The woman’s eyes flashed with anger as she chewed out each word.
“Do my words sound ridiculous to you too?”
At the fierce aura she gave off, he unconsciously took another step back.
The princess, her slender body trembling, raised her voice sharply.
“How many times do I have to tell you to leave me alone before you understand? Are my words that funny to you?”
“I only brought food because I was worried Your Highness might collapse.”
Edrick, who had flinched at the barrage of words, protested with a wronged expression.
The princess openly snorted in his face.
“Why would someone like you worry about me?”
“I am Your Highness’s guard knight. I have a duty to assist you...!”
The woman suddenly burst into laughter.
His face reddened.
It was the first time in his life he had ever been mocked like this to his face, so he had no idea how to react.
The woman looked at him as though ridiculing him and slowly continued.
“You must think I’m a complete idiot... Do you think I don’t know that the Roem Knights are no different from the Crown Prince’s loyal dogs?”
His face hardened.
She looked down contemptuously at the basket in his hand and added coldly,
“How would I know what’s inside that? What filthy thing are you trying to make me suffer by telling me to eat it?”
“I am a knight!”
Unable to endure it any longer, Edrick raised his voice.
At the first insult of this kind in his life, even his ears burned.
“Your Highness’s words are an insult not only to me, but to the entire Imperial Knights! We have sworn before God to protect the imperial family. We would never do anything that would harm Your Highness...!”
“Do you think I’ll believe that?”
He fell silent and stared at the princess’s face, which looked like a piece of ice.
She erased the smile from her lips and snapped coldly,
“If you want to curry favor, go do it with my half-siblings. I don’t need it.”
Then she ended the conversation by slamming the door shut with a bang.
He tightened his grip on the basket.
If he did not, he felt as though he would immediately fling the door open and shout at her to stop being so stubborn.
Edrick glared at the carriage door with boiling eyes, then soon turned away.
He had done enough.
He had no intention of trying hard to persuade a woman who openly insulted and treated him with hostility.
Edrick placed the basket down almost as if throwing it onto the shelf set up in front of the common tent, then walked toward the place where food was being distributed.
The knights were already gathered in the field and eating.
Edrick sat among his comrades, piled food generously onto his plate, and began wolfing it down.
All while repeating to himself that he did not care whether that wicked woman starved or not...
***
Thalia, who had been tossing and turning endlessly in the darkness, carefully sat up.
When she drew back the curtain from the window, she saw a few lanterns carried by the knights on watch glowing faintly in the darkness.
Everything else was submerged in pitch-black night.
Thalia raised her head and looked up at the moonless black sky, then carefully stepped out of the carriage.
For several days, she had endured on only a few pieces of bread and some fruit preserved in honey, so there was no strength in her arms and legs.
Perhaps it would have been better to eat the food that foolish knight had brought her.
He did not look intelligent enough to plot some scheme, so had she been too wary?
Thalia recalled the knight’s simple-minded face, then soon erased that thought from her mind.
Had she not learned well that people who approached with harmless faces were the very type who should never be trusted?
Perhaps he was planning to lower her guard before doing something horrible.
She looked warily at the knights standing guard near the fence, then moved forward cautiously.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the triangular roofs of tents, the long line of baggage wagons, and the shapes of horses became faintly visible.
She walked carefully between the tents, making sure not to trip over stones.
She felt the wind blowing down from the hill slip between the folds of her clothes.
Along with the thick fishy smell of grass, the scent of half-burned firewood tickled her nose.
Thalia relied on her senses and crept through the darkness.
At last, she was able to find her attendants’ quarters.
After narrowing her eyes and confirming for a long while that she had found the right place, Thalia groped her way up onto the nearest baggage wagon.
Then she curled herself into a ball among the stacks of bundles and stared intently at the entrance of the tent.
Her plan was to watch whether the intelligence agent Mother had planted would begin acting tonight.
She hugged her knees and watched the darkness without blinking.
From time to time, she could hear soldiers snoring or grinding their teeth.
She also heard horses snorting and the chirping of insects.
She had not known night could be so noisy.
She painfully counted each minute and second while trying to soothe her nerves, which were on edge to the point of pain.
How long had she been holding her breath like that?
The black sky slowly began to brighten into navy blue.
Apparently, tonight was going to pass quietly.
She carefully moved her stiff body and stretched her joints.
Every bone seemed to crack and scream.
Just as she was massaging her tingling arms and legs and barely swallowing a groan, she saw a dark shadow walk out from inside the tent.
She narrowed her eyes.
Because the surroundings were dark, she could not see the face, but she could clearly tell that it was a slender woman.
Thalia barely forced her creaking body up and followed the shadow.
After walking for a long while along the line of carriages, Ayla’s carriage came into view.
She rubbed her palms, damp with cold sweat, against the hem of her clothes.
How wonderful it would be if that woman slipped into that carriage.
If she did what Thalia had to do in her place.
Thalia stared at the woman’s back with that desperate wish.
But the woman passed straight by Ayla’s carriage and moved toward the end of the long campsite.
When Thalia shifted her gaze there, her face hardened.
The flag of House Siarkan, embroidered with the emblem of a black horse, was fluttering in front of a tent.
She hurriedly ran there.
But in the brief moment she had looked away, the woman had already vanished without a trace.
Thalia urgently searched between the tents, then looked at the entrance of the tent with growing dread.
Could she have gone inside there?
Her heart sank.
If Ayla and Varkas were joined like this, Gareth’s position would become even more solid.
House Siarkan was a family that wielded powerful influence not only in the East, but also in the North.
If Ayla became Grand Duchess Siarkan, Gareth would have the noble alliance at his back.
There was every possibility that Senevier had decided to remove Varkas in order to prevent that situation.
Having thought that far, Thalia rushed into Varkas’s tent as though being chased by something.
She could not think rationally at all.
Thalia urgently looked around the tent, where darkness lay thick, then pulled back the partition in the center.
The bed was empty.
He was someone who began his day before dawn even broke, so he was probably inspecting the campsite or checking Tork’s condition.
That judgment crossed her mind, but her anxiety did not easily settle.
She fumbled over the empty bed, checking to see if there were any bloodstains.
Then, hearing heavy footsteps, she suddenly raised her head.
At the entrance of the tent stood a large man.
Thinking Varkas had come, Thalia hurried toward him, then flinched and stopped walking.
Gareth, dressed lightly, was looking at her with surprised eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
He raised the corners of his eyes sharply and looked her up and down.
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