Transmigrated Into The Body Of The Cursed Prince Wife-Chapter 280: A promise

The next morning, Zane woke up in the tent he shared with another one of the soldiers. He grimaced when he realized he didn’t feel any better than he had felt yesterday before coming in to sleep.

In fact, he felt worse and guilty for how he had treated the princess the other day. She had not said a word again after his encounter with her where he’d lost his temper. She had quietly gone into her tent without any words of complaint after it was set for her at night when the blizzard had gone down, and she took the piece of roasted meat handed to her by the soldiers with a muttered gratitude.

Their eyes had only locked once when they all cramped in a small cave to wait out the storm outside. He had seen in those eyes of hers defeat and resignation from life. She looked somewhat lifeless and utterly lonely, and he’d had a stupid urge to close the little distance between them and hug her after an apology for the harsh words he’d spoken to her.

But then, recalling everything they had lost, he’d looked away from her and ignored her existence completely. He wouldn’t be caught dead apologizing to a heartless, spoiled princess who deserved everything she got.

Even the soldiers became less friendly to her, and he’d thought she deserved it, but why was he feeling bad about it this morning? He had not been able to sleep last night and had listened to the howling wind outside the tent as her gray eyes haunted his mind. Had he gone too far in the way he spoke to her?

He didn’t expect anything more from someone who had been sheltered all her life. She wasn’t supposed to know the way of life outside the fancy walls of the palace. She wasn’t supposed to know she had to consider others lives. She had been brought up as a royal, and the way she had acted all this while was befitting of her title. So why was he so angry and disappointed? The soldiers had journeyed all this way with him to give their lives for their princess. He had no right to talk to her the way he had the other day, but yet he couldn’t bring himself to apologize for it.

She was the only reason Alden was willing to give up the throne to Lucian, but he had gone on to speak to her in such a way. He was supposed to treasure her and meet every single one of her demands without complaint. Those were the duties of a servant, and as a man without a title, he was her servant and had absolutely no right to complain about her behavior.

Sighing silently, Zane sat up on the hard, cold floor of the tent and crawled out of it. The blizzard had died down since yesterday, but the wind was still not going down. It was howling and freezing cold. He stretched his arms over his head and secured his winter suit around his body.

Tomorrow, he thought determinedly, they would reach Pendragon and get this journey over with, even if they had to travel through the night without rest. He hated the feeling of guilt weighing him down and pressing on his shoulders.

Zane’s gaze scanned around the tents. It was still dawn, but the sky had brightened up enough for him to see everything around. Thankfully, the soldiers carrying the minister in the wagon had gone on ahead of them since the day the princess had been demanding.

Now, he was left with only two soldiers after he’d lost two yesterday. Thus, including the special tent for the princess, there were two other ones for him and the two men. But as he scanned the ground, he noticed something wrong with the bigger tent where the princess was supposed to be.

Zane didn’t allow himself to panic and hurried to make certain he wasn’t seeing things before he alarmed the two other soldiers. But seeing that he wasn’t seeing things and what he noticed was indeed right, his heart slammed against his ribs, and the air was knocked out of his lungs.

The tent she was supposed to be in was empty and left wide open. Her coat and things were gone from it as well, and on the ground outside the tent, he could see faint fading footprints that must be hers disappearing in the direction of the forest beside where they had camped.

Zane knew without a doubt that the princess was gone because she left a pouch of gold coins lying at the front of the tent and a letter, which he found inside the pouch that said:

[For everything you lost because of me, give it to the families of the two men who died and tell them I am sincerely sorry for the pain I caused them. I will no longer be a burden to any of you again. Tell Brother Lucian that I choose my own life and do not want the royal life any more than I want to go back. To whoever picks this up, I am sorry.

Yours sincerely,

Thalia Pendragon.]

The letter shook in Zane’s hands as emotions swirled through him until he could barely see the words written on the paper. She hadn’t just run away in the middle of nowhere to get away from her life, had she? He couldn’t believe he’d let his guard down enough to let her succeed in escaping right under his nose! Oh, if Lucian didn’t kill him yet again for failing to keep an eye on another one of his family members, Prince Alden would surely do it!

But neither of those was his main concern now. It was the fact that he was gripped with a worry that seemed to make it hard for him to breathe at the thought that she might fall prey to a wild animal or get into the hands of bandits. The thought of imagining her in either one of those situations made him shake all over. He couldn’t lose her now. He should have apologized to her last night!

Zane yelled out the soldiers’ names and ordered them to split up and find the princess. He warned them not to come back unless they found her.

Unable to stay put himself, he dashed into the forest on foot as the princess had left without taking any horse with her. He tried to trace the fading footprints on the snow, but it was useless because the prints had been covered up. Zane had no idea where to start looking, but he frantically ran around, yelling out for her like she would hear him and come out.

