Phiengwad stepped into Sir Ramdecha's residence with an air of grace. Behind her, her loyal servant, Gulab, followed closely, along with another female attendant.
A part of Phiengwad felt immense satisfaction in seeing La-Orduen suffer. It was as if justice had been served for what she had done to both Phiengwad and La-Orchan. Yet, another part of her—the remnants of her conscience—kept her from feeling truly at peace.
It was as if a heavy stone was weighing down on her chest, pulling her into a whirlwind of emotions she could not shake off.
Her gaze fixed upon La-Orduen, the once-proud woman who now lay crumpled on the floor. Struggling to rise, her frail body trembled from exhaustion, yet her eyes still burned with an unyielding defiance.
Phiengwad let out a quiet sigh before speaking in an even tone.
"At this moment… your husband is away from the house, is he not?"
Her words sliced through La-Orduen's heart like a sharp blade.
The word 'husband,' referring to Sir Ramdecha, tore her apart. It was as if Phiengwad was crushing her dignity with nothing but her words.
The pain was unbearable.
Clenching her teeth, La-Orduen forced her weakened body to stand. Though her legs trembled, she met Phiengwad's gaze head-on, her eyes ablaze with resentment and hatred.
"You have hurt me more than I could have ever imagined, P'Phiengwad!"
Her voice trembled with anger, yet she refused to let the tears brimming in her eyes fall.
Phiengwad froze for a moment. She could feel the despair radiating from La-Orduen.
For a fleeting second, her resolve wavered. But she quickly suppressed her emotions, keeping her face composed, as if everything that had happened was merely an inevitable course of fate.
She took a slow, deep breath before speaking again, her voice gentler this time.
"Dismiss your servants," she said. "I have something to say to you, La-Orduen… in private."
.
.
In a secluded corner of the residence,
La-Orduen and Phiengwad stood face to face. Silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating. Though they were only a few steps apart, it felt as though an endless chasm separated them.
It was Phiengwad who broke the silence first. She looked at La-Orduen before speaking in a calm, almost chilling voice.
"I am here to give you the answer I once promised in the temple."
Her tone was steady, but beneath it lay something unspoken, something trembling within.
La-Orduen let out a bitter chuckle.
"A promise?" she scoffed. "Empty words…"
Her voice was quiet, yet each syllable was like a dagger.
"You deceived me, P'Phiengwad. You made me believe you would help me escape, but in the end, you never came."
Phiengwad remained silent for a brief moment. Her expression remained composed, but in her eyes, a flicker of pain surfaced before she concealed it once more.
Then she said something that La-Orduen never expected.
"That night, I never intended to meet you."
"I was the one who informed your father, Lord Noradit, about our meeting. That is why he came to take you back."
Her confession struck La-Orduen like a blade straight to the heart.
Her body weakened instantly, and tears welled up in her eyes, spilling over before she could stop them.
"P'Phiengwad… You are truly heartless," she whispered, her voice shaking. "You made me trust you, only to betray me so cruelly."
Phiengwad turned away, unable to face the raw pain in La-Orduen's eyes. She tried to suppress the guilt that surged within her, but it was too heavy to ignore.
Deep inside, she still wanted La-Orduen to suffer, just as she once had.
Taking a steady breath, she spoke again, her voice cold and distant.
"I only came to tell you the truth, as I promised that day. So that there would be nothing left unresolved between us."
She hesitated for a moment before delivering the final blow.
"La-Orduen, know this… I have never wanted to start anew with anyone."
"My heart belongs to La-Orchan alone."
"I will never love you, La-Orduen. Not in this life, nor in any life to come."
Phiengwad's words echoed in La-Orduen's heart like a relentless storm.
Everything around her seemed to freeze. Her breath caught in her throat as she shut her eyes, trying to hold back the tears that refused to stop falling.
Her love for Phiengwad had never faded.
But the wound Phiengwad had inflicted was too deep, too cruel—far beyond forgiveness.
