angry. Her voice broke, each sentence dripping with years of unspoken agony.

It was too much.

Leon acted on instinct. He took a step forward and swept her into his arms, holding her close against his chest.

She breathed softly—but didn’t move away.

Instead, her body seemed to dissolve into his, like it was the only place she’d ever been meant to be. Her fingers were clenched on his shirt, shaking and frantic, and then—

She cried.

Not the hidden tears of someone concealing pain—but the open, shattered sobs of someone who couldn’t pretend anymore. Years of brokenness dumped out in one burst, smothered only by the heat of his arms.

Leon held her closer, his jaw clenched, golden eyes dark with unspoken pain. His fingers slid gently through her silver hair, reverent and careful, as if she were something sacred, he couldn’t afford to lose.

"Enough, Sona," he murmured, voice low and steady. "Don’t cry. I’m here now."

With a gentle movement, a golden dome of light glowed into existence about them. It quieted the world’s din, protecting them in a place where there was nothing else. Beyond lay court, crown, and duty. Within was silence—and the muted sound of her weeping against his chest.

He did not speak. Simply held her. Breathed beside her. His hand slid, slow and deliberate, through her hair, anchoring her in a moment free of thrones or title.

She held on like a rope to a drowning man. No longer the calm queen hidden beneath power, but a woman stripped bare—shaky, open, vulnerable.

And in his arms, he wasn’t a duke weighed down by anything.

He was Leon.

She was Sona.

He wrapped his arms around her tighter. A gentle golden light flashed momentarily around them when he lifted a quiet shield—an aura dome filled with his energy spirit, soundproof and invisible. There would be no one in the palace to hear her screams now.

They were alone.

Under a tree shaded by darkness, illuminated by moonlight, shrouded by silence and grief.

And yet—still together.

Sona cried like a woman who had lost the memory of being held, of being heard. Leon did not stop her.

He merely remained. Let her shatter.

Let her breathe. Let her live.

Minutes ticked by. Her tears subsided into a low sobbing. Her hold relaxed, shaking fingers no longer releasing in desperation but in soft need. She leaned her head on his shoulder—swollen eyes, damp lashes, but her breathing settling at last.

"Leon..." she breathed, her voice so low it was almost nothing, as if to speak too loudly would break the tentative peace between them.

He didn’t answer with words—simply clamped his arm tighter around her, his hug protective, earthy. A deep hum thrummed in his chest, a soft "Mmm," a nod of acknowledgement, a reminder that he was still there... still holding her... still hers.

She tilted her head slowly, just barely enough to glimpse his face. Moonlight poured down through the canopy above, illuminating the planes of his jaw, the softness of his eyes, the frowning creases in his brows—like her agony now dwelled within him.

And when they made eye contact, she didn’t wince or turn away.

Pretending was over.

Just two hearts, stripped bare under the stars—no masks, no titles. Only honesty.

Two exhausted hearts, adrift in a sea of rules and roles—finally, at last... finding refuge in each other’s peaceful, unspoken love.

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