4.
It had not even been a fortnight since she had left the Taren Family estate and entered the Imperial Palace.
Her mother rejoiced that her daughter’s name had finally been added to the Royal Genealogy, but for Talia, simply being in this strange place was unbearable. As Imperial Princess Talia Roem Gwirta’s interest remained focused solely on renovating the castle, Talia’s anxiety only deepened.
Unlike what her mother had described, the Imperial Palace was a desolate and frightening place. Sharp gazes followed her wherever she went, and the servants here were colder than those of the Taren Family.
She felt like a child who had lost her way. So, whenever the opportunity arose, she would sneak out of her room and wander near the Annex Palace.
She frequented the area near the back garden often, but since Imperial Princess Talia Roem Gwirta had pulled out every flower and tree in the castle to erase the traces of the Former Empress, the garden was a complete disaster zone.
While rose bushes and colorful, ornate shrubs had begun to fill the empty spaces at the entrances to the Main Palace and the Annex Palace, the backyard—where landscaping work had not yet reached—was merely a chaotic mess of piled dirt. Thanks to this, no one ever went there.
Whenever Talia grew weary of the whispering or the biting glares of the people, she would spend her time listlessly in a corner of the ruined garden.
That day, she was out in the backyard of the Annex Palace, hiding from the nanny who acted so annoyingly and the maid who, under the guise of styling her hair, would viciously prick her scalp with a sharp comb.
Because of the rain that had been falling since noon, not a single worker was visible in the garden. Talia crouched in a corner of the empty, desolate garden, staring vacantly at the falling raindrops.
How long had she been like that? A small whistling sound drifted from somewhere.
Looking around with a puzzled expression for a moment, Talia moved toward the outskirts of the castle, drawn by something as she stood in the pouring rain. A deep hole was gouged out where a large, wide-spreading tree had stood until that very morning.
Talia approached the side of the high pile of dirt and looked down. A small bird was struggling in the mud, letting out pitiful cries.
‘Did it fall from the tree?’
It looked as if the bird could die at any moment.
Heavy raindrops struck its soaked brown body incessantly, and tar-like, dark red mud was stickily engulfing its thin legs and pathetic wings. The persistent chirping of the bird turned into a faint tremor after some time.
Watching the scene while kneeling, Talia found her feet stepping into the pit before she even realized it.
It was a foolish act. Even though she had stepped carefully, the ground, which had become like a swamp from soaking up the rainwater, swallowed her shoes in an instant.
She twisted her body to pull her feet out. In doing so, she lost her balance and slipped into the mud.
Talia, who had tumbled over the puddle, felt the fishy, muddy water seep between her lips and shook her head irritably.
The green dress the nanny had just made for her was ruined, and mud was matted into her neatly braided hair.
A surge of frustration welled up inside her.
She muttered a small curse as she pulled herself up.
‘Who cares about a bird? I shouldn’t have done something so stupid…….’
She was grumbling like that, trying to climb out of the hole, when the faint cry sounded again. It was a sound so weak that it would be hard to notice without listening closely, but to Talia, it sounded as if the bird were screaming.
In the end, she took a few more steps over the black puddle. Then she saw the miserable brown wings and the limp little head submerged in the muddy water.
‘……Did it die already?’
When she picked up the young bird with a cautious touch, she felt the tiny, soaked body faintly pulsating. It was still alive.
She cupped the lukewarm body with both hands and blew warm air onto it. The limp bird opened its tiny brown beak and flapped its thin wings pitifully. It seemed to be struggling to survive.
Watching that, something tightened in her chest.
Talia did not know what that emotion was. She couldn’t understand why seeing a young bird—having lost its home, been abandoned by its mother, and floundering in the mire—resting in her hands made her heart ache.
She carefully cradled the bird and pressed it against the warmest part beneath her throat. Then, she looked up at the steep slope made of slippery mud with a blank gaze.
The mound of dirt had become even softer due to the increasingly heavy raindrops. She tried taking a few steps as a test, but it felt impossible to walk up. If she wanted to get out of here, she would have to crawl on all fours like a beast.
Talia bit her lip. She could not abandon the little bird she had worked so hard to save, nor could she throw away her dignity as an Imperial Princess and crawl through the mud like livestock.
So, Talia stood still for a long time, pelted by the cold, drizzling rain.
That was when it happened. A boy appeared through the gray, mist-like rain.
He was very tall, wearing the black robe of a monk with the hood pulled low over his head. Yet, Talia could clearly see his pale, shimmering blue eyes through the curtain of falling white rain. They were incredibly beautiful eyes.
“What are you doing there?”
The blue-eyed boy asked, bending his body toward her. It was a cool voice that did not match his delicate face, which still held traces of youth. Talia felt a shiver run down her spine.
At the time, she thought it was merely because of the cold. But thinking back on it now, it seems she had a faint premonition the moment she heard that voice. That the boy with the indifferent face looking down at her would push her life into hellish agony…….
If she had clearly understood the nature of that distant sensation that day, Talia would have thrown the small bird, gasping so pitifully in her hands, into the muddy water and crawled up the mud on all fours like a pig that knew neither filth nor shame.
And then, she would have run far, far away from the blue-eyed boy. She would have erased the very fact that she had seen him from her mind forever.
But eight-year-old Talia had no idea that the boy who appeared in the rain would become her despair. So, she looked up at him and retorted in her usual thorny tone.
“Can’t you tell by looking? I’m stuck in this hole and can’t get out.”
The boy’s eyes narrowed. He looked as though he wanted to ask why she had entered such a place in the first place.
However, instead of asking, he did not care that his well-tailored trousers and expensive-looking leather boots were being ruined by the mud, and he stepped into the pit where she was, sliding in as if he were walking.
Talia looked at him with a surprised expression. She had never expected a boy with such a cold face—who looked like he wouldn’t bleed a drop even if pricked—to do something like that.
He walked steadily over the muddy water that had turned into a swamp. Seen up close, the boy looked even lankier than when she had looked up at him from below. He seemed a head taller than her.
The boy, who approached her with long, flexible legs, reached out one hand and said.
“Take my hand.”