.
.
"P'Phiengwad... why did you do this?"
La-Orduen's voice trembled, her pain overflowing beyond concealment.
"Is this revenge? Because I once stood in the way of your love for La-Orchan?"
"Then... are you satisfied now!?"
Her voice echoed with deep disappointment and despair.
"I was forced into marriage… forced to share a bed with a man I do not love, a man I despise."
"I am in pain… and my heart suffers beyond measure."
Tears streamed down La-Orduen's face. She tried to hold back her sobs, but the sorrow in her heart was too overwhelming to contain. She gazed at Phiengwad, her eyes reflecting an irreparable chasm between them.
Phiengwad stood frozen.
Something tugged at her heart. Guilt gnawed at her, creeping deeper and deeper.
Seeing La-Orduen in this state, Phiengwad finally realized that her pain was real.
And she… she was the one who had caused it.
She searched for words, something—anything—that might ease the moment.
But every word she could have said would only cut deeper into La-Orduen's wounds.
"If I have caused you pain, La-Orduen, then know this… I, too, suffer from what you have done."
"I know the full truth of that night… from Saiyood."
"You let La-Orchan drown before your very eyes. You forbade the servants from saving her. And then you dared to lie to me, while we sat before the sacred Buddha."
"After everything you've done, you still dare to beg me for mercy!?"
Phiengwad's voice shook. She tried to emphasize La-Orduen's wrongdoing, but deep down, she knew—her own actions were just as cruel.
La-Orduen let out a faint laugh.
Soft as the wind, yet laden with unbearable sorrow.
She locked eyes with Phiengwad and spoke her final words.
"So, P'Phiengwad… this is how you choose to take your revenge?"
Her gaze was filled with nothing but bitterness……
She stared at Phiengwad, her gaze filled with both resentment and disappointment. She could hardly believe that this woman—the one she had once loved with all her heart—would do this to her.
Her slender hands clenched tightly at her sides, and her lips pressed into a firm line as she struggled to suppress the pain in her chest. Then, with a voice trembling with anger, she spoke.
"P'Phiengwad, know this... La-Orchan did not die by accident! Even if the heavens had spared her from drowning, she would have perished by the venom of the snake. She broke her sacred vow, and so the Great Buddha punished her."
Phiengwad furrowed her brows in confusion, scrutinizing La-Orduen as if searching for the hidden truth.
"What do you mean? What vow?"
La-Orduen let out a bitter chuckle, the sound hollow and laced with sorrow.
"La-Orchan swore an oath before me, before the Buddha himself in the temple. She vowed that she would never betray me. She promised to help me win your love. And should she break that oath… she called upon the Great Buddha to punish her, to ensure her demise."
La-Orduen's words struck Phiengwad like a blade to the chest. She shook her head in disbelief.
"No… That's impossible. La-Orchan would never swear to such a thing."
"She did!" La-Orduen snapped. "She swore before me, before the Buddha! That is the undeniable truth!"
Her voice was sharp, each word slicing into Phiengwad like the edge of a knife.
Phiengwad let out a deep sigh, her heart weighed down by the revelation. The truth she had just heard shook her to her very core. And yet, she remained steadfast in her feelings.
"But my heart belongs to La-Orchan alone. The Buddha himself knows the sincerity of my love. No matter what oath she may have taken, I believe she must have had her reasons."
.
.
The mere mention of La-Orchan's name made La-Orduen lift her chin, as if attempting to mask the pain searing through her. She averted her gaze, curling her lips into a mocking smile, though her eyes betrayed her deep sorrow.
"Then behold what you have done to me, P'Phiengwad."
"You have killed me while I still draw breath. You have cast me into an abyss of endless suffering."
"You, too, love women. You should understand… how vile, how repulsive it feels to be touched by a man against your will."
"Now… I loathe my own body."
.
.
