Chapter 13 :

Chapter 13

The maid lifted the spoon with trembling hands, but as if she could not bring herself to place it over the bowl, she squeezed her eyes shut.

She seemed to vaguely believe that if she endured like that, she would be able to escape.

Or perhaps she was expecting someone to appear and stop this.

Thalia snatched up the knife lying on the table.

Then, in a cold voice, she gave the man an order.

“Hold this woman’s finger down on the plate. Since she is ignoring my sincerity like this, I should cut off one of her fingers as an example.”

The man immediately seized the woman’s hand and spread it out on the silver plate.

Thalia grabbed the tip of the woman’s index finger and raised the meat knife high.

Then the maid screamed in terror.

“I’ll eat it! I’ll eat it! I’ll eat it all!”

The woman hastily dipped the spoon into the bowl.

Then she began greedily spooning up the soup that contained the bird’s corpse.

As though believing she could endure it if she did not properly taste it, the woman swallowed without even chewing the ingredients properly.

But before she could get past five spoonfuls, she vomited up everything she had eaten.

Even seeing that, Thalia urged her on.

“Eat it all without leaving a single bit. I should be able to see the bottom of the bowl.”

The woman’s terrified gaze flew toward her as she retched.

It was no longer the gaze of someone looking at something contemptible.

It was the gaze of someone looking at something horrible and frightening.

Thalia gave a silent command with her eyes, telling her not to stop.

The maid sobbed miserably as she repeated eating and vomiting, eating and vomiting again.

As though she could not bring herself to put the rotting bird into her mouth, she only shoved the broth into her mouth and vomited it back up several times...

Her face, smeared with blood, tears, and vomit, turned ashen, and soon her eyes rolled back until the whites showed.

The woman’s body collapsed onto the carpet with a heavy thud.

Thalia silently looked down at the maid, who was foaming at the mouth and convulsing, then arrogantly jerked her chin at the servants frozen stiff.

“Clean everything up.”

Then she threw the dirty plate at their feet and added,

“And bring me new food to eat. This time, you had better bring something proper.”

After that day, the servants’ vicious harassment stopped as though it had been a lie.

The maids treated her carefully, as though handling something dangerous, and some servants even showed extreme fear.

They no longer sent her contemptuous gazes or whispered cruel words loudly enough for her to hear.

Whenever Thalia appeared, everyone was busy clamping their mouths shut like shells and bowing their heads.

And in the imperial palace, rumors spread about the Second Princess’s vicious nature.

People who heard how brutally she had tortured an innocent maid who had served the imperial family loyally for more than ten years clicked their tongues at the cruelty of the young girl.

The priests clicked their tongues, saying a viper’s offspring had crawled into the imperial family, and the Empire’s loyal subjects voiced concern that the violent princess might damage the authority of the imperial family.

However, there was also someone who was pleased with Thalia’s atrocity.

It was one day with winter just before their eyes.

The Empress came to the detached palace wearing a dress as dark blue as her own eyes.

Thalia, who had been descending the stairs with a stiff face to greet her, unknowingly stopped in her tracks.

The moment she saw Senevier, unbelievably, longing choked her throat.

Her mother had turned away from her so cruelly.

Watching her slender back as she coldly shook off Thalia’s hand and leisurely walked away, Thalia had firmly vowed never to love that person again.

But when Senevier crossed the wide hall and kissed her on the cheek, that resolve crumbled like a sandcastle before a wave.

“Hello, Thalia. You look truly beautiful today.”

Senevier’s body smelled of roses, lilacs, and the sweetness of ripe fruit.

It was miserable to realize that she had missed this dizzying scent to death.

Senevier looked down at her daughter’s dark face, which showed no sign of smoothing out, and smiled as though coaxing her.

“You must be very upset that I have come to visit after so long. Forgive me. I was preparing a special gift for you, so it took some time.”

Thalia looked anxious.

“A gift...?”

“I heard how effectively you tamed those ill-mannered servants. Since you pleased this mother’s heart, you should receive a reward.”

She spoke in a voice like a canary’s song, then turned gracefully.

Only then did Thalia notice a boy slowly crossing the hall.

Thalia stopped breathing.

Perhaps he had formally received his knighthood during the past few months, because Varkas was approaching in the uniform of the Imperial Guard.

The sunlight streaming through the window shattered over his ash-blond hair and scattered light in every direction.

The sight seemed to pierce her vision like shards of glass.

Senevier approached the boy’s side and spread out one hand as though showing off a trophy.

“He is a handsome knight who will protect you from now on.”

The boy stopped before her and offered a bow.

The two eyes that had once shone with a crown inside them now coldly wavered with dagger-like anger and faint humiliation.

Unless one was a fool, it was obvious that he had not come here of his own will.

The boy looked down at her with eyes like he was looking at an inanimate object and said,

“I am Varkas Raedgo Siarkan.”

His voice was so dry it sent a chill down her spine.

“I will serve at Your Highness’s side until you hold your coming-of-age ceremony.”

His tone said that he hoped that day would arrive as soon as possible, so he could escape this humiliating duty.

Thalia looked up helplessly at his cold face, which seemed to be wearing a mask.

His cold gaze, dry tone, and rigid attitude once again reduced her to a worthless and contemptible existence.

She struggled not to shrink back, but there was no way to stop the back of her neck from burning hot with shame.

In that moment, Thalia clearly realized it.

This beautiful boy would not become her hope, but her pain.

And a terribly cruel one at that.

***

When the rain that had fallen steadily for several days stopped, intense sunlight began to pour down, as though announcing the Season of Fire.

Ayla, who was crossing the bustling courtyard to find her fiancé, wiped away the beads of sweat on her forehead and narrowed her dazzled eyes.

The wide open ground usually used for military training was packed with dozens of baggage wagons, horse-gear merchants, sturdy packhorses specially bred to pull carts, and soldiers transporting all kinds of equipment necessary for travel.

After frowning for a moment at the scene that resembled a marketplace, Ayla spotted Varkas checking the condition of a warhorse at the outer edge of the castle wall and her eyes lit up.

Instead of the white combat uniform symbolizing the Roem Knights, he wore a breastplate made of black iron over a pitch-black tunic embroidered with an intricate pattern.

He looked less like a knight belonging to the imperial family and more like a noble lord of the East.

Ayla smiled proudly as she looked at him.

Once this mission was over, Varkas would leave the Guard and begin the succession procedure to become Grand Duke Siarkan.

And she would study by his side to become the mistress of the grand ducal house.

That was the future that had been planned ever since he followed his mother into the garden of the Empress’s Palace.

But Ayla sometimes found herself seized by doubt over whether such a day would truly come.

Varkas was always courteous, and at times even gentle, but Ayla knew there was an unbridgeable distance between them.

For Ayla, who had suffered inwardly because of that distance, it was difficult to believe that he would become her husband in a few months.