13.
The maid lifted the spoon with trembling hands, but when she could not bring herself to raise it to her lips, she squeezed her eyes shut. She seemed to harbor a desperate, flickering hope that if she simply held out, she would be spared—or perhaps that someone would burst through the doors to stop this.
Talia snatched a knife from the table, her gaze locked on the man beside her as she issued a cold-blooded command.
“Pin her fingers to the plate. Since she ignores my hospitality so blatantly, I shall take a finger as an example.”
The man immediately lunged, seizing the woman’s hand and splaying it across the silver plate. Talia gripped the tip of the maid’s index finger and raised the steak knife high.
The maid shrieked in terror.
“I’ll eat it! I will! I’ll eat it all!”
She frantically dipped the spoon into the bowl, ravenously shoveling in the broth and the rotted bird carcass. Convinced she could survive if she didn’t truly taste it, she swallowed the chunks whole without chewing. But before she could finish five spoonfuls, she convulsed and vomited everything back up.
Talia’s expression remained indifferent.
“Eat it all, without leaving a drop. I want to see the bottom of the bowl.”
The maid’s eyes, filled with retching gasps, flew toward Talia. They were no longer the eyes of a servant looking at someone contemptible; they were the eyes of a creature looking at something monstrous.
Talia offered a silent, icy nod, signaling for the man not to stop. The maid sobbed bitterly, trapped in a cycle of eating and retching. Unable to bring the putrid meat to her lips, she forced only the broth into her mouth, only to heave it back up again and again. Her face, a mess of blood, tears, and vomit, turned ash-gray before her eyes rolled back into her head. With a dull thud, she collapsed onto the carpet.
Talia looked down at the girl, who lay seizing with foam at her mouth, and gave a haughty jerk of her chin toward the stiffened servants.
“Clean this up.”
She tossed the filthy plate at their feet.
“And bring me fresh food. You had best bring me something proper this time.”
After that day, the servants’ relentless harassment stopped as if by magic. The maids moved with the caution of someone handling a viper, and the other servants displayed a palpable, trembling fear. They no longer sent her looks of contempt or whispered cruelties. Whenever Talia appeared, they kept their mouths shut tight and bowed their heads in desperate haste.
Rumors of the Second Imperial Princess’s vicious nature spread throughout the Imperial Palace. When news surfaced that she had cruelly tortured a maid who had served the family for over a decade, people gasped at the young girl’s malice. Priests clicked their tongues, claiming a viper’s brood had crawled into the heart of the Empire, while loyal subjects feared the tyrannical princess would tarnish the authority of the throne.
But there were those who were satisfied with Talia’s atrocities.
One day, just before the onset of winter, the Empress visited the Annex Palace, dressed in a gown the deep, piercing blue of her own eyes.
Talia, who had been descending the stairs with a hardened face to welcome her, stopped in her tracks. The moment she saw the Empress—the moment she saw Bernadette—a lump formed in her throat, born of a sudden, traitorous longing.
This was the mother who had turned her back so callously. Watching that slender silhouette drift away, coldly pushing aside her outstretched hand, Talia had firmly resolved never to love that woman again. But as Bernadette crossed the vast hall and pressed a light kiss to her cheek, that resolution crumbled like a sandcastle before the tide.
“Hello, Talia. You look truly beautiful today.”
Bernadette smelled of roses, lilacs, and the sweetness of ripened fruit. It was miserable to realize how much she had been dying for this scent, the very aroma that made her head spin.
Bernadette looked down at her daughter’s taut, expressionless face and offered a coaxing smile.
“It seems you are hurt because I haven’t visited in so long. Forgive me. It took time to prepare a special gift for you.”
Talia braced herself, unsettled.
“A gift…?”
“I heard how effectively you tamed those insolent servants. You have satisfied this mother’s heart, so you deserve a reward.”
She sang the words in a voice like a canary and turned elegantly. Only then did the figure of a boy walking across the hall come into view.
Talia held her breath. He must have been officially knighted in the last few months; Varkas was approaching in the sharp, disciplined uniform of the Imperial Guard. The sunlight piercing the window shattered against his ash-blonde hair, scattering light like glass shards pricking her retinas.
Bernadette stepped to the boy’s side, gesturing as if displaying spoils of war.
“This is a handsome knight who will protect you from now on.”
The boy stopped before her and offered a salute. His eyes, which had once shone with the promise of a bright future, now held only icy ripples of dagger-like rage and faint humiliation. One did not need to be a fool to know he had not come here of his own volition.
He looked down at her as if she were a lifeless, inanimate object.
“I am Varkas Laedgo Siorcan.”
His voice was dry, enough to send a chill down her spine.
“I have been tasked to serve by your side until Your Highness’s Coming-of-age Ceremony.”
His tone suggested he was praying for that day to arrive, if only to escape this humiliating duty. Talia stared up at his cold, mask-like face. His icy gaze and stiff attitude effectively relegated her back to a state of insignificance. She tried her hardest not to flinch, but she could not stop her neck from burning with shame.
In that moment, Talia understood.
This beautiful boy would not be her hope; he would be her agony.
And a truly vicious one at that.
* * *
After the drizzling rain of the past week finally ceased, intense sunlight began to beat down, heralding the Season Of Fire.
Aila, crossing the bustling courtyard in search of her fiancé, wiped the sweat from her brow and narrowed her eyes against the glare. The large lot, usually reserved for military training, was packed with wagons, horse merchants, and soldiers hauling equipment for the journey ahead.
She frowned at the chaotic scene, but the moment she spotted Varkas checking the condition of the warhorses near the castle wall, her eyes lit up. Instead of the white combat uniform of the Roem Knights, he wore a black chest plate over a jet-black tunic embroidered with intricate patterns. He looked less like an Imperial knight and more like a young nobleman of the East.
Aila smiled with pride as she watched him. Once this mission was over, Varkas would leave the Imperial Guard to begin the succession process to become the Grand Duke Siorcan. And she would study to become the mistress of the Grand Duke’s household by his side. That had been their destined future since the day he followed his mother into the garden of the Empress’s Palace.
Yet, Aila sometimes felt riddled with doubt, questioning whether that day would ever truly come.
Varkas was always polite, sometimes even exhibiting a gentle demeanor, but Aila knew there was an unbridgeable distance between them. For a woman who had suffered in silence over that chasm, it was difficult to believe that he would be her husband in a few short months.