Chapter 4
Addisyn lay on the hard wooden bed, covered by a tattered quilt. Her face was sallow, her eyes tightly shut, and her breathing so weak it seemed she could slip away at any moment.
"Addisyn!" Isaac dashed to the bedside, his eyes reddening as he saw his sister lying there, barely breathing.
He had raised Addisyn like a precious treasure. She'd never endured anything like this before.
"Call the royal physician! Hurry!" he shouted to the people behind him.
The royal physician who had accompanied them hurried forward to check Addisyn's pulse.
"Isaac..." Addisyn slowly opened her eyes. When she saw her brother's face, all the pain she'd been holding in for days finally broke free. Tears streamed down her cheeks like a string of pearls that had come undone.
"Isaac... you're finally here..." she whispered.
"Addisyn, don't be afraid. I'm here," Isaac said, his voice shaking with worry as he took her cold hand. "I'm taking you home."
"Home..." Addisyn murmured, then suddenly her grip tightened on Isaac's hand as if she just remembered something. "Isaac, watch out for the Kennedy family. They..."
She didn't get to finish. Her head slumped to the side and she lost consciousness.
"Addisyn!" Isaac shouted, his face going pale with shock.
The royal physician's hand trembled as he checked her pulse, then his face went pale. He collapsed to his knees with a thud.
"Your Highness, this is bad! Her Highness has been poisoned with a deadly toxin!" the royal physician cried out.
"What?!" Isaac's voice was sharp with shock.
Gasps filled the room.
Isaac's eyes ignited with overwhelming rage. He spun around, locking an unyielding, murderous stare on Valentino and Sandra standing in the doorway.
"You... you've got some nerve!" he roared.
His glare was so intense, it looked like he was ready to devour them alive.
Sandra and Valentino were scared out of their wits. Their legs buckled and they crumpled to the ground.
"Your Highness, please spare us! Have mercy!" they begged.
"We didn't poison her! It really wasn't us!" they protested.
They were completely baffled. Addisyn was just sick with a cold, so how could she suddenly be poisoned?
"If it wasn't you, then who else could it be?" Isaac's voice was cold as ice. "Guards! Round up everyone from the Kennedy family and seal off their estate, not even a fly gets out!"
"Yes, Your Highness!" the guards shouted in unison.
The guards from Eryndor Palace charged in like wolves, pinning the stunned Kennedy family members to the ground.
Screams and cries for mercy filled the entire estate.
Noelle's face lost all color in fright, and she crumpled to the floor, shivering in fear.
By chance, her gaze met Addisyn's on the bed.
Addisyn had somehow woken up, fixing Noelle with a frosty stare, a barely-there cold smirk tugging at her lips.
Noelle's heart sank.
'She... she did this on purpose!' Noelle thought. 'She set all this up!'
Addisyn was gently lifted into a palanquin and, with utmost care, escorted straight back to Eryndor Palace without a hitch.
The familiar scent of ambergris lingered at her nose, making her feel as if she'd been gone for a lifetime.
She was finally home.
When her parents saw Addisyn like this, their hearts broke and tears streamed down their faces.
"Oh, my child, how did you get so skinny?" the Queen cried, hugging her so tightly she could barely breathe, her sobs uncontrollable.
"My precious daughter has been tormented by those wretched fools! I swear, I'll make them pay with their lives!" the King thundered, his rage barely contained.
He wasted no time and ordered a thorough investigation right then and there.
Addisyn lay on the plush royal bed, with maids tending to her every need, but she felt no happiness at all.
She knew this was only the beginning.
What she wanted wasn't just to punish the Kennedy family. She wanted to destroy their reputation and make sure they'd never recover.
Of course, the whole "poisoning" was just part of her plan.
The poison she used was something she'd read about in a royal secret manual—completely colorless and odorless.
At first, it mimicked the symptoms of a simple cold, but if the antidote wasn't given in time, the victim would start bleeding from every orifice and die a gruesome death within three days.
And the antidote? She was the only one who knew the cure.
She wanted to blow things up so big that there was no turning back.
Only then could she force her father and Isaac to finally wipe out the Kennedy family for good.
As expected, within three days, the Court of Justice revealed the so-called truth.
Noelle, driven by jealousy, had teamed up with the staff at the estate to spike Addisyn's medicine with poison.
With witnesses and all the proof laid out, she didn't stand a chance to argue her way out of it.
Noelle was thrown into the royal dungeon, with her execution scheduled for the autumn tribunal.
The Kennedy family lost all their military authority by the King's decree, for failing to control their own and not seeing through their people. Everyone in the estate was confined for life. No one could step outside unless the King himself gave permission.
Valentino was stripped of his title as general, left with nothing, just another nobody.
When the news broke, everyone was thrilled.
Rayne bounced over to Addisyn, her eyes shining. "Princess, did you see? Payback finally hit them! They totally got what they deserved!"
Addisyn just gave a faint smile. 'Payback? This is barely a scratch, nowhere near enough.
'All the torment I suffered, all the misery I endured—how could a slap on the wrist ever make up for that? I'll make them taste every ounce of pain I went through—down to the last drop.'
As Addisyn started to get better, she began pitching in to help Isaac with palace business.