Transmigrated Into The Body Of The Cursed Prince Wife-Chapter 223: Moon festival

When Ave opened her eyes again, it was morning. She bolted out of bed in disbelief as she couldn’t believe she’d slept off when she had such an important mission to look for her husband in the palace while everyone would be busy outside with their festival last night. Had she been so tired that she’d fallen asleep that quickly and without even waking up during the night? ƒreewebηoveℓ.com

This was totally unlike herself, but maybe it was because she’d exhausted her body shooting those arrows that made her so tired. She would have to make sure not to do anything straining today so she wouldn’t end up sleeping off like this again.

Ave got on with her daily morning routine with the help of Nadia, and once she was done, she ate a little from the breakfast brought to her before she went to spend the day instead with Isolde and Celeste in their room, who seemed to also have the view of the training yard from their window and were cheering for Orion and Harry.

They were eating lunch when Isolde said, "I have never enjoyed my sleep like I did last night. I slept like a baby and didn’t even wake up during the night to drink water like I usually do."

"I thought I was the only one," Celeste said as she sipped from her tea. "Since the day we came here, I haven’t been able to sleep at night because I worried about mother and sister Thalia, but last night I slept off before I even took off my dress and changed into my nightdress."

A frown settled on Ave’s face as she began to realize something, but to be able to confirm it, she would have to let it happen again. She wasn’t the only one who’d slept off like that. Something wasn’t right.

Just like the other day, by the time the sun began to set, her dinner was brought to her, and the maid stood to watch her finish it. Ave didn’t complain as she wanted to test something. She finished it.

This time around, the maid didn’t even leave the room yet before she began to feel sleepy and dizzy. She fell asleep before she could control herself.

When Ave woke up the next morning, she realized the people here were feeding them something at night to make them sleep off like that. It seemed whatever their moon festival was, they didn’t want them knowing how it was celebrated. She didn’t care about their festival; all she wanted was to find her husband and bring him back to her side. She was worried sick about his health and needed to be sure nothing was wrong.

If he wasn’t sick, he would have come out of whatever room he was in during the day, but she had not seen any signs of him during the day or night. She had not even heard anyone mention his name. If he was in this palace and not coming out during the day, it meant he wasn’t fine. Lucian wasn’t the kind to stay cooped up in a room without doing something. She knew him that much. She could feel it in the depths of her soul and heart that something was wrong with him. It was strange, but she had a restless feeling and a sense of foreboding casting a shadow over every minute of her day.

"I can’t afford to eat that food again tonight," she whispered determinedly to herself. The Nazia people were smart to think of drugging them to sleep to keep their secrets safe, but what they didn’t know was that if she really wanted to discover their secrets, she would. She had buried her curiosity about them for her husband’s sake. She didn’t want to mess with the people here and risk disrupting Lucian’s plan to earn their support. They needed them to fight Elara, and for that reason, she had buried her curiosity to investigate them. But what she could not let happen was for them to keep feeding her sleeping stuff while Lucian might be on a sickbed—or worse.

Ave began to get ready for the day when the maids brought her clothes and busied herself with thoughts of ways to avoid eating anything tonight so she wouldn’t fall asleep. The two different maids who had brought her dinner so far always looked like they would force it down her throat if she didn’t eat it. They looked stronger and more muscular for women, and Ave bet they were assigned to force her if she resisted eating it.

Knowing that tonight another maid like those two who had come to serve her would be sent again, she thought of ways to avoid eating the food, and an idea came to her mind. She stared at her breakfast tray and plates; the plates were the same as the ones used to serve her dinner.

Without hesitation, she shoved the tray and plates under her bed when she heard approaching footsteps outside her room. It was the maid who had brought her breakfast; she was back to take the plates.

Ave had already sat down on the stool of the vanity table pretending to comb her hair while she hummed to herself. Thus, when she noticed the confused look on the maid’s face from the mirror when she walked in, she turned to ask, "What’s wrong?"

"Where is your breakfast tray, my lady?" she asked politely.

"Oh, that, I gave them to my maidservant, Lydia, to take to the kitchen when she came to visit me just now." She lied with a straight face. It was true Lydia had stopped by to check on her, but she’d left immediately as Ave was too distressed and worried about Lucian to have a long conversation with the girl, who also talked about how her sleep had been good lately.

