Chapter 6 :

Chapter 6

It had been less than fifteen days since she left the Taren family’s castle and entered the imperial palace.

Her mother was delighted that her daughter’s name had finally been entered into the imperial genealogy, but Thalia simply hated having come to an unfamiliar place.

When Senevier’s attention became focused only on redecorating the castle, Thalia’s anxiety grew even worse.

Unlike what her mother had told her, the imperial palace was only bleak and frightening.

Everywhere she went, sharp gazes followed her, and those who attended her were colder than the servants of the Taren family.

She felt like a child who had lost her place to go.

So whenever she had the chance, she secretly slipped out of her room and wandered near the detached palace.

She especially often wandered near the rear garden, but because Senevier had pulled out every flower and tree in the entire castle, saying she would erase the traces of the former empress, the garden was a complete mess.

At least at the entrances of the main palace and the detached palace, rose trees and colorful, splendid shrubs had begun to fill the empty spaces one by one, but in the backyard, where the landscaping work had not yet been finished, only piles of dirt were scattered in disorder.

Thanks to that, no one came there.

Whenever Thalia grew tired of people’s whispers or stinging glares, she would spend time blankly in a corner of the ruined rear garden.

That day as well, she had come out to the backyard of the detached palace to avoid the bothersome nanny and the maid who had said she would do her hair, only to jab her scalp roughly with a sharp comb.

Because of the rain that had begun falling at noon, not a single worker could be seen in the garden.

Thalia crouched in a corner of the empty rear garden where no one was and stared endlessly at the falling raindrops.

How long had she been like that?

From somewhere, a small whistling sound could be heard.

After looking around for a moment with a puzzled expression, Thalia moved toward the outer edge of the castle as though drawn by something while being drenched in the steady rain.

In the place where a large, beautiful tree had stood until that morning, only a deep pit had been dug.

Thalia approached the tall pile of dirt and looked down.

A small bird was floundering in the mud, letting out a pitiful cry.

Did it fall from the tree?

The bird looked as though it would not be strange if it died at any moment.

Heavy raindrops were striking its soaked brown body without pause, and clumps of dark-red mud like tar were stickily swallowing its bony legs and shabby wings.

The bird’s persistent cries, too, had at some point turned into a faint trembling.

Thalia silently looked down at the sight with her knees bent, then unknowingly stepped into the pit.

It was a foolish thing to do.

Even though she stepped carefully, the ground, soaked through with rainwater and turned swamp-like, swallowed her shoe in an instant.

She twisted her body to pull her foot free.

Then she lost her balance and slipped into the mud.

Thalia, who had fallen as though toppling headfirst into a puddle, felt the fishy muddy water seep between her lips and shook her head irritably.

The green dress the nanny had newly made for her had become a mess, and mud was tangled even in her neatly braided hair.

Annoyance surged up in her.

She stood up and muttered a small curse.

Who cares about some bird?

I only did something stupid for nothing...

As she grumbled and tried to climb out of the pit, she heard the faint cry again.

It was so weak that one would not notice it without listening carefully, but to Thalia it sounded as though the bird was screaming.

In the end, she took a few more steps across the black puddle.

Then she saw a shabby brown wing submerged in the muddy water and a small head hanging limply.

...Did it die already?

When she picked up the young bird with careful hands, she felt its tiny water-soaked body faintly pulsing.

It was still alive.

She wrapped the lukewarm body in both hands and blew warm breath onto it.

The bird, which had been hanging limp, opened and closed its small brown beak and pitifully fluttered its bony wings.

It seemed to be struggling desperately to live.

As she watched it, something tightened painfully in her chest.

Thalia did not know what that emotion was.

She did not know why the young bird, which had lost the place it had lived and been abandoned by its mother while struggling in the mud, resting in her hands, made her heart ache.

She carefully wrapped the bird in her hands and pressed it against the hottest part below her neck.

Then she looked up helplessly at the steep slope made of slippery mud.

Because of the raindrops that were growing heavier and heavier, the pile of dirt had become even softer.

She tried taking a few steps as a test, but it seemed impossible to walk up.

To get out of here, she would have to crawl up on all fours like an animal.

Thalia pressed her lips tightly together.

She could not abandon the small bird she had gone to the trouble of saving, nor could she throw away her dignity as a princess and crawl through the mud like livestock.

So Thalia stood still for a long while, being struck by the cold rain that drizzled down.

It was then.

A boy appeared through the pale rain falling like mist.

He was very tall, wearing a black robe like the ones monks wore, with a hood pulled low over his head.

But Thalia could clearly see his pale-blue eyes shining beyond the white curtain of pouring rain.

They were terribly beautiful eyes.

“What are you doing there?”

The blue-eyed boy bent toward her and asked.

It was a cold voice that did not suit his delicate face, which still held traces of youth.

Thalia felt a shiver run down her spine.

At the time, she thought it was only because of the cold.

But thinking back on it now, the moment she heard that voice, she seemed to have vaguely sensed it.

That the indifferent-faced boy looking down at her would push her life into hellish suffering...

If she had clearly realized the nature of that distant feeling on that day, Thalia would have thrown the small bird pitifully gasping in her hands into the muddy water and crawled up the mud on all fours like a pig that knew neither filth nor shame.

Then she would have run far, far away from the blue-eyed boy.

She would have erased even the fact that she had seen him from her mind forever.

But eight-year-old Thalia had not even dreamed that the boy who appeared in the rain would become her despair.

So she looked up at him and snapped in her usual thorny tone.

“Can’t you tell by looking? I fell into this pit and can’t get back up.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed.

He seemed to want to ask why she had gone into such a place in the first place.

But instead of asking a question, he slid into the pit where she was, not caring that his well-tailored trousers and expensive-looking leather boots were getting dirty with mud.

Thalia looked at him in surprise.

She had not expected that the boy with a cold face, who looked as though not a single drop of blood would come out if he were pricked, would do such a thing.

He strode over the muddy water that had turned into a swamp.

Seen up close, the boy looked even taller and more slender than he had from below.

He seemed to be at least a head taller than her.

The boy, who had approached her with long, supple legs, held out one hand and said,

“Take it.”