***
An ant had surely crawled inside her eyelids while she slept.
Tormented by the unpleasant sensation of stinging behind her eyeballs, Thalia fixed her gaze on her half-sister.
As always, Ayla was looking down at her with an elegant appearance that did not show the slightest disorder.
Facing that lofty face made her already stinging eyes feel as though they were burning.
Thalia clenched the blanket like a shield and sent her a sharp gaze.
“Did you come to watch? If you have something to say, say it quickly and leave.”
“…How is your body?”
“How does it look?”
At the sarcastic reply, those pale green eyes slowly looked her over.
“You do not look well.”
Thalia stiffened the line of her mouth.
Her fingertips began trembling. If both her legs had been fine, she would have grabbed the woman by the hair and thrown her out the door at once.
Pressing down the anger rising inside her, she barely squeezed out a calm voice.
“If you can see that, why don’t you leave? Because of you, elder sister, my body is about to get even worse.”
Ayla’s lips closed firmly.
The longer the silence stretched, the sharper Thalia’s nerves became. As the pain she had barely managed to settle gradually climbed up through her bones, Thalia raised her voice.
“Can’t you hear me telling you to leave?”
“I said I had something I wanted to talk about.”
Ayla spoke somewhat anxiously.
Thalia glared at her with narrowed eyes.
“Then hurry up and say it, then get lost. Just seeing your face makes my insides turn. And now I have to endure you and wait for you too? Don’t be ridiculous. Either say what you came for right now, or disappear from my sight!”
As if appalled by the fierce hostility pouring out, Ayla’s face visibly hardened.
She cast a cold gaze and said,
“Fine. Then I’ll say what I came for. I came because I was curious what you plan to do from now on.”
“What do you mean, what I plan to do?”
Thalia asked back insincerely.
Her headache was growing worse and worse. The ant that had been gnawing at the back of her eyeballs now seemed to have burrowed into her skull. The stinging pain spread all the way to the back of her head.
While all her nerves were focused on that, Ayla continued chattering about something.
“Don’t play innocent. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Am I a mind reader? How would I know what you haven’t said?”
“You…!”
Ayla’s voice rose slightly.
Thalia turned her head and frowned when she saw her elder half-sister’s face twisted with humiliation.
After taking a moment to breathe, as if trying to maintain her composure, Ayla continued in a calmer voice.
“I want to ask whether you truly intend to marry that person.”
Thalia did not answer at all and merely stared at her face.
Now it seemed the one who found it difficult to endure the silence was not Thalia, but Ayla.
She continued anxiously.
“You hate Varkas. You tormented him so much ever since childhood, and now you are not saying you will become that person’s wife, are you?”
At the gaze that seemed to seek her agreement, a deflated laugh slipped out.
Ayla’s mouth stiffened.
Seeing that wretched expression, the laughter that had been leaking out intermittently gradually grew rougher.
Forgetting both the headache that felt as if her skull would split and the tingling pain climbing up her legs, Thalia clutched her stomach and burst into laughter.
“So you came running here because you were afraid?”
Ayla’s complexion had now turned almost as white as plaster.
Looking at that face as if admiring it, Thalia continued gently.
“Were you burning inside because you were afraid your fiancé would be stolen by me?”
“……”
“But what should I do? Seeing you like this makes me want to steal him no matter what it takes.”
Ayla’s lovely face twisted even more harshly. Poison also rose in the eyes that had once reminded Thalia of fresh evergreens.
Thalia was swept up in a strange exhilaration.
This was the elder sister who had always looked down on her with a flawless face. That elder sister was finally revealing raw emotion.
“He only said he would marry you out of responsibility.”
She shouted in an impatient voice.
“He merely feels guilty that you ended up with that kind of body! But it is not that person’s fault that you were hurt. So why must Varkas make such a sacrifice?”
Thalia erased the smile from her lips.
The pleasant emotion faded in an instant, and freezing anger took its place. Her fingers itched with the desire to tear out the tongue that was babbling as if Ayla were Varkas’s spokesperson.
Thalia chewed and swallowed the curses crawling up her throat, then deliberately squeezed out a gentle voice.
“I thought you were a smarter person, elder sister. But you’re more foolish than I expected.”
Ayla’s lips froze stiffly.
Thalia continued slowly.
“That is not what you should be saying to me right now. You should be ‘begging’ me, politely and earnestly.”
“Begging me not to marry Varkas Raedgo Siarkan.”
Ayla’s eyes twitched sharply.
As Thalia watched that face twisted with humiliation with a malicious gaze, Ayla wet her lips and struggled to speak.
“If I beg, will you refuse the marriage with him?”
“Well.”
Thalia answered halfheartedly.
“Doesn’t that depend on how earnest the person begging is?”
Ayla crushed her lips together and looked down at the floor. It seemed she could not bring herself to speak.
After suffocating silence flowed for some time, Ayla finally sent her a resolute gaze. Soon, a pitiful voice spilled from between her beautifully shaped pink lips.
“I beg you. Refuse the marriage with Varkas. If you do not agree, His Majesty will not push it through. So please…”
As if she could not bring herself to continue, her voice shattered and scattered.
Thalia looked up at that sorrowful face and swallowed a bitter sneer.
Right now, this woman probably thought she had given up something great.
Namely, her pride as a Princess.
Since she, a noble Princess, had lowered herself before a worthless illegitimate child, she surely thought she deserved to be repaid.
Thalia lowered her gaze to her legs hidden beneath the blanket.
Only after she had ended up in this state could she even be mentioned as his bride.
And yet this woman believed that by offering a handful of her pathetic pride, she could win him back again.
To this woman, Thalia Roem Ghirta’s legs were not even worth as much as her own pride.
Thalia abruptly spoke.
“Fine.”
Color returned to Ayla’s face.
Thalia silently looked at that face, then added calmly.
“But I have a condition.”
“A condition?”
Wariness appeared on her face.
Thalia turned her head and looked at the shelf. On the tray where fruit, bread, butter, and the like had been placed, several silver utensils were lying.
Thalia picked up the small knife used to cut butter and threw it in front of her elder half-sister.
The silver blade slid to Ayla’s feet. Toward Ayla, who looked blankly down at it, Thalia spoke softly.
“Use that to stab your leg.”
“…What?”
Ayla looked at her as if doubting her ears.
Facing those blank eyes directly, Thalia emphasized each word.
“I said use that to scar your leg. Like this…”
Thalia slowly drew back the blanket. Ayla’s widened eyes were driven down onto the hideously swollen scars.
In front of those eyes, as if showing them off, Thalia ran her fingertips up the long, grotesque mark that began at her shin.
“From here… to here, make a long cut with the knife. Then I will do as you say.”
Ayla looked back and forth between the knife on the floor and her own legs wrapped in the velvet dress. Her eyelids trembled.
Before long, a cold sneer flowed from her bloodless lips.
“You never had the slightest intention of listening to me from the start.”
Thalia made no reply.
Soon, the mask of a Princess was overlaid on Ayla’s face.
As if she had never shown such a lowly appearance, Ayla lifted her head stiffly and took a step toward the door. Her evenly continuing footsteps came to an abrupt stop at the bedroom entrance.
Ayla gripped the doorknob and looked back at her. Her swamp-like eyes emitted a chilling light.
“You will surely regret what happened today, Thalia Roem Ghirta.”
Ayla spat the words like a curse and walked out the door, adding coldly,
“Without fail.”
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