The maid had no reason to doubt Ave’s words and nodded in understanding before she left the room.

Ave let out a sigh of relief as the maid left. She couldn’t help but think that the people here were treating them like criminals serving time behind fancy bars. They didn’t get to choose what they ate, and the way the maids serving food behaved was no different from how the cops in movies behaved when they talked to criminals.

She hoped just like now, her plan tonight would work as well.

Ave made sure to do everything normally for the rest of the day without allowing her impatience to show. She had a gut feeling Lucian was here, and she could feel it in her heart that something wasn’t right with him; the sooner she found him, the better.

When the time for dinner was approaching, Ave brought out the tray she had shoved under her bed and placed it on the edge of her bed. The plate and cup were the same as breakfast and dinner; thus, she made it seem like she had finished eating her dinner and drinking the wine as she laid sprawled out on the bed to wait for the maid who would bring her dinner. When she finally heard approaching footsteps outside the door, she closed her eyes.

Ave made sure to put her acting skills to work now as she pretended to be in a deep sleep, sprawled in an unfashioned way on the bed that would make anyone who saw her believe she had fallen asleep without her knowledge. She heard the maid mutter to herself when she came in,

"I told Eva I would be serving the lady tonight, but it seems she’d beat me to it. She didn’t even pack her plates, tsk." She grumbled in displeasure as she moved to make certain Ave was asleep by grabbing a fistful of her hair to lift her head off the bed before releasing it, and when Ave didn’t move or react to the way she’d grabbed her hair, she shook her head in amused pity.

"Humans, tsk, tsk, so fragile and clueless." She muttered to herself before turning away to turn off the candles burning in the room after taking the tray from the bed. Done with everything, she left the room.

Ave dared not move until a few minutes after the maid had left. She sat up, rubbing her burning scalp where the woman had grabbed a fistful of her hair. Gritting her teeth, she said, "The people here are no doubt animals!"

Now that the maid had turned off all the candles, the room was plunged into darkness with only a tiny source of moonlight coming from the small gaps around the closed window. Ave could barely see herself in the darkness.

She pushed herself off the bed and felt her way to the window. Opening it, the moonlight streamed into the room and illuminated it. She began to pace around the room.

Now that she’d successfully tricked them into believing she was asleep, she had no idea what to do next. Things could go wrong if they caught her sneaking around the palace at night. Lucian wasn’t here to stop them—they could do whatever they wanted to her as a punishment for going against their rules.

Maybe she should wait a while until—her thoughts screeched to a halt as a bone-chilling howl ripped through the night from outside the window, freezing her in place. Another followed before she could register the first one, louder, closer, echoing like it came from right below her window.

Wolves!

Her chest tightened as a cold realization clawed its way into her mind—her suspicion was right. The people here weren’t humans but werewolves!!

Ave bit down on her fingers as she mustered the courage to walk to the window and peek outside, her throat had suddenly turned dry from the fear that gripped every nerve in her body. She peeked out the window, but to her utter relief, she saw nothing but the silent night and dancing shadows of objects in the backyard. There was no wolf. She didn’t know what she’d do had she seen the wolf with her eyes, but the howl she heard was no mistake. The people here weren’t humans.

She could still hear distant echoing howls that sent shivers down her spine. It was hard to believe werewolves were real and that the people here were that. She’d watched people shift into wolves in the Twilight series and had thought it would be cool if they existed, but now that she knew they did exist in this era, nothing prepared her for the dread of coming face-to-face with one. The thought of it alone made her legs turn to jelly, and she wished until she found her husband, she wouldn’t have to come anywhere close to any of them, or she might pass out from fear.

Moving away from the window at long last after making sure there was no wolf outside her window, she closed it and made her way instead toward the door. If they were werewolves and the howls she was hearing from the distance belonged to them, it meant they’d all left the palace to go and celebrate their moon festival. It was a full moon, after all; it must be their mating season, she thought, and the thought made her shudder as she couldn’t imagine humans transforming into animals and behaving like that. No wonder they all seemed to carry the same mentality about them.