"Princess!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, hoping she would hear him. She mustn’t have gone that far from what he noticed. "If you can hear me, I am terribly sorry for the words I spoke the other day! Yes, you are selfish, but I shouldn’t have said those words to you!" Zane cursed himself because he couldn’t bring himself to coax her out by admitting to a lie that what she did was totally all right. It wasn’t all right.

However, when he thought about it, even if she hadn’t delayed them, the blizzard would still have met them, only that he would have brought the men to safety before it did.

True to Zane’s suspicion, the princess hadn’t gone far away not to hear his loud voice. She was finding it hard to walk in the snow because she was already cold and contemplating whether to return and pretend like she had not tried to leave.

But she’d already decided to leave and let her fate carry her to wherever it wanted to take her. She heard his words, and though it made her pause for a while, she resumed walking because it didn’t make her feel any better knowing she was selfish. She was trying to be selfless by leaving them and getting herself off their shoulders. And if he thought for a moment those words he spoke would coax her back, he was dead wrong about it.

"I don’t want to ever see your face, and I’ll make sure of—ahh!" she screamed before she could stop herself when a deer suddenly ran past her, startling the soul out of her body.

The creature ran even faster at her scream, but when she began to calm her beating heart, she realized she must have given herself away by screaming that loud. She hoped he hadn’t heard her. Thalia silently prayed as she remained standing where she was to make certain Zane wouldn’t trace her scream.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, Zane had heard her scream, only that it had echoed back to him from different angles, and he had no idea which direction to follow to get to her.

Could it be that she had been attacked? Why did she scream that loud? He wondered in worry as he began to call for her, asking if she was fine and to scream again so he could trace her back. When he didn’t hear her scream again, Zane knew she didn’t want him to find her.

He couldn’t imagine going back without the princess, and though she had been a total pain in his throat for the past two days, he didn’t wish to lose her like this in the middle of nowhere. Everything would go totally wrong if he returned without her. Alden would fight Lucian for the throne and another war might break out again.

Zane paused after what seemed like thirty minutes of running around the forest, catching his breath as he looked around, wishing she would magically appear before him. If she came back to him, he would make sure to treat her like a princess until he returned her back to her brother. He could feel she was near; instinct told him she was close, but Lord, he didn’t know which direction to follow that would lead to her.

Swallowing hard, he softened his voice but still loud enough to carry through the forest. "Princess! I know you’re out there, and I know you’re angry, but please listen to me!" His voice broke slightly because he was desperate. He had been trusted to get her back, and he wanted to get her back.

"I’m sorry for hurting you. I said those things because I was... angry and scared. Apart from losing the men, you would have lost your life as well in the blizzard. If you think you’re a burden, you’re not. You are the reason we came all this way. Without you... I can’t imagine it, Princess. All I know is that we need you to continue this journey. I need you."

He took a shaky step forward, his eyes scanning the snowy trees. "If you can hear me, just come back. I swear on everything, I’ll never hurt you like that again. You have my word, Princess. Please, don’t leave me in this storm... not like this." He pleaded with the empty space, praying she was hearing him and he wasn’t just talking to himself.

Zane was about to run in another direction to continue coaxing her when, at that moment, Thalia, teary-eyed and overwhelmed, picked up a handful of snow and hurled it at his back before he ran past where she was hiding.

Startled, Zane turned around to see her standing there with tears streaming down her face.

"You promise?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "Promise me you’ll never be harsh to me again." She tried to glare, but she was too emotional to do so. Though his words weren’t personal and she knew he probably said everything with other meanings, her fragile heart couldn’t keep itself. He had said he needed her, and he wanted her back with him. Did he even know the weight those words carry?

Zane quickly nodded, his face soft and filled with guilt. "I promise, Princess. I swear on my life, I’ll never hurt you again. Just don’t ever leave like that again. You scared me to death," he added the last part under his breath as he looked at her, and then his eyes trailed to the bundle of things she clutched to her chest.

"I can’t believe you left and hoped to survive with those little supplies," he said with a small chuckle. "We are far away from any village, Princess. You would have frozen to death before you made it anywhere," he told her as he watched her sneeze and sniffle her nose before trying to unsuccessfully wipe her nose with her trembling hands.

Without thinking, Zane closed the distance between them and wiped her nose with his handkerchief before he took her freezing gloved hands into his and tried to warm them up for her.

"Don’t ever do that again," he said as he looked up to meet her teary eyes. Her nose was red, and her face puffy and pale from being in the cold for too long. She was shivering slightly.

With trembling lips, she said, "I am sorry about everything, I didn’t mean to_" she didn’t get to complete her words when he shook his head.

"It’s all right. Let’s go back, I need to get you warmed up," he said as he took off his cloak and wrapped it around her to shield her from the cold. His arm lingered briefly around her shoulder before he brought it down and smiled at her.

Thalia’s heart missed a beat. This was the first time he’d ever smiled at her before, however, before she could smile back at him, everything went terribly wrong right before her eyes. One moment he was standing before her, smiling at her, the next moment he was gone, and the cracking sounds came a bit too late to her until he disappeared under it.

A scream tore out of her throat.