Chapter 30
----------------------------------------------------------------- Translator: Diva Chapter: 30 Chapter Title: Desperate Indulgences -----------------------------------------------------------------
After that day, Talia began struggling to break free from the love that had hardened into a long-standing habit. She'd fought before to carve out her feelings for him, but never with this level of desperation.
She shoved the dress he'd chosen deep into the closet and dug out the one he'd frowned at the instant he laid eyes on it, slipping it on. And she started attending the regular banquets held at the Empress Palace.
Naturally, her escort knight Barkas had no choice but to follow her into those debauched feasts of nighttime revelry.
For a man who had received the education of a monastic scholar until the age of fourteen, it must have been a deeply contemptible scene. It wasn't comfortable for Talia either. Amid a hall filled with her mother's worshippers, she was treated like a miniature replica of Senevia.
They saw Talia—the fresh young girl with the Empress's face—as an intriguing plaything. More than a few showed bold interest. A fierce sense of humiliation rose within her at being treated like a stand-in for her mother, but Talia pretended to revel in the attention showered upon her.
She wanted to flaunt it to Barkas.
Look at what you're missing out on. I'll become a woman more beautiful than Aila. A woman as beautiful as Mother.
She wanted to show him how many people desired her. Deep down, perhaps she hoped he'd try to stop her.
But Barkas, as always, silently fulfilled his duty as her escort and nothing more. Whether she mingled with men and drank herself into a stupor, or flirted shamelessly with someone twice her age, he showed no concern whatsoever. That utter indifference only fanned the dangerous impulses that held her captive.
He'd stood by her side for a full seven years. Couldn't he worry just a little? Couldn't he try to stop her? Childish thoughts like that clung stubbornly to the corner of her mind, refusing to fade. If she completely ruined herself, maybe she could shake off this foolish lingering attachment.
In a fit of self-abandonment, she mingled with strange men. She even permitted their bizarre acts—stroking her hands, face, or hair in admiration, or pressing their noses to her nape.
It was unpleasant, the way they fiddled with her like she was a porcelain doll. But she didn't hate the ecstatic gazes they fixed on her, as if entranced by something divine.
Sometimes, it even brought a godlike sense of euphoria. In those moments, swept up in such emotions, failing to have just one man like Barkas felt trivial.
She clung to that sensation. If she buried herself in these intoxicating times, surely her childish love would wither away in no time.
She threw herself even deeper into the petty, licentious games between men and women. She grew accustomed to exchanging lewd banter or suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive banter suggestive