23
Contrary to her expectations, the journey went smoothly.
Though night after night fell as thick and dark as pitch, morning broke each day without bloodshed, and the camp was packed up to move again before the sun reached its zenith.
The schedule fell slightly behind as soldiers flagged and dropped back in the sweltering heat, but the pilgrimage proceeded without major incident.
Led by Gareth and his guard, the procession reached Sortika, a small northwestern city, five days after leaving the Imperial Palace. After resting there for a day, they turned north once more.
Through it all, Talia kept a close, suspicious eye on the attendants Senevier had sent.
They put on an almost sickening display of devotion, but Talia did not let her guard down for a single moment.
They were merely waiting for the right moment. Something terrible was bound to happen soon; it was as clear as day.
Had an ominous plot ever failed to trail behind whatever Senevier touched like a shadow?
If not today, then tomorrow; if not tomorrow, then the day after…. Soon enough, some gruesome scene would unfold before her eyes.
Talia could not tell whether she dreaded it or longed for it.
Whenever she saw Varkas—so cold toward her—treat Ayla with endless tenderness, she wished a horrific disaster would strike them that very second.
She thought it would be a relief if the two of them were mangled beyond recognition. Seeing his corpse would be a hundred times better than watching him stand by Ayla’s side.
Yet as the nights wore on, a suffocating terror gripped her. No matter how many hundreds of times she told herself she did not care if such a man died, it did no good.
Shivering with anxiety through the night, Talia would slip out of her tent before dawn had fully broken. Guided by the dim grey light, she went looking for him. It felt as though she could only draw breath once she had seen with her own eyes that Varkas was alive and well.
She hurried along a narrow path through the dense underbrush, only to freeze when a horse snorted ahead.
Parting the thick branches, she spotted a grey stallion with a flowing black mane.
Varkas had brought the massive horse to the spring and dropped to one knee on the ground. Pulling lightly on the reins to guide the stallion’s head toward the water, he used his other hand to scoop up spring water and wet its long, powerful neck.
Sunlight filtering through the lush leaves washed over his hair in pale silver. Talia watched, holding her breath, before she finally closed her eyes in despair.
No matter how hard she tried to carve it out, her love for Varkas grew like a tumor, hollowing her out from within. There was no way out of this mire.
How was she supposed to rid herself of this feeling?
Leaning back against a massive tree, Talia stared blankly up at the sky, then turned weakly to leave. But the moment she saw Ayla step onto the path, she ducked behind the trunk.
Perhaps she had stepped out the moment she woke; Ayla wore only a thin robe thrown over her nightdress, her long hair spilling over her shoulders. She looked just as unkempt as Talia—if not more so.
Even so, Ayla looked noble and graceful. Talia wondered if there was something carried in that woman’s blood that she herself could never possess, not if she died trying.
“So this is where you were.”
With a soft flush on her cheeks, Ayla approached him and settled onto a flat stone.
Varkas turned his gaze toward her. As if even that quiet look was unbearably sweet, Ayla smiled gently and slipped off her shoes. She dipped her bare feet into the spring, splashing lightly.
The stallion’s snort, the splashing water, and her light, melodic laughter dissolved into the cool dawn air.
Talia swallowed down the urge to charge out and seize her half-sister by the hair. She choked back the impulse to tear the lips that smiled at him and rip out the tongue that chattered away. She simply could not bear to see Varkas step in to protect Ayla.
Before long, having had her fill of playing in the water, Ayla held out a hand toward him. Rather than taking it to pull her up, Varkas knelt down and dried her feet. Then, like a devoted servant, he slipped her shoes back on. The sight struck Talia like a blade through the chest.
She turned and ran. Brambles and grass tore at her arms and calves, but she felt no pain. It was as though every sense she possessed had gone numb.
Gasping for breath, she bolted down the winding path like a spooked horse. Then her foot caught on an exposed root, and she went crashing to the ground. Lying in the brush, her chest heaving, Talia suddenly burst into laughter.
What would Senevier say if she saw this? She would probably knit her delicate brows and shake her head. She could almost hear Senevier’s mocking voice in her ear.
“You have two choices. Either take the man you want by any means necessary, or settle for being a slightly less pathetic loser.”
Senevier seemed to want her to turn into a seductress and tempt him, but Talia could never become like Senevier.
The Empress would have seized whatever she desired by any means at her disposal. But Talia knew of nothing else to do except pray that this torment would end as soon as possible.
Staring up at the sky shattered by branches, Talia finally pushed herself up. When she emerged from the gloomy forest path on dragging feet, she found several knights wandering about in confusion. As she brushed past them toward her carriage, a guardsman—Rubon, or whatever his name was—hurried over to block her way.
“Where on earth have you been without a word?! I’ve told you repeatedly that you cannot wander off without an escort—”
The knight, rattling off his insolent complaints, cut himself short. He looked thoroughly taken aback by her disheveled state.
“Just… what happened to you? Did you run into trouble?”
She stepped past him onto the carriage step.
The man, however, seemed to have no intention of letting it go. Catching hold of the doorframe, he pressed on firmly.
“It is my duty to protect Your Highness. So—”
“Anyone would think you actually cared.”
Talia looked down at him with contempt.
“I suppose you were ordered not to take your eyes off the insolent princess for a single second… but if you’re meant to keep watch, you should stay alert. Why blame me because you lost track of me while daydreaming like an idiot?”
The man shut his mouth, struck dumb.
Talia slammed the door in his face.
With his fingers caught in the frame, the man let out a harsh curse. Wearing gauntlets, he was hardly seriously hurt, but his disgruntled muttering dragged on for quite some time as though the pain were unbearable.
As always, she tuned out the grievances drifting in from outside.
If she took every word uttered by the people around her to heart, she would have lost her mind long ago.
The very first thing she had learned after becoming an imperial princess was how to let things pass over her.
Talia pulled the heavy curtains shut across the window where the morning light was creeping in, and curled herself tight like a hedgehog.
END