Chapter 13
----------------------------------------------------------------- Translator: Diva Chapter: 13 Chapter Title: The Maid's Torment -----------------------------------------------------------------
The maid lifted the spoon with trembling hands, then squeezed her eyes shut tight, unable to bring it anywhere near the bowl.
She seemed to believe, in some vague way, that if she just held out like this, she might escape. Perhaps she was even hoping someone would show up and put a stop to it.
Talia snatched a knife from the table. Then, in a voice cold as ice, she issued an order to the man.
“Fix this woman's fingers to the plate. She's spurning my sincerity like this, so I'll have to cut one off as an example.”
The man immediately seized the woman's hand and splayed it out across the silver plate. Talia gripped the tip of her index finger and hoisted the meat-carving knife high.
The maid cried out in abject horror.
“I'll eat it! I'll eat! I'll eat it all!”
The woman plunged the spoon into the bowl in desperation. Then she began greedily slurping up the broth laced with the bird's carcass.
As if convinced she could endure it without properly tasting it, she gulped down the chunks without chewing. But she barely managed five spoonfuls before vomiting it all back up.
Even at that sight, Talia pressed her.
“Eat every last bit clean. I want to see the bottom of that bowl.”
The woman's terrified gaze flew toward her amid the wrenching retches. It was no longer the look of someone eyeing something contemptible. Now it held only horror and dread.
Talia signaled with her eyes: don't stop. The maid sobbed in anguish as she ate, vomited, ate, and vomited again.
Unable even to force the rotting bird into her mouth, she shoved in only the broth time and again, only to heave it up...... Her face, smeared with blood, tears, and vomit, turned ashen. Then her eyes rolled back white, and her body thudded to the carpet.
Talia gazed down at the maid convulsing with foam at her lips, then haughtily jerked her chin at the rigid servants.
“Clean it all up.”
She flung the filthy plate at their feet and added,
“And bring fresh food for me. This time, make sure it's proper.”
After that day, the servants' vicious harassment ceased as if by magic.
The maids handled her with the caution reserved for dangerous objects, and some servants betrayed outright terror. No longer did they shoot her contemptuous glances or mutter cruel words loud enough for her to hear. Whenever Talia appeared, they all clamped their mouths shut like clams and bowed their heads furiously.
And rumors spread through the palace of the 2nd Princess's vicious temperament. Those who heard how she had brutally tortured an innocent maid who had loyally served the imperial family for over a decade clicked their tongues at the young girl's savagery.
Priests tsked that a viper's spawn had slithered into the palace, while the empire's loyal vassals fretted that this tyrannical princess might tarnish the imperial prestige.
But one person was thoroughly pleased by Talia's outrage.
It was a day with winter fast approaching. The Empress arrived at the Detached Palace in a dress as deeply blue as her own eyes.
Talia descended the stairs with a stiff face to greet her, only to halt mid-step without realizing it. The instant she saw Senevia, an unbelievable surge of longing choked her throat.
This was the mother who had turned away so heartlessly. Talia had stared at her slender back as she brusquely shook off her hand and walked away without a backward glance, vowing then and there never to love her again.
Yet when Senevia crossed the vast hall and pressed a kiss to her cheek, that vow crumbled like a sandcastle before the tide.
“Hello, Talia. You look truly beautiful today.”
A sweet scent wafted from Senevia's body—roses and lilacs mingled with the aroma of overripe fruit. It was pathetic how desperately Talia had missed that dizzying fragrance.
Senevia gazed down at her daughter's persistently shadowed face and offered a coaxing smile.
“I suppose you're quite hurt that I took so long to visit. Forgive me. It took time to prepare a special gift for you, you know?”
Talia's face clouded with unease.
“A gift...?”
“I've heard how effectively you've tamed those insolent servants. You've gladdened your mother's heart, so you deserve a reward.”
Her words trilled like a canary's song. Then she turned with elegant grace. Only then did Talia notice the boy slowly crossing the hall.
Talia held her breath. In the space of a few months, had he been formally knighted? Barkas approached in the full regalia of the Imperial Guard.
Sunlight streaming through the windows shattered atop his ash-blond hair, scattering rays in all directions. The sight pierced her retinas like shards of glass.
Senevia glided to the boy's side and extended a hand, as if proudly displaying a trophy.
“This handsome knight will protect you from now on.”
The boy halted before her and offered formal obeisance.
Those eyes, once alight with crown-worthy ambition, now flickered coldly with dagger-sharp anger and faint humiliation. No fool could miss that he hadn't come of his own volition.
He looked down at her with the gaze one might reserve for an object and spoke.
“I am Barkas Raedgo Sheerkhan.”
His voice was parched enough to chill her to the bone.
“I have been assigned to attend Your Highness until your coming-of-age ceremony.”
His tone made plain his hope that day would arrive swiftly, freeing him from this humiliating duty.
Talia gazed up at his impassive face—cold as a mask—with bewildered eyes. His icy stare, dry words, and rigid bearing dragged her back down to the realm of the worthless and despised.
She strained not to flinch, but shame burned hot at her nape, impossible to quell.
In that moment, Talia knew it for certain.
This beautiful boy would bring her not hope, but pain.
The bitterest kind.
* * *
Once the days of persistent drizzle had passed, fierce sunlight poured down, heralding the fire season.
Aila crossed the bustling inner courtyard in search of her fiancé, wiping sweat from her brow and squinting against the sting in her eyes.
The broad training ground, usually reserved for military drills, teemed with dozens of wagons, harness merchants, massive draft horses bred for hauling carts, and soldiers carting travel gear of every sort.
She frowned briefly at the bazaar-like chaos, then her eyes lit up as she spotted Barkas inspecting the warhorses near the outer walls.
Instead of the white battle garb emblematic of the Roem Knights, he wore a jet-black tunic embroidered in intricate patterns, topped with a breastplate of black iron. He looked less like an imperial knight and more like an eastern noble scion.
Aila smiled at him with pride. Once this mission ended, Barkas would leave the Imperial Guard and begin the succession rites to become Grand Duke Sheerkhan.
And she would study at his side to take her place as mistress of the grand ducal house. It had all been set in motion the day he followed her mother into the Empress Palace gardens.
Yet Aila sometimes wondered if that day would ever truly come.
Barkas was ever courteous, even affectionate at times, but she knew an unbridgeable gulf lay between them. For her, who had quietly suffered over that very distance, the idea that he would be her husband in mere months felt impossible to grasp.