Chapter 117
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 117
Thalia looked at the garment in the woman’s hands with cold, dead eyes.
“When did you decide to become a pimp?”
At her mocking words, the nanny’s face contorted into a hideous grimace.
Ignoring her, Thalia climbed down from the windowsill and headed toward the bed. But the nanny did not back down.
“The truth is, you two haven’t even properly spent your first night together. Do you know what that means? It means the Grand Duke can apply for an annulment whenever he wishes!”
Thalia looked down at the nanny blocking her path with a frigid expression, then suddenly hiked up the hem of her baggy dress.
As she pulled the sweat-soaked garment over her head and cast it aside, her twisted legs and pitifully thin, naked body were revealed.
The nanny immediately averted her eyes. Seeing this, Thalia let out a dry, hollow laugh.
“You can’t even look at me properly, yet you expect me to offer this hideous body to a man?”
“...Still, you must try,” the nanny muttered, her gaze fixed firmly on the floor. “It’s not as if His Excellency is entirely indifferent toward you. Look how devoted he was when you collapsed. Even while he’s buried in work with the funeral and the succession, he personally sees to it that your meals and medicine are provided. If you ask him, I’m sure he won’t refuse.”
Thalia let out a series of sharp, wheezing breaths that sounded like a leaking bellows, then suddenly wiped the mirth from her face.
“So, you’re telling me to beg.”
“Don’t be so cynical. This is for your own sake. If a child is born, your position as Grand Duchess will be—”
Thalia’s patience snapped at the transparent manipulation.
She swept her hands across the table with a violent motion. The bowls, plates, and porcelain atop it crashed to the floor, the sharp sound of shattering echoing through the room.
A few shards of glass flew up and pierced the top of her foot. Heedless of the pain, she snatched the candlestick from beside the fireplace and hurled it against the wall.
“Get out!”
The nanny let out a belated scream and scrambled toward the door.
Thalia grabbed the dress the woman had left behind and yanked it in opposite directions. With a sharp rip, the fabric tore in two. She threw the ruined cloth aside, walked to the bed, and buried herself under the covers.
She remained like that for some time until a soft voice accompanied a cautious knock.
“Your Highness, I heard you injured your foot. I have come to tend to the wound.”
Thalia did not answer. Taking the silence as permission, the door opened, followed by the sound of light, graceful footsteps.
“I will examine the wound now.”
The woman pulled back the covers, revealing Thalia’s blood-stained feet and legs. The healer, who had cast a spell over her, took out a clean bandage and meticulously wrapped her leg.
“How is the pain?”
“...”
“If you require a sedative...”
“Did my mother give you specific instructions as well?”
The woman fell silent at the abrupt question.
Thalia stared blankly at the woman’s stiffened face. After a long hesitation, the healer confessed.
“...She asked me to look after the Grand Duchess’s health with the utmost care.”
“So that I can conceive easily?”
Thalia’s mocking tone made the woman’s lips tighten. Watching her with cynical eyes, Thalia turned her body away and murmured weakly.
“Leave now.”
“Your Highness.”
She felt the woman kneel beside the bed.
Thalia flinched and turned her head at the unfamiliar warmth covering the back of her hand. The healer looked into her eyes with a serious, brown gaze.
“Your Highness, you do not have to do anything you do not wish to do.”
Thalia blinked.
She should have laughed at such overstepping interference. What could a mere healer possibly know? She should have snapped at her to mind her own business and stop talking nonsense, but strangely, the words wouldn’t come.
I...
Inside her mouth, her tongue moved of its own accord.
I don’t want to. I don’t want to show Barkas this wretched body. I’m tired of being my mother’s pawn. I don’t want to suffer because of people who will never love me.
She desperately swallowed the words rising in her throat.
To show weakness was to be trampled. She did not want to be hurt by anyone ever again.
Thalia coldly pulled her hand away from the healer’s grasp.
“Stop talking nonsense and go call the maids.”
The woman looked at her with pensive eyes before slowly standing up.
Thalia watched her retreat, then asked on an impulse, “By the way, what did you say your name was?”
The woman’s eyes widened slightly before she answered in a calm tone.
“It is Marisen.”
Thalia repeated the name to herself and dismissed the woman with a light wave of her hand.
A short while later, the maids swarmed in to clean the wrecked room and assisted her in dressing according to her instructions.
Thalia chose the most lavish dress from the dowry sent by the Imperial Palace and had her hair intricately braided and adorned with pearls.
After smearing red pigment over her cracked lips, she took out her jewelry box.
Inside the velvet box lay a small button engraved with the crest of the Roem Knights, a silvery-blue moonstone, a neatly folded handkerchief, and a ruby brooch.
After staring for a long time at these traces of a lingering attachment she had vowed a thousand times to let go, Thalia picked up the brooch and pinned it to her left breast.
Standing before the mirror, she saw a pale woman who had desperately tried to mask her gauntness.
She asked that woman.
