Chapter 88
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 88
As her voice rose, a flicker of disapproval crossed the faces of the maids waiting on either side. Barkas, however, didn’t even blink.
His fingers slid along her temple before lightly brushing her stinging earlobe. Thalia looked up at him, her face flushed with a mix of heat and confusion.
“What—what are you doing?”
“Even your ears have turned red.”
His slightly calloused fingertips traced the curve of her ear with surprising gentleness. Thalia felt a prickling sensation shoot down her neck and instinctively hunched her shoulders. Barkas gazed steadily into her eyes, his tone bordering on a reprimand.
“Are you receiving proper treatment? Or are you just relying on sleep herbs again…?”
“What, are you my nursemaid now?”
Thalia pushed him away with a sharp shove. Unlike Barkas, who looked impeccably sharp in his finery, she felt a renewed sense of misery at being treated like a fragile invalid.
“I’m doing just fine on my own, so stay out of my business. It’s not like you haven’t been doing exactly that until now.”
His eyes narrowed as she pointed out his total absence over the past few days.
Just as he was about to retort, a grim, rasping voice drifted from the inner part of the room.
“How long do you intend to keep me waiting, Barkas?”
Thalia turned her head toward the massive bed positioned in the center of the room. A gaunt, skeletal arm reached out from behind the thin canopy. The man crooked a finger in an arrogant command.
“Bring your wife here.”
Thalia’s eyes thinned. Even if he was a Grand Duke, one did not simply beckon an Imperial Princess with the flick of a finger.
However, she knew better than to pick a fight with the leader of the Eastern powers in a room full of his subordinates.
She scanned the men surrounding the bed before cautiously stepping further into the room. Barkas naturally wrapped an arm around her waist. Realizing he was supporting her weight, Thalia bit her lip.
Does this man see me as a child who needs constant care? He had never been hesitant to touch her before, but since the wyvern attack, he had become noticeably more protective.
“This way.”
Almost leaning into him, Thalia approached the side of the massive bed. A man with a solemn expression who appeared to be a notary and another in priestly robes quietly stepped aside.
Thalia studied Grand Duke Sieorkan with a tense face. The man looked nothing like Barkas, yet at the same time, bore a haunting resemblance to him. While his sickly body reeked of impending death, his face—which looked as if it had been hacked out of stone with a rough chisel—overflowed with authority. His cold eyes, like molten steel, were filled with pride.
He scrutinized her with a piercing gaze before speaking in a low, heavy voice.
“…She looks disgustingly like her. Did that woman go so far as to craft a homunculus in her own image?”
The remark was a blatant insult to her lineage. Thalia threw any intention of remaining polite out the window.
“If I weren’t of Darian blood, people like you would have exposed that fact long ago,” she snapped back, tilting her chin high. “Or are you confessing your own incompetence—that you can’t even handle a single daughter of House Taren?”
Sharp intakes of breath echoed through the room at her counterattack. The Grand Duke’s face stiffened. He glared at her, his eyes like awls boring into her face.
“You are fearless. Do you not realize I am the man who commands the most powerful cavalry in this Empire?”
Thalia’s expression hardened. For a moment, her knees trembled under the sheer weight of the Grand Duke’s intimidation. But she maintained her facade of bravado.
“So? What are you going to do about it? Are you going to trample me with that cavalry?”
“Do you think I couldn’t?” the man sneered. “Do you truly believe your authority, which was pathetic even in the Imperial Palace, will be guaranteed here in the East?”
The Grand Duke’s eyes flashed with terrifying hostility. He pressed on with a rapid-fire assault of words.
“If I decided to take your head right here and now, who could stop me? Do you think the Emperor would risk the fragmentation of the Empire for your sake? Rather than go to war with the East, he would simply close his eyes and pretend not to know. Your mother might make a bit of a nuisance of herself, but that wouldn’t be enough to put me on trial. Your authority as a princess is that trivial.”
Thalia felt cold sweat drenching her spine. Intense hostility surged within her toward this man who so casually laid bare the truths she had tried to deny.
Though she felt like a cornered animal, she glared at the Grand Duke with venomous eyes.
“Then go ahead and try to kill me! My mother won’t stop at being a ‘nuisance.’ She’ll use my death as an excuse to crush the conservative nobles. Do you think she’d pass up an opportunity like that? Not a chance.”
Thalia let out a loud, mocking snort.
“Do you know what that means? It means the tiny bit of life you have left will be very, very exhausting. And don’t think you’ll find peace after you die. You’ll be cast into the fires of hell for killing a defenseless woman just because you didn’t like a few words she said.”
The Grand Duke’s face turned pale at the excessive curse. Thalia poured out her words without giving him a moment to breathe.
“And don’t think your suffering ends there. You’ll have an especially miserable time even in hell. Because I won’t leave you alone for a single second! I’ll haunt you day and night to get my revenge. I have a very special talent for that sort of thing. If you don’t believe me, just ask Barkas!”
She shot a glare at Barkas, prompting him to back her up, but he was looking down at her with a very strange expression.
When he didn’t immediately take her side, Thalia’s face contorted with a sense of betrayal. As expected, I can’t trust anyone. This place is nothing but a den of enemies.
Thalia scanned the men with swords at their waists with wary eyes and turned to leave. Just as she was about to bolt, Barkas snatched her arm. Thalia jumped.
“Let go!”
Fearing he was about to hand her over to the Grand Duke, she began to struggle, but Barkas let out a heavy sigh and pulled her against his chest.
Thalia stopped breathing. Holding her firmly so she couldn’t move, Barkas spoke coldly to the Grand Duke.
“I must correct one thing. If Your Excellency attempts to harm Thalia Roem Sieorkan, I will be the one to stand in your way.”
Thalia looked up at him, stunned. He finished his sentence slowly.
“Do you wish to lose your heir forever over a trivial argument?”
The Grand Duke, who had been gaping in disbelief, contorted his face into a mask of fury. He looked ready to breathe fire.
However, what erupted from his mouth was not a roar of anger, but a violent fit of coughing. His gaunt frame shook as he hacked, and after gasping for air, he let out a dry, hollow laugh.
“This is absurd.”
“…”
“Are you acting this insolent because you think I have no other alternative but you?”
“If you have another alternative, feel free to bring them forward,” Barkas said in a chillingly smooth tone. “I intend to do my utmost to assert my rights. If you wish to see the East torn apart by civil war, then by all means, proceed.”
The deep wrinkles around the Grand Duke’s mouth twitched. After glaring at his eldest son with burning eyes, the man eventually leaned his head back against the bedframe as if exhausted. He then extended a hand toward the notary.
“Give me the mandate.”
The frozen official stepped forward with trembling hands and offered the parchment document.
Gripping the quill, the Grand Duke signed his name in a jagged script and pulled a ring from his finger. The notary immediately poured sealing wax at the bottom of the document. After pressing his seal into it, the Grand Duke tossed the parchment toward Barkas.
“With this, all my rights are transferred to Barkas Raedgo Sieorkan.”
Barkas accepted the document with an expressionless face. Closing his eyes as if his business was concluded, the man waved his hand dismissively.
“Now, get out of my sight.”