Chapter 5 :

Chapter 5

“You truly seem incapable of understanding that there are lines one must not cross.”

Varkas spoke in his characteristic flat voice.

But his beautiful face had hardened savagely, as though his patience had been scraped raw.

Thalia tried to twist her arm free from his hand.

But the strong grip of the trained knight was like a shackle.

Varkas, standing in front of the Crown Prince and Ayla like a faithful shield, pulled Thalia even closer and spat the words into her face as though chewing them up.

“Just how far down must you sink before you are satisfied? Was showing everyone your lowest point still not enough for you?”

“I showed everyone my lowest point?”

Thalia lifted her chin as high as she could and let out a sharp sneer.

“Lofty Lord Siarkan, do you think you know even the slightest thing about the lowest depths of humanity? Do not act so superior.”

She pressed herself close to him and showed him a strange, sensual smile.

Unlike the other men who made dazed expressions from just her gaze and scent, Varkas did not show even the slightest agitation.

His eyes merely looked sick and tired of her.

Thalia felt the urge to drive the nails she carefully sharpened every night into those icy eyes.

“From where you stand, I must look very low. But I still have a long way to go before I reach the worst.”

She spoke while looking straight into the man’s eyes.

A distant mire lurked inside them.

This man would soon push her into it.

If so, before falling, she would at least leave long nail marks on their future.

Only then would it be fair.

Her dark-blue eyes shone fiercely with venom.

A dangerous light also settled in Varkas’s eyes as he looked down at that malicious face.

As they glared at each other as though they would kill one another, an exceedingly pitiful voice came from behind him.

“Varkas.”

The man, who had been glaring at Thalia as though he would pierce through her, immediately turned toward his fiancée.

Ayla had an expression so sorrowful that it made the hearts of those who saw it ache.

She carefully tugged at Varkas’s coat with her fingertips and spoke in a pleading tone.

“I... want to change my clothes. Will you take me out of here?”

“...As you command.”

Varkas wrapped one arm around Ayla’s shoulders and turned away just like that.

As though Thalia’s existence had been completely erased from his mind, his gaze did not come over his shoulder while he left the banquet hall with his fiancée.

Thalia felt the madness that had been ruling her drain away all at once.

Despair, pain, and jealousy filled the empty space it left behind.

But even amid the pain that felt as though her intestines were rotting away, she pretended to be composed.

With a convincing triumphant smile on her face, as though she had won, Thalia walked toward the terrace where wine and food had been laid out.

Then people moved aside in a rush, as though avoiding something unpleasant.

She paid them no mind and picked up a new wineglass with an elegant motion.

But before she could even drink two sips, Count Serian, who had been watching their scuffle from far away, hurried over and snatched the glass away.

“You had better leave the banquet hall immediately.”

“Why?”

She spoke calmly as she reached toward a plate of pomegranates.

“Did you not hear Her Highness the First Princess tell me to enjoy the banquet to my heart’s content? I have not enjoyed it enough yet.”

“I do admire Your Highness’s nerve, but behind you, a dangerous beast is glaring at you as though he might pounce at any moment.”

The count gestured toward the Crown Prince with his eyes.

Just as he said, Gareth looked as though he might start swinging a sword at any moment.

Thick veins stood taut on his sun-tanned bronze neck, and the tightly clenched muscles of his jaw were twitching faintly.

It was clear he was barely suppressing his temper, which seemed about to explode.

Normally, she would have provoked that brother even further and induced him to commit some terrible atrocity, but now she did not have the energy left for that.

Thalia stopped putting on a brave front and placed her hand on Count Serian’s forearm.

At a speed quick enough not to seem as though she was fleeing, he swiftly led her out of the banquet hall.

A carriage was already waiting in front of the garden.

When the guard knight opened the door as though he had been waiting, Thalia stepped onto the footboard and climbed up.

Then, just as she was about to sink into the soft seat, someone shoved her body roughly.

Thalia collapsed onto the floor and looked up.

Gareth, who had pushed past her guard knight and thrust his head into the carriage, was shooting her a murderous glare.

“We are barely enduring your existence.”

He growled and wrapped his rough, callused hand around her throat.

The guard knight could not bring himself to lay a hand on the Crown Prince and only shouted, asking what he was doing.

Gareth ignored the buzzing knight and strangled her even harder with both hands.

Thalia instinctively thrashed her legs and dug her nails into the back of her brother’s hands, where the tendons bulged.

But with rage having turned his eyes, he seemed no longer able to feel pain.

Gareth spat the words into her ear as though chewing them up.

“For a very long time, at that. We have endured, endured, and endured again.”

The Crown Prince’s vivid green eyes shone like flames.

“So you need not scratch at us any further, little sister. We already hate you enough...”

Gareth finally released his hands and straightened up.

Thalia wrapped both hands around her throat and inhaled violently.

Because coughs kept bursting out, it was not easy to breathe.

As she gasped harshly with her face flushed red, the Crown Prince’s sinister voice stabbed into her eardrums.

“Remember this. Your mother strutting around, and a filthy bastard like you rampaging through the imperial palace, are only temporary.”

Then, kindly enough, he closed the carriage door himself and left.

As Thalia tried to stagger to her feet, she noticed that two of the nails she had carefully sharpened had broken, and she furrowed her brow.

Sticky blood had gathered at the tips of the dangling nails.

She fondly stroked it and muttered in a voice that had gone hoarse.

“...I will have to grow them again.”

This time, I will sharpen them even more.

So they can pierce all the way to the bone.

A breathy laugh slipped from her mouth like air leaking out.

She herself did not know why she was laughing.

The useless guard knight, who had urgently thrown open the door to check whether she was safe, looked down at her with a stunned expression.

In his eyes, she seemed to look insane.

Perhaps that thought was right.

I must have gone insane a long time ago.

She lay down on the dark carriage floor and giggled for a long while.

---

The entire imperial palace was in an uproar.

In a few days, the First Princess and the Crown Prince would set out on a pilgrimage.

It was a custom that the descendants of Darian, the great emperor who had unified the Ten Kingdoms into one, had to perform after becoming adults.

Usually, women left on the journey before marriage, and men after turning twenty.

But at the Crown Prince’s insistence that it was only natural for two people born on the same day at the same hour to receive God’s blessing on the same day, luggage for both of them was prepared.

And in order to escort the two people who held the highest status in the Empire after the Emperor and Empress, an elite unit of the Imperial Palace Knights was deployed.

Naturally, the one placed in overall command of this expedition was Varkas, who held the position of commander of the Guard.

Thanks to that, Thalia could often see him busily moving around the castle courtyard through the window of the detached palace.

Today as well, he was checking the condition of the weapons, horses, and various travel equipment while being drenched by the drizzling rain.

Thalia lay across the windowsill and watched him without even blinking.

Varkas lifted his head and looked at the sky, as though trying to gauge the time.

The sight of the silver rain softly covering his face filled her vision.

The day she fell in love with him had been rainy like this as well.

Thalia recalled that day.