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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support ‌‌‌our team ‌‌and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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‌‌‌
Chapter 11
After that day, Talia found herself unable ‌‌‌to eat nearly everything. She simply could not trust what might be hidden inside the food.
The Nursemaid grew frustrated, unable to understand, convinced that I was ‌‌merely being difficult and picky.
Talia offered no explanation, surviving instead on the fruits and honey the Nursemaid brought her in small portions as treats.
Loneliness and solitude were no longer her greatest concerns. In the most lavish and ‌‌‌‌opulent place in the world, she had to wage war against hunger itself.
There were days when her hunger became so unbearable that she reluctantly reached for the food the servants placed before her. Yet without fail, the dishes contained insects, rodents, or sometimes writhing clumps of fur whose origin she could never determine.
After experiencing such horrors several ‌‌‌times, she reached a point where she could not ‌‌bring herself to eat anything at all. Within weeks, her once-healthy frame withered away into a ‌‌‌‌pitiful shadow.
By this point, even the obtuse Nursemaid seemed to sense that something had gone terribly wrong. She hurried to The Empress and insisted that her only daughter appeared to be ‌‌wasting away to ‌death.
Thanks to this intervention, Talia was able to ‌‌see her mother's face for the first time in months.
"How did you end up looking like this?"
It was the first thing Senebier said upon visiting the Secondary ‌‌Palace, as though she had completely forgotten her daughter's existence.
Talia gazed at her mother, who bloomed with vitality like a summer flower, so radiant and ‌‌‌carefree—a stark contrast to her own ravaged appearance. Her eyes grew red with tears. Witnessing ‌‌such ‌‌‌innocent, crystalline beauty filled her with a surge of bitter anguish.
She had intended to rage at her mother, to scream accusations about her selfishness. But the moment she opened her mouth, sobs erupted instead.
Like an infant, Talia wept and poured out everything that had happened. She confessed every cruel atrocity committed by the Secondary Palace servants, every torment she had ‌‌endured, ‌‌‌from beginning to end. Throughout her entire account, Senebier sat beside the bed in silence, listening.
Talia believed her mother was maintaining silence to suppress her rage—that she was simply at a loss for words in the face of such horrors inflicted upon her only daughter.
So Talia shook her mother's arm urgently and demanded:
"Mother! Please don't let them torment me anymore! You must take action ‌‌immediately to ensure no one can ever hurt ‌‌‌me again!"
"Why should I?"
Senebier tilted her head with a puzzled expression.
Talia was utterly stunned by this unexpected response. Her mother's face held only pure curiosity—she genuinely could not fathom why her exhausted, abused child would come ‌‌‌to her for help.
"Talia, this palace is yours, ‌‌‌‌and all the servants in this castle are your possessions. You're nine years old now. How can you come crying to your mother because you ‌can't properly manage your own belongings?"
Talia was rendered completely speechless.
Senebier cradled her own cheek in one hand and sighed with genuine disappointment.
"You are the Emperor's daughter. I truly cannot understand why you are passively suffering at the hands of such insignificant creatures. The fact that my daughter is this clumsy and weak is genuinely appalling to me."
"Mother...."
Senebier gazed thoughtfully at the candle flickering on the windowsill. Her disturbingly beautiful face showed not a trace of ‌‌‌anger toward the abuse her daughter had suffered—only a faint disappointment, mild exasperation, and the ‌‌‌contemplative expression of someone pondering ‌‌how to enlighten her deficient child.
Talia felt as though she were facing an insect that had merely assumed a convincing human form.
After a long silence, Senebier snapped her fingers and spoke.
"Here's what we'll do. I'll leave you with a capable bodyguard. He's a Nobleman I've trained thoroughly over many years. If you handle him properly, ‌‌‌he'll prove quite useful."
She rose from her seat as though all problems had been solved.
Talia desperately seized the hem of her mother's garment.
"I don't need such a person! ‌I want to be with you, Mother!"
At this desperate cry, a flicker of disgust crossed Senebier's face. Talia went pale with shock.
Senebier carefully pried away ‌‌‌each of her daughter's fingers from her garment, then bent down toward her. With genuine pity, she clicked her tongue.
"Talia, all of this began with me. Yet do you know why people don't put rats in my soup?"
Talia froze like a mouse ‌‌before a serpent, unable to utter a single word.
Senebier continued softly.
"Why is my bathwater always warm and fragrant? Why is my table always abundant? Why do they not dare inflict upon me what they ‌do to you? Shall I tell you the secret, dear?"
Her blood-red lips brushed gently against Talia's ‌ear. ‌
"They fear me, so they ‌dare not attempt such things. Some among them even regard me with reverence. Of ‌‌course, countless others harbor disgust and contempt toward me. Yet even they view me as something to be wary of, not as a target for abuse. Because I am ‌‌‌‌an exceedingly threatening presence."
She stared directly into her daughter's eyes, and Talia glimpsed something damp and murky coiling within Senebier's gaze.
Senebier straightened her posture and left her final counsel.
"Remember this well. That which is strong ‌‌and beautiful becomes the object ‌‌‌of fear and envy. But that which is beautiful ‌‌‌and weak becomes prey all too easily—especially within these walls ‌‌‌of the Imperial Palace. If you wish ‌‌‌to avoid ‌‌‌‌‌being trampled mercilessly by the countless beasts that will come to devour you, it would be wise to conceal your weakness at ‌‌all costs."
With those words, she departed, leaving ‌‌‌behind her fragile daughter in the darkness.
That night, I ‌‌‌‌‌turned her words over and over in my mind.
The weak are trampled. And Senebier seemed to have not the slightest intention of ‌protecting her young daughter from being crushed without mercy.
Was this ‌‌how a defeated soldier felt, stripped of even their final refuge? My entire body trembled with the terror of what horrors might yet befall me.
Even if I were treated more harshly than ‌‌‌‌I am now, no one would shield me. With my own mother turning away, ‌‌‌why would The Emperor spare a glance for a bastard child—a blemish on his honor?
I curled myself into a ball beneath ‌‌the blankets, anxiously gnawing at my fingernails. The servants' feet—those I had glimpsed when I lay prostrate on the Dining Hall floor, retching—flickered before my eyes.
The indifferent feet that had ‌‌hurried past me as I sprawled in such wretchedness. I could all too easily imagine those feet trampling me like a worthless insect.
My eyes burned with heat. Mother was right. Soon I will be crushed into nothingness.
And I ‌‌‌brought myself to this precipice by choosing to be a criminal. My guilt has made me ‌‌‌‌weak.
When I began to adopt a ‌‌‌helpless demeanor, as though I deserved whatever befell me, ‌‌‌‌they instinctively sensed that I would not resist. In ‌my shrunken posture, my cowed gaze, my faltering voice—they discovered the shape of weakness and began their cruelty in earnest. ‌‌
As dawn finally broke, I understood with absolute clarity what ‌‌‌I must do.

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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please ‌‌read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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