Chapter 31
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 31
The man’s large hand stroked her stomach slowly over the soft fabric of her dress. It was a lingering touch, as if he were appraising his own possession.
“You use the same scented oil as your mother. Senevia’s hair smelled like this, too. Once you’re intoxicated by this scent, it’s like an addiction… you have no choice but to keep… keep seeking it out.”
The man’s hand fumbled upward, reaching toward her chest.
Thalia instinctively twisted her body to escape his embrace, but the man did not budge. Holding her tightly from behind, he pressed his damp, hot lips just below her earlobe. It felt like a caterpillar clinging to her skin, draining her very life.
Thalia, who had been frozen and trembling, suddenly began to struggle with frantic, fitful strength.
The man threw her down, pinning her brutally against the soft carpet.
She flailed her limbs like a drowning person. As the table overturned, the puzzle tower she had spent hours building came crashing down. She tried to crawl away over the scattered pieces, desperate to escape the beast pinning her down, but he grabbed her ankle and dragged her back.
Thalia looked up at him, her eyes wide with terror. A primal fear washed over her at the realization of how easily he could overpower her.
“Stay… just stay still for a moment.”
The man caught both of her wrists in one hand and cupped her chin with the other. She tried with all her might to turn her head, but she couldn’t move an inch. He squeezed her cheeks, forcing her mouth open, and shoved his thick tongue inside.
Her throat constricted with a painful surge of nausea. It felt as if a giant slug had crawled into her mouth.
She didn’t even have the courage to bite down on the horrific thing. She whimpered in pain, tears pricking her eyes. He rubbed his massive, muscular body against hers, his breath coming in ragged, feverish gasps.
“Ah… Lady Senevia… how I have missed you…”
The man’s hand crawled under the hem of her skirt. The sensation of his rough palm fumbling against her bare skin made her entire body shudder.
A deathly terror surged through her. She felt his long, firm fingers invading deep between her thighs. At the stinging pain, Thalia gasped like a fish out of water. The man pressed his lips, sticky as glue, against the corner of her mouth and muttered in a hoarse voice.
“There is no need to tremble so. The pain will be fleeting. Soon, Your Highness will be screaming with pleasure—”
At that moment, the weight crushing her body vanished as if it had never been there.
Thalia instinctively crawled into a corner and curled into a ball. For a moment, she couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Only after several seconds did she realize that Barkas, dressed 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 momentarily dazed. Half of the man’s once-handsome face was soaked in blood, looking as if it had been ground against the rough surface of the wall. Pained groans leaked from his grotesquely agape mouth.
“L-Let go… let’s t-talk…”
Barkas grabbed the struggling man’s hair and slammed his head against the wall without mercy. With heavy thud, thud sounds, the man’s face was horribly mangled. Thalia barely managed to swallow a scream.
“Thalia.”
He spoke quietly, his eyes fixed on the bloodied face.
“Go to your room.”
His voice was so calm it was hard to believe it came from the same person committing such a violent act. Because of that, Thalia didn’t realize at first that the words were directed at her. It was only when she met his blue eyes, which looked as if they were clouded with a thick gray mist, that she realized he was speaking to her.
“Thalia Roem Guirta.”
His voice was eerily still. Barkas, who had dared to speak the Princess’s name so boldly, added slowly.
“Did you not hear me tell you to go to your room?”
Thalia only stared up at him blankly, huddled in the corner. Finally, an explosive shout erupted from him.
“Go!”
In that instant, a sensation like flying sparks spread through her entire body.
She fled the study in a hurry, like a horse being whipped. As she dove into her bedroom and buried herself under the thick duvet, a dull ache throbbed through her body.
She rubbed her stinging skin roughly. It felt as if that slimy tongue and those hard palms were still crawling over her. Desperate to erase the sensation, she frantically wiped her neck, chest, and thighs before she began to strike her own body with her fists.
It was horrific. That man, her body that he had fumbled over, and the fact that she had shown such a state to Barkas—all of it was horrific.
She struck her thighs hard enough to bruise before burying her face in her pillow and letting out a beast-like wail.
How long had she been like that? She sensed another presence in the room. She snapped her head up.
Barkas stood tall in the doorway. As always, he looked elegant and perfectly composed.
“You will never have to see that man again,” he said flatly.
Thalia blinked blankly before trembling out a question.
“…Did you kill him?”
At that, Barkas’s brow furrowed slightly. After a brief silence, he spoke again.
“He will be permanently exiled. For the rest of his life, he will not be able to set foot in the capital, nor any major city—”
At that moment, the last thread of Thalia’s reason snapped. She grabbed her pillow and hurled it at his face.
“Why! Why did you let him live! You should have killed him! You should have killed him miserably! You should have cut off those filthy hands that touched my body…! And that filthy tongue that… that violated me…!”
Thalia, who had been screaming like a madwoman, suddenly clutched her throat, her shoulders shaking violently. A sense of suffocation washed over her, as if someone were strangling her.
“If you let him live, he’ll… he’ll come to trample me again. He’ll try to defile me. That—that man said so. That he had no choice but to keep… keep seeking me out, like an addiction…”
A sudden sob burst from her constricted throat. Thalia covered her tear-streaked face with both hands, gasping for breath. Then, like someone possessed, she began to throw whatever objects she could find at him.
“You useless bastard! I don’t need someone like you! Get out! I said get out! Get out of my sight—!”
Thalia, who had been blindly throwing books and dolls, suddenly stopped breathing. A candlestick she had grabbed in her frenzy had flown toward his head.
The heavy piece of iron grazed Barkas’s forehead and temple harshly before clattering loudly onto the floor. Thalia’s mouth fell open in shock as she watched dark red blood stain his pale cheek and neck.
A strange sound, like a groan or a sigh, escaped her throat. Barkas, looking down at her with cold eyes, slowly turned around.
In an instant, a chill spread through her body as if she had been doused with ice water. Thalia scrambled out of bed to catch him, but Barkas had already left the room.
Staring blankly at the dark hallway, Thalia eventually collapsed. She wanted to sink straight into the ground.
Barkas had saved her. Yet she had used him as a target for her venting. It would be strange if he didn’t feel disillusioned. It was only natural for him to be disgusted. She buried her wretchedly crumpled face into the carpet and poured out hot tears.
*
After that day, Barkas did not show himself before her. It was only months later that Thalia saw him again, at his appointment ceremony as the Commander of the Imperial Knights.
She watched from a distance as he knelt on one knee before the Emperor and recited the oath of loyalty in a calm tone. Her father drew the Imperial sword and placed it on his shoulder. Then, in a solemn voice, he proclaimed that Barkas had been appointed as the head of the Imperial Guard.
Though it was a position of immense responsibility for a young man not yet twenty, no one questioned his qualifications. Barkas slowly turned and walked down the steps. Over his resolute face, the sunlight streaming through the glass windows poured down like a deluge.
She etched every detail of that moment into her memory.
With his back straight, Barkas cut through the crowd. That cold profile passed her by with utter indifference. Toward that back, which was striding away to a place her hands could not reach, she whispered quietly.
Goodbye.
Having said that, she added instinctively.
Don’t go.
Thalia furrowed her brow as if she were about to burst into tears. Soon, his figure disappeared completely from her sight.
The boy her mother had gifted her seven years ago had left her side just like that.