Each of La-Orduen's words carried the weight of anguish, as if she were carving into Phiengwad's heart with a sharpened blade. The venomous resentment in her voice was unbearable, a torment that Phiengwad could not withstand.
She stood frozen, as though shackled in place.
The crushing weight of guilt pressed down on her, suffocating her.
"I loved and trusted you, P'Phiengwad. I saw you as my last refuge, my final sanctuary."
"And yet, you betrayed me in cold blood."
La-Orduen clenched her teeth, unable to hold back the tears that streamed freely down her face.
"Remember this well, P'Phiengwad. Whatever suffering you have inflicted upon me, I shall return to you in kind… until the day you take your final breath."
.
.
"La-Orduen…"
Phiengwad whispered her name, her voice unsteady. Shame and regret clawed at her chest, suffocating her. But there were no words left to say.
"Leave this house at once," La-Orduen commanded, her voice cold and unwavering.
She did not wish to hear another word from Phiengwad. She would close the door on this pain, and let Phiengwad drown in the weight of her own guilt.
Let their suffering be equal.
Phiengwad pressed her lips together, trying to utter an apology, but guilt choked the words in her throat. Her eyes remained fixed on La-Orduen, as if searching for a single phrase that could ease the pain.
But in the end… she could not bring herself to say anything at all.
"Leave!"
The resolute tone in La-Orduen's voice made it clear—there was no place for Phiengwad here anymore. No right to undo her mistakes.
With no other choice, Phiengwad turned and walked away. Each step felt heavier than the last, as though she carried the weight of a thousand stones on her shoulders. The sound of La-Orduen's curse echoed in her mind.
A curse that would follow her… until the very end of her life.
.
'The suffering you have inflicted upon me, P'Phiengwad, I shall return to you a thousandfold… until the day you take your final breath.'
.
That conversation with Phiengwad ended that day.
Along with La-Orduen's entire world, which crumbled before her eyes.
The love and freedom she had once dreamed of—everything shattered at Phiengwad's hands. The repeated reminder that Phiengwad had only ever loved La-Orchan cut through her heart without mercy, engraving into her soul the inescapable truth—she had never been enough. No matter how hard she tried, she was never the one who was loved, never the one who was wanted, unlike her twin sister.
With her body weakened and her heart drowning in despair, La-Orduen dragged herself back to the old temple—a place where she had once sought solace. Her heart seethed with grief and hatred, tightening like an iron grip around her chest. She knelt before the great green stone Buddha, her body trembling with a fury and sorrow too vast to contain.
The moment her eyes met the statue's, the tears she had held back spilled forth. Her silent questions cried out to the Buddha, whose stone gaze remained unchanging.
Why was this world so cruel to her?
Why was everything she longed for always beyond reach?
Why was it always La-Orchan—the younger twin—who received love and warmth from everyone around her?
And why did Phiengwad—the one she had loved and wished to stand beside—become her greatest enemy, the one who wounded her most?
These thoughts fueled the burning rage within her. She clasped her hands together in prayer, her gaze unwavering as she spoke her prayer laden with vengeance..
.
"Whoever has caused me this suffering… may they experience pain and torment a thousand times worse than mine."
.
La-Orduen's voice was soft, yet the determination in her words was unshakable. It was as if she had entrusted her entire life and all her hatred to the Buddha before her, praying that the world would be just—that those who had wronged her would suffer as she had.
But the moment her prayer ended, the temple's candlelight flickered and was snuffed out. Darkness swallowed the space whole, as though even the Buddha himself refused to hear her vengeful prayer.
La-Orduen stared at the great statue, her eyes filled with despair.
"Even you… do not take pity on me..."
Her whisper barely reached her own ears.
The tears she had thought were spent came rushing forth once more. The despair in her heart deepened, twisting into hatred that coursed through her veins. Dark thoughts began to take form.
If even a merciful god would not hear her, then who else in this world would?
If no one would see her suffering… then she no longer had to hold on to anything at all.
…
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