11.
Ever since that day, Talia had been unable to eat. She could not bring herself to trust that the food sitting before her didn’t harbor some hidden malice. Her nanny, oblivious to the circumstances, merely assumed the girl was being difficult. Without a word of explanation, Talia survived solely on the meager snacks—fruit and honey—that her nanny provided.
Loneliness was no longer her primary concern. In the most magnificent, opulent place on earth, she was fighting a war against starvation. There were days when her hunger grew so hollow that she reluctantly reached for the meals left by the servants. But without fail, they contained insects, mice, or, worse, tangled clumps of unidentifiable hair.
After several such encounters, she could no longer bear to put anything into her mouth. Within weeks, she had become gaunt and wretched.
Even her dim-witted nanny finally sensed that something was deathly wrong. She marched straight to the Empress and made a scene, sobbing that her only daughter was on the verge of starvation. Thanks to that, Talia saw her mother’s face for the first time in months.
“How did you end up like that?”
Those were the first words from the Empress, who had acted as if she had completely forgotten her daughter’s existence. It was the first time she had visited the Annex Palace.
Unlike her own ruined state, Talia looked at her mother—who bloomed as vibrant as a summer flower—and her eyes welled up. Seeing that face, so clear and untroubled, a surge of raw resentment rose within her. She had intended to be angry. She had planned to scream at the top of her lungs, to demand how she could be so self-absorbed. But the moment she opened her mouth, a wail burst forth.
Talia sobbed like a newborn, pouring out everything. She confessed every atrocity committed by the servants of the Annex Palace and the cruelties she had been forced to endure. Until every detail was spilled, the Empress sat by the bed, listening in total silence.
Talia thought her mother was silent because she was suppressing her rage, struck speechless by the horrors her only daughter had suffered.
Desperate, Talia gripped the woman’s arm. “Mother! Please, stop them! You must take action so no one can ever harm me again!”
“Why should I do that?” The Empress tilted her head.
Talia was stunned. The Empress’s face held only pure, detached curiosity. She looked as if she truly could not comprehend why her child, exhausted by abuse, was asking for help.
“Talia, this is your palace, and these servants are your possessions. You are nine years old now. How can you throw a tantrum at your mother just because you cannot handle your own affairs?”
Talia was left speechless. The Empress cupped her cheek, sighing as if genuinely disappointed.
“You are the daughter of the Emperor. I cannot understand why you are being bullied over such trivialities. It is embarrassing that my daughter is this naive and weak.”
“M-Mother…….”
The Empress gazed at the candle on the windowsill, lost in thought. On that chillingly beautiful face, there was not a trace of anger regarding the abuse her daughter had suffered. There was only the air of someone contemplating how to enlighten a slow-witted child. Talia felt as if she were dealing with an insect that had perfectly mimicked a human form.
After a long pause, the Empress snapped her fingers. “Let’s do this. I will leave you a guard who will be useful. He is a man I have spent a great deal of time training. If you handle him well, he will serve you.”
As if that solved everything, she stood and brushed off her skirt.
Talia desperately grabbed the hem of her dress. “I don’t need someone like that! I just want to be with Mother!”
A flicker of disillusionment crossed the Empress’s face. Talia turned pale with shock. The Empress peeled her daughter’s fingers off her dress one by one and leaned down, clicking her tongue in pity.
“Talia, all of this began with me. Yet, do you know why people don’t put mice in my soup?”
Talia froze like a mouse before a snake, unable to answer.
The Empress continued softly. “Why is my bathwater always warm? Why is my table always bountiful? Why do they not dare even dream of doing to me what they do to you? Shall I tell you the secret?”
Her blood-red lips brushed against Talia’s ear.
“It is because they fear me. Some hold a sense of awe; others feel only disgust and contempt. But even those people view me as an object of caution, not an object for bullying. Because I am a very threatening existence.”
She stared intently into her daughter’s eyes. Talia could glimpse the sinister something coiled deep within her mother’s gaze.
The Empress straightened her posture and left one final piece of advice.
“Remember this. The strong and beautiful are objects of fear and envy. But the beautiful and weak are easy targets for plunder—especially in this Imperial Palace. If you do not want to be ruthlessly trampled by the beasts that will target you from now on, you must never let it be known that you are weak.”
With those words, she left. She walked away, leaving her daughter behind, broken to the point of collapse.
That night, Talia chewed over those words. The weak are trampled. And her mother had not the slightest intention of protecting her.
Was this how a defeated soldier felt, having lost their final bastion? Her body trembled with the terror of what might come next. Even if she were treated more harshly, no one would intervene. With her mother turning a blind eye, would the Emperor spare a glance for an illegitimate child who was nothing more than a stain on his reputation?
She curled into a tight ball inside her blanket, biting her fingernails. The image of the servants’ feet—the ones she had seen while vomiting on the dining hall floor—flickered in her mind.
Indifferent feet that had bustled around her as she lay in a miserable heap. It was not hard to imagine those same feet trampling her like an insect.
Her eyes burned. Her mother was right. Sooner or later, she would be crushed without a trace.
She realized then that she had driven herself to this position by acting the part of a sinner. Her guilt had marked her as the weak one. When she began to adopt a submissive attitude, as if she deserved the mistreatment, they realized she would not resist. In her cowering gestures, in her intimidated gaze, in her stuttering tone, they had discovered her weakness and begun to be as cruel as they pleased.
As the day finally dawned, Talia realized clearly what she had to do.