Translator: Nox

Chapter 11

11

After that day, Talia found herself unable to eat almost anything. She simply couldn’t trust what might be hidden inside.

Her nanny was frustrated, unable to understand the cause. She merely thought the child was being picky.

Without explaining a thing, Talia endured by eating only the small portions of fruit and honey the nanny brought as snacks.

Solitude and loneliness were no longer the issue. In the most magnificent and luxurious place in the world, she had to fight against starvation.

On some days, driven by unbearable hunger, she would reluctantly touch the food the servants brought. But without fail, she would find insects, mice, or sometimes clumps of curly hair that she couldn’t possibly identify the origin of.

After experiencing this several times, she reached a point where she couldn’t put anything in her mouth. Within a few weeks, she had grown pitifully gaunt.

By this point, even the dull-witted nanny realized something was terribly wrong. She immediately rushed to the Empress, fuming that her only daughter looked like she was about to die.

Thanks to that, Talia saw her mother’s face for the first time in months.

“How did you end up in such a state?”

Those were the first words Senevia said upon visiting the separate palace—the woman who had acted as if she’d completely forgotten her daughter’s existence.

In contrast to her own ruined appearance, Talia looked at her mother, who was blooming as vibrantly as a summer flower, and her eyes welled with tears. Seeing that face, clear to the point of being innocent, an outburst of resentment welled up inside her.

She had intended to be angry. She had planned to scream at the top of her lungs, asking how she could be so selfish. But when she finally opened her mouth, only sobs came out.

Talia wailed like a newborn baby, pouring out everything that had happened. From start to finish, she confessed the horrific atrocities committed by the servants of the separate palace and the cruelties she had been forced to endure. Until the story was over, Senevia sat by the bed and listened in silence.

Talia thought her mother was silent because she was suppressing her rage—that she was speechless at the terrible things her only daughter had suffered.

So, Talia grabbed her arm and shook it roughly, demanding an answer.

“Mother! Don’t let them bully me anymore! You have to take measures right now so that no one can ever hurt me again!”

“And why should I do that?”

Senevia asked, tilting her head.

Talia was stunned by the unexpected response. Senevia’s face was filled with nothing but pure curiosity. She looked as though she truly couldn’t understand why a young child, exhausted by abuse, would ask her for help.

“Talia, this palace is yours, and the servants in this castle are all your property. You are nine years old now. How can you throw a tantrum at your mother just because you can’t manage your own things properly?”

Talia was rendered completely speechless.

Senevia cupped Talia’s cheek with one hand and let out a sigh, looking genuinely disappointed.

“You are the Emperor’s daughter. I truly don’t understand why you are being unilaterally victimized by such insignificant things. It is almost embarrassing that my daughter is this naive and weak.”

“M-Mother…”

Senevia looked at the candle flame by the window with a pensive expression. On her chillingly beautiful face, there wasn’t a trace of anger regarding the abuse her daughter had suffered. There was only a slight sense of disappointment, frustration, and the air of someone deeply considering how to enlighten a slow-witted child.

Talia felt as if she were dealing with an insect that had done a decent job of mimicking human form.

After being lost in thought for a long time, Senevia snapped her fingers and spoke.

“Let’s do this. I’ll leave a useful guard for you. He’s a man I’ve thoroughly broken in over a very long time. If you handle him well, he’ll be quite useful.”

She stood up, brushing herself off as if that solved all the problems.

Talia desperately grabbed the hem of her dress.

“I don’t need someone like that! I want to be with you, Mother!”

At her desperate cry, a fleeting look of revulsion crossed Senevia’s face. Talia turned pale with shock.

Senevia pried her daughter’s fingers off her skirt one by one and leaned toward her. Then, she clicked her tongue as if she truly pitied her.

“Talia, all of this started because of me. Yet, do you know why people don’t put mice in my soup?”

Talia remained frozen like a mouse before a snake, unable to offer any response.

Senevia continued softly.

“Why is my bathwater always warm and fragrant? Why is my table always bountiful? Why do they never dare to do to me what they do to you? Shall Mother tell you the secret?”

Her blood-red lips lightly brushed against Talia’s ear.

“It is because they fear me that they don’t dare dream of doing such things. Some of them even harbor feelings of awe toward me. Of course, there are countless others who feel loathing and contempt. But even they view me as an object of caution, not an object of bullying. Because I am a very threatening presence.”

She stared straight into her daughter’s eyes. Talia could glimpse something murky and dark coiled within Senevia’s gaze.

Senevia straightened her posture and left a final piece of advice.

“Keep this in mind. Those who are strong and beautiful become objects of fear and envy. But those who are beautiful and weak are destined to become targets of plunder. Especially here in the Imperial Palace. If you don’t want to be ruthlessly trampled by the many beasts that will target you in the future, you had better at least not get caught being weak.”

With those final words, she departed, leaving behind her daughter, who had become as fragile as could be.

That night, Talia chewed over her words again and again.

The weak are trampled. And Senevia didn’t seem to have the slightest intention of protecting her young daughter from being brutally crushed.

Is this how a defeated soldier feels after losing their last stronghold? Her entire body trembled with the fear that even more horrific things might happen to her in the future.

Even if she were treated more harshly than now, no one would protect her. Now that even her mother had turned away, would His Majesty the Emperor even spare a glance for an illegitimate child who was nothing more than a stain on his reputation?

She curled up tightly under the covers, anxiously biting her nails. The feet of the servants she had seen while lying prone on the dining room floor, vomiting, flickered in her mind.

Those indifferent feet busy moving around her as she lay there in a miserable state… It wasn’t hard to imagine those feet crushing her like an insignificant bug.

Her eyes burned hot. Her mother was right. Sooner or later, she would be crushed into nothingness.

And the reason she was driven into this situation was entirely because she had cast herself as a sinner. Her sense of guilt had turned her into a weakling.

The moment she began to take a helpless attitude, as if she deserved whatever happened to her, they instinctively realized she wouldn’t resist. From her shrinking gestures, her intimidated eyes, her faltering speech… they discovered the image of a weakling and began to be as cruel as they pleased.

Finally, as dawn broke, Talia realized clearly what she had to do.