What are you trying to do?
‘I haven’t decided yet.’
She stared into her own faintly trembling pupils, then dismissed the maids and left the room. Through the hallway windows, she saw the sky growing dark.
Barkas would not have returned yet.
Since the death of the former Grand Duke, he spent most of his time outside the castle. He was tirelessly busy, participating in nearly every religious event hosted by the Eastern Church, while also soothing the restless public and reorganizing military expenditures.
‘And in the midst of all that, he’s taken on the task of cleaning up after Gareth. He must wish he had ten bodies.’
With a bitter sneer, Thalia walked down the wide staircase, passing through the silent, chilly corridors.
When she reached the Grand Duke’s bedchamber—which was now Barkas’s room—the attendants guarding the door widened their eyes in surprise.
Instead of ordering them to open the door, Thalia pulled the handle herself.
With a low creak, the interior of the spacious, brightly lit room was revealed.
Thalia’s spine stiffened when she spotted a long shadow in the center of the room. Barkas, still in his formal uniform, was unbuttoning his coat as if he had only just returned.
“...Is something the matter?”
The man asked, his brow furrowing as he scanned her from head to toe. It was a reaction that made the hours she had spent dressing up feel utterly futile.
Swallowing her hollow disappointment, Thalia stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.
“I came because there is something I want to say.”
Barkas, who had been staring at her with an expressionless face, gestured toward the chair in front of the fireplace.
“Sit.”
She moved her stiff legs and sat down. Meanwhile, Barkas hung his coat on the wall and poured her a glass of cider.
“I heard your appetite has decreased again lately. Even if I cannot personally see to it, you must eat well.”
Thalia remained silent, staring down at the glass.
Barkas, who had been watching her with his arms crossed, broke the lengthening silence.
“What is it you wish to say?”
“You...”
Thalia looked up at him with lost eyes.
What should she say? She didn’t even know why she had come to see him.
Was it submission? Or resistance? It was clear she stood at a crossroads. And she intended to leave that choice to the tip of his tongue.
Thalia forced her trembling voice to steady.
“Is it true that you are opposing Aila’s marriage?”
As she looked up at him as if picking a fight, the corner of Barkas’s mouth twitched minutely.
“Is that why you haven’t even met my eyes for the past few days?”
He raked his hair back from his forehead and let out a dry laugh.
“I only opposed it because of the political risks.”
“But rumors are circulating in the Imperial Palace that you still harbor feelings for Aila.”
The more they spoke, the more she felt like a petty child throwing a jealous tantrum. Shaking off that feeling, she pressed on.
“You said you would silence the gossip about our marriage? Is spreading such ridiculous rumors what you meant by silencing gossip?”
“The safety of both of them was at stake,” he said, showing signs of fatigue. “It was a priority to stop the Crown Prince before he took any rash action. I have a duty to protect those two.”
His tone grew slightly harsher toward the end.
Thalia looked up at him with a hardened face.
Barkas let out a long breath and leaned down toward her, his tone softening considerably.
“I plan to suggest a better match for the First Imperial Princess soon. Once that happens, the rumors will naturally die down.”
Thalia looked at him and let out a hollow laugh.
Did this man even know what he was saying?
Seeing Barkas speak so nonchalantly about stabbing Aila in the heart while claiming to protect her, Thalia was ironically filled with despair.
Her mother was right. This man was as good as blind when it came to emotions.
To him, matters of the heart were not even a consideration. What mattered to Barkas was fulfilling his duty.
And at the very top of that long list of responsibilities was likely the protection of the twins.
Having taken the position of Grand Duchess, she might have attained a significant status herself. But she would never be his top priority.
His duty as a vassal to the Imperial Family. His duty as the head of a Great House. Nothing could ever take precedence over those.
“You are... truly, truly a loyal man.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. He seemed to realize it wasn’t a compliment.
Thalia wiped the smile from her face. Her mind grew cold and clear, and she saw exactly what she had to do.
When Gareth became Emperor and demanded her life, even at the risk of war with the East, it was obvious what choice Barkas would make.
The question was whether she could accept that situation submissively.
She visualized her own death. Her miserable, dying self soon became the face of the former Grand Duke. That man had feared death and what would come after.
What about me?
The answer came quickly.
I am afraid of death.
It was because she was so terrified that she had struggled so hard. Because she knew all too well that she was the only one who could protect herself.
It was the same this time. I must survive by my own strength.
This isn’t submitting to Mother. I’ve simply decided to fight because I want to live.
Piling up countless excuses in her mind, Thalia finally raised her head and looked him straight in the eye.
“So you’re saying you were merely doing your duty?”
His cool gaze met hers without a hint of movement. She spoke as if carving each word into those icy pupils.
“Then I demand that you fulfill your duty as a husband to me as well.”
A crack finally appeared on his face, which had been thoroughly divorced from emotion. She spoke bluntly, as if wedging herself into that opening.
“Tonight, I will come to your bedchamber.”