Three

CHAPTER THREE

AVENNE’S POV

“Hold her still.”

The woman on the bed cried out as another wave of pain passed through her body, and the two people standing beside her quickly held her shoulders down.

I placed my hand over her chest and closed my eyes.

The system appeared in front of me immediately.

[Severe Poison Detected.]

[Poison has spread through the patient’s bloodstream.]

[Purification is possible.]

I took a slow breath and selected the only option that mattered.

[Begin Purification.]

A strange warmth passed through my palm and entered the woman’s body. Her breathing, which had been weak and uneven, slowly became steady. The dark veins around her neck began to disappear, and the color returned to her pale face.

A few seconds later, she opened her eyes.

The room became completely silent.

Then she sat up. “I… I can breathe.”

The people around her stared in disbelief.

Someone immediately rushed forward to check her pulse, while another person covered their mouth in shock.

I removed my hand and stood up “She is fine now, but she needs to rest for a few days. Don’t let her eat anything strange, and make sure she drinks enough water.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

The woman reached for my hand with tears in her eyes.

“Thank you for saving me.”

I gave her a small smile before stepping away from the bed, this had been my life for the past ten years.

Curing people.

Treating poison.

Saving those who were already close to death.

When I first arrived in the Underworld, I knew nothing about this place, and I certainly never imagined that I would one day become the person people came to whenever they were sick or poisoned.

But my system had changed everything.

The more I used it, the more I understood it. I learned how to identify different poisons, illnesses, curses, and injuries, and I slowly discovered that there were things in the Underworld that even the people who had lived here their entire lives could not cure.

That was where I became useful.

People started coming to me from different parts of the Underworld.

At first, they came because they had no other choice.

Later, they came because they trusted me and eventually, people began calling me the Queen.

Not because I had fallen in love with the King, not  because I had stolen another woman’s position.

My position had started with an agreement.

The man I had saved ten years ago was not an ordinary man.

He was , the King of the Underworld.

At the time, I had no idea who he was, I only knew that he was dying, and my system had given me the ability to save him.

After I saved his life, he offered me a place in the Underworld.

I had nowhere else to go, so I accepted.

Our relationship had always been simple.

He needed my system.

I needed a place where I could live.

The Underworld was not a place where everyone had a home. Many people lived in dangerous areas, slept wherever they could find shelter, or fought every day just to survive.

The King gave me a safe place to stay and protection from anyone who might try to take advantage of me.

In return, I gave him the medical instruments and supplies that had appeared with me when my system awakened. Some of them were things I had never seen before, but they had become extremely useful in the Underworld.

Over the years, our arrangement became something everyone accepted.

He was the King, I was the Queen.

We lived under the same agreement, but there was nothing romantic between us.

It was simply convenient for both of us.

At least, that was how it had always been.

I was walking out of the healing room when loud voices suddenly came from outside.

“She’s here!”

“Camila is here!”

“Camila has returned!”

The hallway immediately became noisy.

I frowned and looked toward the entrance.

Who was Camila?

I watched several people hurry past me, their faces filled with excitement.

I stopped one of them.

“Wait.”

The young man froze and quickly bowed.

“Your Majesty.”

“Who is Camila?”

His eyes widened.

“You don’t know?”

I shook my head.

He looked at me as though I had asked the strangest question in the world.

“Camila is the King’s fiancée.”

I stared at him.

“The King’s what?”

“His fiancée,” he repeated, lowering his voice. “The woman who disappeared ten years ago.”

My expression slowly changed.

Ten years ago.

The words immediately caught my attention.

“The woman who disappeared?”

“Yes. Everyone thought she was dead, but she has returned.”

More voices came from outside.

“Camila is really here!”

“The King’s fiancée has finally come back!”

“After ten years, she’s finally returned!”

I stood there without moving.

For the first time in ten years, I suddenly became aware of the position I was standing in.

Queen.

The Queen of the Underworld but I had never forgotten how that position had started.

It was part of the arrangement between me and him

He had needed my system, I had needed him.

And now his missing fiancée had returned.

I looked around the place that had been my home for ten years.

My healing hall, my room, the people who worked for me, the life I had built, all of it suddenly felt uncertain.

If Camila was truly the King’s fiancée, then what would happen to me?

Would I still be the Queen?

Would I have to leave the palace?

And if I did, where would I go?

For ten years, I had never once worried about having a place to live.

Now, for the first time, I had no idea where I would sleep tomorrow.

I looked toward the crowd gathering outside.

Somewhere among them was the woman who had disappeared ten years ago.

The woman who had just returned to claim the place that might have been hers all along.

And suddenly, I wondered if my ten years in the Underworld were about to come to an end.