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Chapter 13
The handmaid's trembling fingers lifted the spoon, yet she found herself unable to bring it to the bowl. Her eyes squeezed shut as though sheer willpower alone might grant her escape.
She seemed to believe that if she simply endured, deliverance would come—perhaps someone would appear and stop this. Perhaps she harbored such desperate ‌‌‌hope.
Talia seized the knife resting upon the table with sudden violence. ‌‌‌‌Then, her voice turned glacial as she issued her command to the nobleman.
"Pin this woman's hand upon the plate. Since she dares disregard my goodwill, I shall make an example—I'll sever one of her fingers."
The nobleman immediately seized the woman's hand and spread it across the silver plate. Talia grasped the tip of the woman's index finger and raised the carving knife high.
The handmaid shrieked in terror.
"I'll eat it! I'll eat! I'll eat everything!"
The woman frantically plunged her spoon into the bowl and began devouring the broth containing the bird's carcass with desperate haste.
As though believing she could endure it if she didn't truly ‌taste it, she swallowed the chunks without proper chewing. Yet before she could manage five spoonfuls, she vomited everything back up.
Witnessing this, Talia pressed on relentlessly.
"Eat every last bit. I want to see the bottom of the bowl."
The woman's gaze, ‌‌trembling with revulsion and terror, fixed upon her. ‌‌‌No longer did her eyes hold contempt—they now reflected something horrific and dreadful.
Talia commanded silently with a glance: do not stop. ‌‌‌‌‌The handmaid wept bitterly as she cycled through eating and retching, eating and retching again.
Unable to stomach the putrefying bird, she forced only the broth into her mouth before expelling ‌‌‌it—countless times. Her face, smeared with blood, tears, and vomit, turned ashen, and ‌‌her eyes rolled back into her ‌‌‌‌skull. ‌‌‌Her body collapsed upon the carpet with a dull thud.
Talia gazed down at the convulsing handmaid, foam flecking ‌‌‌her lips, then ‌‌cast an arrogant glance toward the servants standing rigid with shock.
"Clean ‌‌this up. All of it."
She hurled the soiled plate at their feet and added coldly:
"And bring me fresh food. This time, bring something properly prepared."
From that ‌‌‌day forward, the ‌‌‌servants' relentless torment ceased as though it had never existed.
The handmaids ‌now treated her with the caution one reserves ‌‌‌for dangerous ‌‌objects, and some servants displayed outright terror. They no longer cast ‌‌‌‌contemptuous glances her way, nor did they whisper cruel remarks within earshot. When Talia appeared, all fell silent ‌‌‌as clams and ‌‌bowed their heads in haste.
And throughout the Imperial Palace, rumors of ‌‌the Second Imperial Princess's vicious nature spread like wildfire. Those who heard how brutally she had tortured an innocent handmaid who had served the Imperial Family faithfully for over a decade ‌‌‌clicked their tongues at the young girl's cruelty.
The Priests condemned her as a viper's spawn that had slithered into the Imperial Family, while the Imperial Loyalists expressed concern that this savage princess might tarnish the authority of the Imperial House.
Yet there was one who found satisfaction in Talia's actions. ‌‌‌‌
It was a day when winter loomed near. The Empress, dressed in a gown as deep blue as her own gaze, visited the Secondary Palace.
As Talia descended the stairs with a rigid expression to greet her, she found herself stopping mid-step. The moment she beheld Senebier, her throat constricted with longing—a sensation she could scarcely believe.
This was the mother who had turned away so cruelly. ‌‌Watching her delicate back recede with such ‌‌indifference after brushing ‌away her hand, Talia had sworn never to love her again.
But when Senebier crossed the grand hall and pressed a kiss to her cheek, that resolve crumbled like a sandcastle before the tide.
"Hello, Talia. You look absolutely beautiful today."
