Chapter 1591 - 224 - Titania’s Regret (6)
Titania’s POV
My father’s funeral was brief. It lasted only a single day, yet somehow that one day felt much longer than a single day ever should have.
Within those few hours, countless people came to pay their respects. They were the people who had faithfully served my father for many years, along with those who had once stood against him politically. Allies and rivals alike gathered beneath the same roof, setting aside whatever history they had shared with him just to attend his final farewell.
One after another, they approached me and offered their condolences with solemn expressions.
I thanked every single one of them as politely as I could, even though my voice barely sounded like my own anymore.
The strange thing was that I couldn’t remember any of their faces afterward. I couldn’t even remember who had spoken to me or what exactly they had said. Their voices all blended together until they became nothing more than distant background noise.
That was probably because I wasn’t really paying attention to any of them.
My eyes never truly left my father during the entire ceremony.
He lay peacefully upon a bed of flowers, looking as though he were simply asleep after another exhausting day of work.
For just a brief moment, it almost felt like he would open his eyes, sit up, and ask everyone why they were making such a fuss over him. Honestly, I almost wanted him to complain about all the attention. That would’ve sounded much more like him.
Unfortunately, that moment never came.
After the final prayers inside the hall had concluded, we carried him into the castle courtyard, where the Archpriest of the Bethlan Kingdom was already waiting to perform the final blessing.
He slowly raised his staff before speaking in a solemn voice that echoed throughout the quiet courtyard.
"May his soul find eternal rest within the endless expanse where words can no longer reach, and may infinity itself grant him the freedom to journey wherever his spirit desires."
Once the blessing had been completed, it became my responsibility to give my father one final farewell before his body was returned to the flames.
An attendant carefully stepped forward before placing a lit torch into my hands.
Before accepting what I had to do, I stood there quietly for a long moment, taking one final look at my father’s face.
I wanted to memorize every little detail that still remained before it disappeared forever.
His peaceful expression remained exactly the way I remembered it.
The gentle lines on his face somehow looked softer than before.
The warmth that I desperately wished was still there had already long since faded away.
Eventually, I gathered enough strength to step forward.
Slowly and carefully, I lowered the torch until its flames touched the bed of flowers beneath him.
The fire spread almost immediately across the flowers surrounding his body.
The flowers had been specially prepared for the ceremony, and because of their unique nature, they caught fire with astonishing speed. Within only a few moments, bright orange flames surrounded the entire bed, gradually swallowing everything resting upon it.
I simply stood there without moving from where I was.
The fire slowly continued consuming him before my very eyes.
Little by little, the flames continued burning everything away.
Bit by bit, more of him disappeared beneath the growing flames.
Eventually, his body vanished completely beneath the dancing fire until nothing remained visible anymore.
My eyes stayed fixed on him for the entire time without ever looking away.
At least, they looked as though they were.
Deep down, it almost felt like I was staring somewhere much farther away than the flames themselves.
Instead of watching his body burn, I imagined myself looking directly at his soul instead.
In my mind, he was smiling back at me.
It was the same warm smile he always wore whenever I accomplished something that made him proud, no matter how small that accomplishment happened to be.
When the flames finally died down and nothing remained except ashes, I quietly returned to the courtyard once more.
Carefully, I gathered what was left of him before gently placing the ashes into an urn with my own hands.
Only after finishing that final task did everything finally come to an end.
My father’s funeral had officially concluded at last.
From that moment onward, my father had become one with infinity itself.
"Please get some rest for now, Princess," one of the attendants said gently after the ceremony had finally concluded.
Leon stepped away for a little while afterward.
Before leaving, he quietly told me that he wanted to give me some time alone so I could process everything that had happened today.
He had remained by my side throughout the entire funeral from beginning to end.
Whenever he noticed that I looked like I was about to break down, he quietly tried to comfort me without saying anything unnecessary.
He never left me alone during any part of the ceremony until it was finally over.
Even with all of that, my mind still felt completely numb inside.
It was almost as though my emotions had quietly locked themselves away somewhere that even I couldn’t reach anymore.
As I slowly walked through the castle hallway toward my room, I heard several voices drifting upward from the floor below.
"Such terrible timing. His Majesty is gone. What are we supposed to do now?"
"This kingdom is in serious trouble. The faction trying to overthrow the monarchy and replace it with a republican government is still out there, and now we’ve lost our king. Honestly, I don’t see how this makes anything better. Princess Titania will officially become our Queen now."
A brief silence settled over the conversation before someone else finally spoke again.
"She’s still young. She’s inexperienced, a little naive, and honestly too kind for this sort of responsibility. Do you really think she has what it takes to rule an entire kingdom?"
Another person quietly let out a long sigh before answering.
"Whatever happens from this point onward, our country might already be doomed."
Those voices belonged to the very same people who had attended my father’s funeral only a short while ago.
So that was how they truly felt deep inside.
Perhaps they hadn’t attended because they genuinely cared about my father.
Perhaps they had only shown up because doing so served their own interests and public image.
Even then, I couldn’t really bring myself to blame them very much.
Politics had always worked that way, whether people admitted it or not.
If I were being completely honest with myself, there had been moments when I had acted in a very similar manner too.
I hadn’t officially been crowned Queen just yet.
However, with Father’s passing, the succession had already been decided long before today.
Our kingdom followed the traditions of a monarchy.
As his only direct relative, the crown would naturally pass down to me whether I wanted it or not.
Whether I felt ready for that responsibility no longer mattered anymore.
That had simply become the reality I now had to live with.
Rather than listening to their conversation any longer, I quietly continued walking toward my room.
The moment I stepped inside, an overwhelming silence greeted me from every corner.
I slowly walked over to my bed before collapsing onto it without even bothering to change out of my clothes first.
As I pulled the blanket over myself and curled up beneath it, I hoped it might provide even the smallest bit of comfort.
While adjusting the covers around myself, my hand brushed against something unexpectedly soft.
Curious about what it was, I reached beneath the blanket before pulling it into view.
It was a stuffed bear that Father had personally made for me years ago.
The stitching was uneven almost everywhere you looked.
Its face looked crooked enough to make anyone laugh a little.
One of its ears was noticeably larger than the other one.
There had even been a time when it had torn apart completely, and Father personally sat down to sew it back together with his own hands.
Honestly, it was probably the ugliest stuffed toy I had ever seen in my entire life.
Even so, nothing else inside this room meant more to me than that small, clumsy-looking bear.
As I quietly stared at it resting in my hands, the tears I thought had already run dry slowly began falling all over again.
I hadn’t realized until that very moment that I still had tears left to cry after everything that had already happened today.