Chapter 6

----------------------------------------------------------------- Translator: Diva Chapter: 6 Chapter Title: The Blue-Eyed Boy -----------------------------------------------------------------

It hadn't even been a fortnight since leaving the Taren family castle and entering the imperial palace.

Her mother was overjoyed that her daughter's name would finally be added to the imperial family register, but Talia simply hated arriving in this unfamiliar place. As Senevia's attention focused solely on refurbishing the palace, Talia's anxiety intensified even further.

Unlike what her mother had described, the imperial palace felt stark and frightening. Sharp gazes followed her everywhere she went, and the servants attending her were far colder than those of the Taren family.

She felt like a lost child with nowhere to go. So whenever she got the chance, she secretly slipped out of her room and wandered near the Detached Palace.

She especially frequented the area around the rear garden, where Senevia had uprooted every flower and tree in the palace to erase all traces of the late Empress, leaving the garden a total wreck.

At least rose bushes and colorful shrubs had begun filling in the empty spots at the entrances to the Main Palace and Detached Palace one by one, but the unfinished backyard was still cluttered with haphazard piles of dirt. Thanks to that, no one ever came there.

Talia would pass the time blankly in one messy corner of the rear garden whenever she grew fed up with people's whispers or piercing glares.

That day, too, she had escaped to the Detached Palace backyard to avoid the nagging Nurse and the maid who insisted on combing her hair while roughly jabbing a sharp comb into her scalp.

Because of the rain that had started falling at noon, not a single worker was anywhere in the garden. Talia crouched in an empty corner of the deserted rear garden, gazing endlessly at the falling raindrops.

How long had she been sitting there like that when a faint whistling sound came from somewhere.

After glancing around with a puzzled expression for a moment, Talia stepped toward the palace outskirts as if drawn by something, braving the steadily pouring rain. A deep pit had been dug where a massive tree had stood just that morning.

Talia approached the tall pile of dirt and peered down. A small bird was floundering in the mud, letting out pitiful cries.

'Did it fall from the tree?'

The bird looked like it could die at any moment.

Heavy raindrops pounded its drenched brown body without mercy, while clumps of tar-like dark red mud stickily engulfed its spindly legs and shabby wings. The bird's persistent cries eventually turned into faint trembles.

Gazing quietly at the scene on her knees, Talia unwittingly stepped her foot into the pit.

It was a foolish thing to do. Even taking careful steps, the rain-soaked bottom—now a swamp—swallowed her shoe in an instant.

She twisted her body to pull her foot free, only to lose her balance and slide right into the mud.

Talia tumbled headlong into the puddle, shaking her head irritably as fishy mud seeped between her lips.

The new green dress the Nurse had made for her was ruined, and mud was clumped in her neatly braided hair.

A surge of irritation welled up inside her.

As she pushed herself up, she muttered a quiet curse.

"Who cares about some stupid bird. I went and did something idiotic for nothing..."

As she grumbled and tried to climb out of the pit, a faint cry sounded again. It was so weak she had to strain to hear it, but to Talia, it sounded like the bird screaming.

In the end, she took a few more steps across the black puddle. There, she saw the shabby brown wings and limp little head submerged in the mud.

"...Did it die already?"

When she carefully scooped up the fledgling, she felt its tiny, waterlogged body faintly pulsing. It was still alive.

She cupped the lukewarm body in both hands and breathed warm air onto it. The limp bird parted its small brown beak and pitifully flapped its thin wings. It was desperately struggling to survive.

Watching it, something tightened in her chest.

Talia didn't know what emotion it was. She couldn't understand why the sight of this fledgling—deprived of its home, abandoned by its mother, writhing in the muck, now resting in her hands—made her heart ache.

She carefully cradled the bird and pressed it against the warmest spot below her neck. Then she looked up at the steep slope of slippery mud with hopeless eyes.

The dirt pile had softened even more from the thickening raindrops. She tried a few experimental steps, but it seemed impossible to climb. To escape, she'd have to crawl up on all fours like some beast.

Talia bit her lip. She couldn't abandon the little bird she'd just saved, nor could she cast aside her dignity as a princess and crawl through the mud like livestock.

So Talia stood motionless for a long while, enduring the cold, drizzling raindrops.

That was when a boy emerged from the misty veil of pale rain falling like fog.

He was extremely tall, draped in the black robe worn by monks, with a hood pulled low over his head. But Talia could clearly see his pale blue eyes gleaming through the curtain of white rain. They were breathtakingly beautiful.

"What are you doing there?"

The blue-eyed boy leaned down toward her and asked. His voice was chillingly cool, mismatched with his delicate face that still held boyish softness. Talia felt a shiver run down her spine.

At the time, she chalked it up to the cold. But thinking back now, she must have vaguely sensed it the moment she heard that voice—that the indifferent boy gazing down at her would plunge her life into hellish agony...

If she had clearly recognized that faint sensation that day, Talia would have flung the little bird gasping pitifully in her hands back into the mud. She would have crawled up the slope on all fours like a pig, oblivious to the filth and shame.

Then she would have fled far, far away from the blue-eyed boy. She would have erased the very memory of seeing him from her mind forever.

But eight-year-old Talia had no inkling that the boy who appeared in the rain would become her despair. So she looked up at him and snapped in her usual prickly tone.

"Can't you see? I'm stuck in this pit and can't get out."

The boy's eyes narrowed. He looked like he wanted to ask why she'd gone into such a place to begin with.

But instead of questioning her, he slid into the pit without a care that his well-tailored pants and fine leather boots were getting filthy.

Talia stared at him in surprise. She never would have expected such behavior from a boy whose impassive face seemed like it wouldn't bleed even if pricked.

He strode effortlessly across the swampy mud. Up close, he looked even taller and more slender than from below—a full head taller than her.

With his long, lithe legs, he stepped right up to her and extended one hand.

"Grab on."