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Overcome by a strange emotion that could not be explained in words, Thalia gazed at the castle gate drawing closer little by little.
Soon, she would be freed from this dreadful pain.
Not some quack healer busy watching Gareth’s mood, but first-rate mages belonging to the Empress’s Palace would restore her to the same perfect state as before.
Moistening her parched lips, she carefully lowered her gaze and examined her body.
The body wrapped in a thin cream-colored dress could not be called beautiful, not even as empty flattery.
The crude outlines of the thick bandages wrapped from her thighs to her ankles were hideously visible over the thin hem of her skirt, and although the burn marks on her palms had healed cleanly with magic, her fingernails were still stained dark red with bruised blood.
The fact that she had practically starved herself throughout the journey, leaving her unsightly and gaunt, must also be contributing to her shabby appearance.
Suddenly, anxiety flooded in.
Will everyone laugh at me when they see me like this?
When she recalled the maids who had sneered that it served her right, cold sweat broke out down her back.
Thalia quickly drew the curtain over the window. If anyone saw her and giggled that she had received divine punishment, she felt she would not be able to keep her sanity.
She pulled up the thin linen blanket tangled on the floor and covered her head with it.
A short while later, she heard the carriage passing through the castle gate.
Peeking her head out through the gap in the blanket, Thalia listened to all the noises coming from outside. The sound of horses’ hooves and the infantrymen’s booming commands rang out noisily, and the slow melody of the funeral march became even more somber.
Amid it, the murmuring of the crowd mixed in. It sounded as though thousands of flying insects were crying all at once. Feeling her nerves gradually sharpen, Thalia pulled the blanket back up all the way over her head.
How long had she been like that? The carriage, which had been slowly rolling over the gravel path, came to a stop, and the surroundings grew even more bustling. It seemed all the servants of the Imperial Palace had come rushing out.
She sat curled up in the corner of the carriage, waiting for the commotion to come. She intended to stay holed up there until Gareth and Ayla went to have an audience with the Emperor according to the entry procedure. She did not want to show her shabby appearance to the followers of the two of them.
Thalia quietly held her breath as she rubbed her tingling legs.
Then, without warning, the door flew open, and a dark shadow invaded the inside of the carriage.
Thalia raised her head and opened her eyes wide at the familiar silhouette standing with the sunlight at her back. The nanny, who had waddled up onto the carriage, pulled her into a tight embrace with her plump arms.
“Oh, my poor Young lady. What has happened to you?”
Then she cupped Thalia’s face in her large hands, looking her over this way and that, before shedding tears as big as chicken droppings.
“How could you have grown so thin? As if being injured were not enough, your face has become half its size…”
Thalia, who had been blankly looking up at her, soon twisted her face and threw her arms around the nanny’s neck.
As she burrowed into that ample chest like a young animal seeking its mother’s arms, the nanny stroked her back up and down.
At that touch, as if soothing a newborn baby, tears suddenly burst forth. She buried her face in the curly hair that smelled of cinnamon and choked out sobs again and again.
“Nanny, I… I’m in so much pain. It hurts so much I feel like I’m going to die.”
“Do not worry. Lord Senevier will heal you completely, Young lady.”
After wiping the tears from Thalia’s cheeks, the nanny pointed to the entrance of the carriage. Thalia discovered an unfamiliar man standing by the door and hunched her shoulders.
The man, whose lower face was covered with pure white cloth, slowly looked her over with dark gray eyes rimmed in gold.
At that gaze, as if he were inspecting an object, Thalia instinctively clung to the nanny. The nanny gently patted her back and spoke as if soothing her.
“As soon as Lord Senevier heard that you had been injured, he called the mages of the Taren family. They will return you to your former appearance.”
Then, firmly prying Thalia’s hands away, she stepped aside so the mages could enter.
Watching the shadows approach her, Thalia awkwardly retreated. A wariness hardened into habit raised its head.
“I-I’ll walk on my own, so step back.”
“With those legs?”
The man with the slender build, who had been bending toward her, tilted his head. Thalia’s face reddened with humiliation.
“I have no problem getting as far as the Empress’s Palace!”
Above the veil, the man’s eyes narrowed. She was overcome by a strange unease.
The man, who had been stroking his chin as though lost in thought, suddenly grabbed her leg.
At the pain that turned her vision white, Thalia screamed. He squeezed the wound so hard that blood seeped through the bandages.
“If you try walking on legs like these and the wound bursts, we will be the ones who suffer. Do not be stubborn for no reason.”
Thalia looked up at him with eyes filled with shock.
The man removed his hand from her leg and gestured with his chin to the man waiting across from him.
“You carry her.”
The man immediately bent at the waist and slid his arms under her back. Goosebumps rose all over her body as if a snake had touched her.
Thalia twisted her upper body away from his hands and swung her arm.
“Don’t touch my body!”
The man, struck on the chin, muttered words she could not understand in a rough metallic voice. When Thalia realized it was the language used by elves, her body stiffened rigidly.
Between the hood, she saw ears that rose abnormally long, skin like plaster, and whitish hair tinged with blue. He was undoubtedly an origin elf, not a half or a quarter.
Knowing well just how inhuman they were, Thalia was seized by fear.
The two men, who had been discussing something in their own language, pressed down hard on her arms from both sides. Thalia opened her mouth to scream.
At that moment, a cold, damp hand covered her eyes, and the strength drained from her entire body. It was as though all her bones and muscles had melted away.
“You are making me waste mana for nothing.”
The man muttered softly as he removed his hand from her face. Thalia looked up at him with dilated pupils.
She wanted to shout and ask what he had done to her, but only a wheezing sound came from her throat.
Straightening his body, the man gave an order to the man sitting opposite him.
“She won’t be able to move now. Take her to the treatment room.”
The man whose chin she had struck immediately obeyed the order.
Lifted up like a sack of grain, Thalia sent a pleading look toward the nanny. But as always, the nanny reacted dully to her fear.
“Just endure it a little longer, Young lady. Everything will be all right.”
Wiping the corners of her eyes with her sleeve, the nanny hopped down from the carriage. The man carrying Thalia followed her outside.
When the intense sunlight poured into the backs of her eyes, Thalia frowned.
After blinking several times, she saw soldiers belonging to the Empress’s Palace surrounding the carriage.
As she looked them over uneasily, she saw a guard knight fidgeting beyond the soldiers lined up like a wall.
When he tried to push past the soldiers of the Empress’s Palace and approach her, the mage of the Taren family firmly stopped him.
“Your duty is over. We will take care of Her Highness the Princess, so step back.”
“But I am her guard knight. I must escort her…”
“Now that Her Highness has ended up in this state, has your qualification not already been stripped from you?”
The knight lost his words and closed his mouth. Clicking his tongue lightly, the mage pushed him aside with one hand, then crossed the chaotic open ground where the baggage wagons were lined up.
Thalia looked around in bewilderment. Before long, among the knights waiting at the entrance of the Main Palace, she was able to find faint flaxen hair. Thalia, who had almost called his name without thinking, snapped back to her senses and bit her tongue.
Varkas would never step forward for her sake.
In truth, she could not even understand why she felt the impulse to ask him for help.
These were mages sent by Senevier. They would not do anything harmful to her.
As she repeated that to herself and tried hard to suppress her anxiety, the man carrying her took a step toward him.
Seeing Varkas’s face draw gradually closer, Thalia tensed her body.
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