Chapter 11 :

Chapter 11

After that day, Thalia became unable to eat most foods.

She simply could not trust what might be inside them.

Her nanny, not knowing the reason, was frustrated.

She merely thought Thalia was being fussy.

Without explaining anything, Thalia endured by eating the fruit and honey her nanny brought little by little as snacks.

Solitude and loneliness were no longer the problem.

In the most splendid and luxurious place in the world, she had to fight against hunger.

On some days, she was so hungry that she reluctantly touched the food the servants brought.

But without fail, there were insects or rats inside the food, and sometimes even clumps of curly hair whose owner she could not possibly identify.

After experiencing that several times, she reached the point where she could no longer put anything in her mouth.

Within a few weeks, she had grown pitifully thin.

By this point, even her painfully dull nanny seemed to realize something was going wrong.

She immediately went to the Empress and made a fuss, saying her only daughter was on the verge of death.

Thanks to that, Thalia was able to see her mother’s face for the first time in months.

“How did you end up looking like that?”

Those were the first words Senevier said when she came to the detached palace for the first time, after having ignored Thalia as though she had completely forgotten her daughter existed.

Unlike her own ruined appearance, Thalia looked at her mother, who had bloomed full of life like a summer flower, and her eyes reddened.

Looking at that clear face, so innocent it seemed almost naive, resentment surged up inside her.

She had intended to get angry at her.

She had meant to shout at the top of her lungs, asking how she could know only herself like that.

But when she actually opened her mouth, sobs burst out.

Thalia cried like a newborn baby and poured out everything that had happened.

She confessed, one by one, the horrible atrocities the detached palace servants had committed and the cruel things she had been forced to endure until now.

Until the entire story was finished, Senevier simply sat beside the bed and listened silently.

Thalia thought she was staying silent because she was suppressing her anger.

She thought her mother must have been rendered speechless by the terrible things that had happened to her only daughter.

So Thalia shook her arm roughly and demanded as though pressing her,

“Mother! Stop them from tormenting me! You must take action right now so no one can ever hurt me again!”

“Why should I do that?”

Senevier tilted her head and said.

At the unexpected answer, Thalia was stunned.

Senevier’s face was filled only with pure curiosity.

She wore an expression that said she truly could not understand why her young child, exhausted from abuse, was asking her for help.

“Thalia, this palace is your palace, and all the servants in this castle are your possessions. You are nine years old now. How can you throw a tantrum at your mother because you cannot even properly handle your own belongings?”

Thalia was left utterly speechless.

Senevier cupped her own cheek with one hand and sighed, as though sincerely disappointed.

“You are the Emperor’s daughter. I truly cannot understand why you are being one-sidedly victimized by such insignificant things. It is almost bewildering that my daughter is this foolish and weak.”

“M-Mother...”

Senevier looked at the candle by the window with a thoughtful expression.

On that chillingly beautiful face, there was not the slightest trace of anger over the abuse her daughter had suffered.

There was only a little disappointment and frustration, along with a look of deep consideration over how she might enlighten her slow-witted child.

Thalia felt as though she were dealing with an insect that had convincingly imitated a human form.

After being lost in thought for a long while, Senevier snapped her fingers and said,

“Let us do this. For your sake, I will leave behind a useful guard. He is a man I have thoroughly trained for a very long time. If you handle him well, he should be quite useful.”

As though that solved every problem, she rose from her seat.

Thalia urgently grabbed the hem of her clothes.

“I don’t need someone like that! I want to be with you, Mother!”

At that desperate cry, a faint look of revulsion flashed across Senevier’s face.

Thalia turned pale with shock.

Senevier peeled away, one by one, her daughter’s fingers clinging to the hem of her clothes, then bent toward her.

Then she clicked her tongue as though she truly pitied her.

“Thalia, all of this began with me. And yet do you know why people do not put rats in my soup?”

Thalia froze like a mouse placed before a snake and could not answer.

Senevier continued softly.

“Why is my bathwater always warm and fragrant? Why is my table always abundant? Why do they not dare even think of doing to me what they do to you...? Shall Mother tell you that secret?”

Her blood-red lips gently touched Thalia’s ear.

“It is because they fear me that they do not dare do such things. Some of them even hold me in awe. Of course, there are also countless people who feel hatred and contempt toward me. But even those people see me as someone to be wary of, not someone to torment. Because I am a very threatening existence.”

She stared straight into her daughter’s eyes.

Thalia could glimpse something dark and sinister coiled inside Senevier’s eyes.

Senevier straightened herself and left behind one final piece of advice.

“Remember this. What is strong and beautiful becomes an object of fear and envy. But what is beautiful and weak often becomes an object of plunder. Especially in this imperial palace. If you do not wish to be mercilessly trampled by the countless beasts that will target you from now on, you had best at least not let them discover that you are weak.”

With those words, she left.

Leaving behind her daughter, who had become as frail as could be...

That night, Thalia chewed over her words again and again.

The weak are trampled.

And Senevier seemed to have not the slightest intention of protecting her young daughter, who would be brutally trampled.

Was this how a defeated soldier felt after losing their final stronghold?

Her whole body trembled with fear that even more terrible things might happen to her from now on.

Even if she were treated more harshly than now, no one would protect her.

Now that even her mother had turned away from her, would His Majesty the Emperor even spare a glance for the bastard child who was no different from a stain on his honor?

She curled up tightly under the blanket and anxiously bit her nails.

The servants’ feet she had seen while lying on the dining room floor and vomiting flickered in her mind.

Those indifferent feet that had busily moved around her as she lay there in misery...

It was not difficult to imagine those feet trampling her like a worthless insect.

Her eyes grew hot, as though they were burning.

Mother is right.

Soon, I will be crushed beyond recognition.

And I was driven into this situation entirely because I made myself out to be a sinner.

Guilt had made me weak.

When I began acting helpless, as though I deserved anything that was done to me, they instinctively realized I would not resist.

In my shrinking movements, in my intimidated eyes, in my hesitant way of speaking...

They discovered the shape of weakness and began to grow cruel as much as they pleased.

When dawn finally broke, Thalia clearly realized what she had to do.