Married to the Villainous Duke

Chapter 22

"Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn the witch!"

"I beg of you, your highness, please spare my wife's life! She's innocent! She isn't a witch!" She hears Nikolaidis plead. 

What's happening? She could feel herself being hauled by two people, her arms and legs tied tightly by rough ropes. Her entire body feels limp, barely having the energy to keep her eyes open. She weakly searches around, looking for Nikolaidis, but her vision is too hazy. She could only make out the shape of a pole that's slowly becoming closer.

"Here's the laboratory results, doctor." A woman's voice echoes from a distance. It's as if she were speaking from inside a cave.

"This is astonishing. How can the results come out this way after five weeks?" It's a man speaking this time, still with the same strange echoing quality to his voice.

"It's truly a miracle, doctor. The patient's family will be overjoyed when they hear this..."

Her eyes have fallen shut now. She can only rely on her other senses to understand what's happening. She feels more ropes getting tied on her waist and on her forehead. Am I getting executed?

"Let's set it on fire," a gruff voice says from close by.

She suddenly screams in pain as she feels her feet burning. It's absolutely agonizing. The scorching heat eats away her flesh. 

"Niko! Please save me..." She cries out and jolts herself awake. It was only a dream... 

She sits up and scans her surroundings. She's in their bedroom. The sky is beginning to brighten outside, telling her it's still early morning. I'm not being burned alive! I'm safe! I'm okay!

"My love, are you alright?" She feels Nikolaidis wrapping his arms around her.

"I had a nightmare," she says as her husband wipes away the tears from her cheeks. She didn't even notice she was crying.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asks softly.

"I dreamt I was getting burned at the stake, everyone was accusing me that I was a witch..." 

My dream felt way too real. She shudders as she recalls the events in her dream. But what was that about laboratory results? Who was the patient that the woman and man were talking about? That was a really weird dream...

"I'm sorry. It's my fault you had that nightmare because I took you to the trial-"

She puts a finger on his lips to stop him from apologizing, "please don't say that, Niko. It's absolutely not your fault. I went there on my own accord. You didn't force me."

He sighs and gently grabs her hand, "let's go back to sleep, my love."

~•~ ~•~ ~•••~ ~•~ ~•~

Estelle's anxiety on her possible execution becomes temporarily forgotten as a new week goes by in a hectic blur. She's fully embraced her role now as the Duchess of Blanchard and has taken up the duties that come along with her position; with the guidance of her watchful husband Nikolaidis.

"Thank you so much for your help, your grace. The sick children have gotten better thanks to the medicine you delivered and all the methods you taught us," the matriarch says as she and Estelle walk towards the main door of the local orphanage.

"No need to thank me, Miss Henrietta. I'm simply doing my job as Blanchard's Duchess and I love helping kids, especially the sick little ones."

It's also because I want to become a pediatric nurse, but I'm not going to tell the orphanage's matriarch that.