Senebier's presence carried the scent of roses, lilacs, and the sweet fragrance of ‌‌‌ripe fruit. The fact that I ‌‌had yearned so desperately for this dizzying perfume was utterly pathetic.
Senebier gazed down at her daughter's ‌‌‌dark, unyielding expression and offered ‌‌a melancholic smile.
"It seems your heart has been wounded by my long absence. Forgive me. It took time to prepare ‌‌a special gift for you."
Talia's expression grew uneasy.
"A gift...?"
"I've heard how effectively you've trained those ill-mannered servants. Since you've pleased this mother's heart, you deserve ‌‌‌‌a reward."
She spoke in a voice like a canary's song and ‌‌‌‌turned her body with elegant grace. Only then did a young man slowly crossing the grand hall come into view.
Talia's breath caught. Within mere months, Barcas had received his formal knighthood and now approached in the uniform of the Imperial Guard Corps.
Sunlight piercing through ‌‌‌‌the windows shattered across his ash-blonde hair, scattering brilliance in all directions. The sight felt like shards of glass piercing her retinas.
Senebier moved beside the young man and spread one hand as though displaying a prize.
"A handsome knight to protect you from now on."
The boy stopped before her and bowed.
Those eyes that once shone with the brilliance of a crown now flickered with the cold gleam of a dagger's edge—a mixture of sharp fury and faint humiliation. Anyone with even a modicum of sense would have recognized that he had not come here ‌‌‌of his own ‌‌‌volition.
The boy looked down at her with eyes that regarded her as ‌‌nothing more than an inanimate ‌‌object.
"I am Barcas Laedgo Sierchan."
His voice was so parched and hollow it ‌‌‌‌sent a chill down her spine. ‌‌‌‌
"I have been assigned to attend to Your Highness until your coming-of-age ceremony."
The unspoken longing in his tone was clear—that the day would arrive swiftly, freeing him from this humiliating duty.
Talia looked up at ‌‌‌his cold, mask-like face with helpless eyes. His frigid gaze, his arid tone, his rigid demeanor—all of it reduced her once more to something insignificant and contemptible.
Though she fought desperately not to shrink away, the heat of shame rising through her neck was utterly beyond her control.
In that moment, Talia understood with crystalline ‌‌clarity.
This beautiful boy would not be ‌‌‌her hope—he would be her torment.
A most ‌‌terrible torment at that.
* * *
After ‌‌days of drizzling ‌‌‌‌rain finally ceased, an intense sun began to bear down as if heralding the season of fire.
Ayla, crossing the bustling Courtyard in search of her betrothed, wiped away the ‌‌‌‌‌beads of sweat gathering on her ‌‌brow and squinted against the blinding light.
The vast Training Ground, ordinarily used for ‌‌military drills, was now packed with dozens of supply wagons, horse merchants, massive beasts of burden specially bred to pull cargo, and soldiers transporting the various equipment necessary for travel.
Her frown at the marketplace-like spectacle was fleeting; Ayla's eyes brightened as she spotted Barcas inspecting the condition of the war ‌‌horses at the Castle Walls Exterior.
Rather than the white battle garb that symbolized the Roem Knights, he wore a black tunic embroidered with intricate patterns, over which was fastened a breastplate forged from blackened steel. He appeared less a knight ‌of the Imperial Family and more an Eastern nobleman.
Ayla gazed upon him with a satisfied smile. Once this mission was complete, Barcas ‌‌‌would leave the Royal Guard and begin the succession procedures to become Grand Duke Sierchan.
And she would study at his ‌side to become the lady of the ducal house. It was a future that had been ordained since the day he ‌‌followed his mother into the Garden of the Empress Palace.
Yet Ayla sometimes found herself plagued by doubt—whether such a day would ever truly come.
Barcas had always been courteous, occasionally even tender in his manner, but Ayla knew there existed a distance between them that could not be bridged. Having suffered in silence over that very distance for so long, she found it difficult to believe that in mere months he would become her husband.

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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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