* * *
An ant had clearly crawled beneath her eyelid while she slept.
Tormented by the unpleasant sensation of something stinging behind her eyeball, Talia fixed her gaze on her half-sister.
As always, the woman stood over her in flawless elegance, not a single hair out of place.
Just looking at that noble face made her already aching eyes feel as though they were burning away.
Clutching the blanket like a shield, Talia shot her a sharp glare.
“Did you come to stare? If you've got something to say, say it and leave.”
“...How are you feeling?”
“How do I look?”
At her mocking reply, pale green eyes slowly swept over her.
“You don't look well.”
Talia's mouth tightened.
Her fingertips trembled.
If her legs had still worked properly, she would have grabbed the woman by the hair and thrown her straight out the door.
Forcing down the rage boiling inside her, she barely managed to squeeze out a calm voice.
“Since you've figured that out, why don't you leave? Just looking at you is making me feel worse.”
Aila's lips pressed together.
The longer the silence stretched, the sharper Talia's nerves became. The pain she had barely managed to suppress gradually climbed through her bones.
“Didn't you hear me tell you to leave?”
“I told you there's something I wanted to discuss.”
Aila spoke with visible impatience.
Talia narrowed her eyes.
“Then hurry up and say it and get out. Just seeing your face makes me sick. And now I'm supposed to sit here and patiently wait for you? Don't be ridiculous. Either tell me why you're here right now, or disappear from my sight.”
The fierce hostility pouring from her seemed to stun Aila.
Her expression visibly stiffened.
Then she cast Talia a cold look.
“Fine. Then I'll tell you why I came. I wanted to know what you're planning to do.”
“What do you mean?”
Talia asked carelessly.
Her headache was growing worse.
The ant that had been gnawing behind her eye now seemed to have burrowed into the marrow of her skull. The stinging pain spread all the way to the back of her head.
While all her attention was focused on that agony, Aila kept talking.
“Stop pretending. You know exactly what I'm talking about.”
“Am I a mind reader? How am I supposed to know something you haven't said?”
“You—!”
Aila's voice rose slightly.
Turning her head, Talia frowned at the sight of her half-sister's face twisted with humiliation.
Aila took a moment to steady her breathing, trying to regain her composure before speaking again in a calmer voice.
“I want to know whether you truly intend to marry him.”
Talia simply stared at her face without answering.
At some point, it seemed that Aila had become the one unable to endure the silence.
She spoke again, her voice tense.
“You hate Varkas. You've tormented him ever since childhood. You're not seriously saying that after all that, you intend to become his wife.”
A hollow laugh escaped Talia's lips.
It sounded almost as though the air had leaked out of her.
Aila's mouth hardened.
The more she looked at that miserable expression, the rougher Talia's laughter became.
Forgetting both the splitting headache and the tingling pain crawling up her legs, Talia doubled over and laughed.
“So that's why you came running here.”
Aila's complexion had become nearly as white as plaster.
Admiring that face, Talia continued softly.
“You must have been terrified I'd steal your fiancé.”
“......”
“But what should I do? Hearing you say that only makes me want to take him away no matter what.”
Aila's lovely face twisted even further.
Poison seeped into eyes that usually called to mind evergreen forests.
A strange exhilaration swept over Talia.
This was the sister who always looked down on her with a perfect, immaculate face.
And now, at last, that sister was revealing raw emotion.
“He only agreed to marry you because he feels responsible.”
Aila burst out impatiently.
“He feels guilty about what happened to you! But your injuries weren't his fault. So why should Varkas have to make that sacrifice?”
The smile vanished from Talia's lips.
The pleasant feeling disappeared instantly, replaced by a rage so cold it could freeze flesh.
Her fingers itched with the urge to tear out the tongue speaking as though it were Varkas's own mouthpiece.
Grinding down the curses crawling up her throat, Talia forced out a deceptively gentle voice.
“I thought you were smarter than this.”
Aila's lips went rigid.
Talia continued slowly.
“But you're more foolish than I expected.”
Aila's mouth tightened.
“The thing you should be saying to me right now isn't that.”
“......”
“You should be begging.”
Talia's voice remained calm.
“Politely. Earnestly.”
“......”
“You should be asking me not to marry Varkas Laedgo Siorcan.”
Aila's eyes twitched.
Talia stared maliciously at the face distorted by humiliation.
Moistening her lips, Aila finally forced out the words.
“If I beg you... will you refuse to marry him?”
“Well.”
Talia answered lazily.
“I suppose that depends on how desperate the person asking looks.”
Aila bit down on her lip and lowered her eyes.
It seemed she could hardly force the words out.
How much time passed in that suffocating silence?
At last, Aila looked up with a resolute expression.
Then a pitiful voice spilled from her beautiful pink lips.
“Please. Refuse the marriage to Varkas. If you don't agree, His Majesty won't force it through. So please...”
The rest never came.
Her voice shattered and fell apart # Nоvеlight # before she could continue.
Looking up at that sorrowful face, Talia swallowed a bitter sneer.
At this moment, this woman undoubtedly believed she had given up something precious.
Her pride as an Imperial Princess.
She probably believed that because she, a noble Imperial Princess, had lowered herself before a worthless bastard daughter, she deserved to be rewarded.
Talia lowered her gaze to the legs hidden beneath the blanket.
Only after ending up like this had she become worthy of consideration as his bride.
And yet this woman believed she could win him back by sacrificing a handful of her precious pride.
To her, Talia Roem Gwirta's legs were worth less than her own pride.
“Fine.”
The word left Talia's mouth abruptly.
Color immediately returned to Aila's face.
Watching her quietly, Talia added in a calm voice,
“On one condition.”
“A condition?”
Wariness appeared on Aila's face.
Talia turned her head toward the shelf.
A tray sat there holding fruit, bread, butter, and several silver utensils.
She picked up a small knife used for cutting butter and tossed it toward her half-sister.
The silver blade slid across the floor until it stopped at Aila's feet.
Watching her stare blankly at it, Talia spoke softly.
“Stab your leg with that.”
“...What?”
Aila looked at her as though she had misheard.
Meeting those bewildered eyes directly, Talia enunciated each word.
“Use it to scar your leg. Like this...”
Slowly, she pulled back the blanket.
Aila's widened eyes dropped onto the grotesquely swollen scar.
Making sure she saw it clearly, Talia traced the long, hideous mark that began at her shin with her fingertips.
“From here... all the way to here. Cut yourself deeply with the knife.”
Her finger continued along the scar.
“Then I'll do as you ask.”
Aila looked back and forth between the knife on the floor and her own leg wrapped in velvet skirts.
Her eyelids trembled.
At last, a cold laugh escaped her bloodless lips.
“You never intended to listen to me from the beginning.”
Talia said nothing.
A moment later, the mask of the Imperial Princess settled back over Aila's face.
As though she had never shown a single trace of humiliation, she lifted her chin proudly and turned toward the door.
Her footsteps echoed steadily across the room.
Then they stopped abruptly at the entrance.
Gripping the doorknob, Aila looked back at her.
Her swamp-dark eyes gleamed with a frightening light.
“You will regret what happened today, Talia Roem Gwirta.”
The words fell from her lips like a curse.
Then Aila stepped through the doorway and added coldly,
“Without fail.”
