31.
The man’s large hands slowly stroked her stomach over the soft fabric. It was a touch that felt as if he were fondling his own possession.
“You use the same perfume as your mother. I smelled this on Imperial Princess Talia Roem Gwirta’s hair as well. Once you are intoxicated by this scent, you become addicted to it… you can’t help but keep searching for it.”
The man’s hand groped its way up toward her chest.
Talia instinctively twisted her body to escape his arms, but the man did not budge an inch.
Holding her tight from behind, he pressed his wet, hot lips against the skin beneath her earlobe. It felt as if a caterpillar were clinging to her, leeching away her very essence.
Stiffening and trembling, Talia soon began to struggle as if having a seizure.
The man threw her down, pinning her forcefully onto the soft carpet.
She flailed her limbs like someone drowning. As the table overturned, the puzzle tower she had spent hours building collapsed with a crash. As she crawled over the wreckage, struggling to break free from the beast pinning her down, he grabbed her ankle and dragged her back.
Talia looked up at him with terrified eyes. The primordial fear that someone could incapacitate her so easily washed over her.
“Stay… just stay still.”
The man pinned her wrists down with one hand and wrapped his other around her jaw.
She tried her best to twist her head away, but she could not move. He pressed her cheeks to force her mouth open and shoved his thick tongue inside.
Nausea caused her throat to tighten painfully. It felt exactly as if a giant slug had crawled into her mouth.
She dared not even muster the courage to bite down on that horrific thing. Tears leaked from her eyes, and she let out painful, choking sobs. The man rubbed his massive, muscular body against her, breathing in ragged, excited gasps.
“Ah… Imperial Princess Talia Roem Gwirta… how I have missed you…”
The man’s hand crawled inside her skirt. Her entire body shivered at the sensation of his hard palms groping her bare skin.
A terror akin to death washed over her. She could feel his long, firm fingers invading deep between her thighs.
Stung by the sharp pain, Talia gasped like a fish pulled onto dry land. The man pressed his sticky, glue-like lips against hers and muttered in a hoarse voice.
“There is no need to tremble like that. The pain will only be for a moment. Her Highness will soon be crying out in pleasure as well…”
Then, the weight pressing down on her suddenly vanished, as if it were a lie.
Talia instinctively crawled into a corner and curled up. For a moment, she could not grasp what had happened.
Only after several seconds did she realize that Varkas, in his Roem Knights uniform, was gripping the man’s head with one hand and mercilessly crushing his face.
The sight was so surreal that she was stunned into silence. Half of the man’s once-neat face was soaked in blood, as if it had been ground against the rough wall surface, and guttural groans of agony escaped his hideously contorted mouth.
“L-let go… let’s t-talk…”
Varkas gripped the struggling man’s hair tightly and smashed his head against the wall without mercy. With heavy, thumping sounds, the man’s face was horribly mangled. Talia barely managed to swallow a scream.
“Talia.”
He spoke quietly, his eyes fixed on the bloodied mess of a face.
“Go to your room.”
His voice was so calm that it was hard to believe it had come from someone who had just committed such a violent act. Because of that, Talia did not realize the words were meant for her. Only when she met his blue eyes, shadowed as if by dark grey clouds, did she realize he was speaking to her.
“Talia Roem Gwirta.”
His voice sounded strangely tranquil. Varkas, who had dared to speak the Imperial Princess’s name so casually, added slowly.
“Did you not hear me tell you to go to your room?”
Talia just stared at him blankly, huddled in the corner. Then, an explosive shout burst from his lips.
“Now!”
At that moment, a sensation like sparks flying through her body caused her to scramble out of the study like a horse whipped into a run. Once she dived into her bedroom and hid under the thick quilt, a dull ache surged through her entire frame.
She scrubbed her stinging skin harshly. The slimy tongue and the hard palms still seemed to be crawling over her. She frantically rubbed her neck, chest, and thighs to erase the sensation, then began to strike her own body with her fists.
It was horrific. That man, the body he had groped, and the fact that she had shown that scene to Varkas—it was all horrific.
She struck her thighs until they bruised, then buried her face in her pillow and let out a bestial wail.
How long she had been like that, she did not know, but she felt another presence. She snapped her head up.
Varkas was standing tall at the doorway. As always, he looked elegant, without a single hair out of place.
“You will never see that man again.”
He stated it flatly. Talia, blinking blankly, spat out a trembling question.
“…Did you kill him?”
Varkas’s brows furrowed faintly.
After a brief silence, he spoke again.
“He will be permanently exiled. From this day forward, he will never be able to step foot in the capital, nor any major city…”
In that moment, the thin thread of her reason snapped completely. Talia grabbed a pillow and hurled it into his face.
“Why! Why did you let him live! You should have killed him! You should have killed him horribly! You should have cut off those filthy hands that touched my body…! And that dirty tongue that violated me…!”
Talia, screaming like a madwoman, suddenly clutched her own throat and began to tremble. A sense of suffocation swept over her, as if someone were squeezing her windpipe.
“If you let him live, he will come back… come back to trample me again. He will try to defile me again. T-that’s what he said… that he couldn’t help but keep searching for me, as if he were addicted…”
A sob burst unexpectedly from her tightly constricted throat.
Talia buried her face, distorted by tears, in her hands and gasped for breath. Then, as if possessed, she began throwing all kinds of objects at him.
“Useless wretch! I don’t need someone like you! Get out! Get out! Just disappear from my sight—!”
Talia, who had been hurling books and dolls at random, suddenly stopped. The candlestick she had grabbed in her frenzy had flown straight at his head.
The heavy metal object scraped roughly against Varkas’s forehead and temple, then rolled noisily onto the floor.
Talia watched, agape, as a line of dark crimson blood dyed his pale cheek and neck red.
A strange sound like a sigh—*ah… ah…*—escaped her throat. Varkas, looking down at her with cold eyes, slowly turned away.
In an instant, a chill spread through her entire body as if she had been doused with ice water.
Talia scrambled off the bed to catch him, but Varkas had already left the room.
Staring blankly into the dark corridor, Talia soon sank to the floor. She wanted to sink straight into the earth.
Varkas had saved her. Yet, she had used him as an outlet for her rage. It was no wonder he was disillusioned. It was only natural that he would be fed up. She buried her wretchedly twisted face into the carpet and shed hot tears.
After that day, Varkas never appeared before her again. It was only months later that Talia saw him attending the appointment ceremony for the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Knights.
From a distance, she watched him kneel on one knee before the Emperor and recite the oath of allegiance in a calm tone.
Her father drew the Imperial sword and placed it upon his shoulder. Then, in a solemn voice, he declared that the position of Chief of the Imperial Guard had been bestowed upon him.
Even though it was a position of immense weight for a young man barely twenty, no one questioned his qualifications. Varkas slowly turned and walked down the stairs. Sunlight pouring through the windows fell upon his resolute face like a downpour.
She etched every moment of that scene into her retinas.
Varkas, with his back straight, cut through the crowd. His cold profile passed by her indifferently.
Toward that back, which was striding away into a place her hands could not reach, she whispered quietly.
*Goodbye.*
Having said that, she added inadvertently.
*Don’t go.*
Talia furrowed her brows, feeling tears welling up. Soon, his figure disappeared completely from her sight.
Seven years ago, the boy her mother had gifted her had thus left her side.