It felt as though ants had crawled beneath her eyelids while she slept.
Enduring the stinging crawl behind her eyeballs, Talia fixed her gaze on her half-sister.
As always, Ayla looked down at her, perfectly composed and elegant.
Confronted with that lofty visage, Talia felt the prickling behind her eyes turn to a scorch.
Clutching the blanket before her like a shield, she glared back with open venom.
“Did you come here to watch a show? If you have something to say, say it quickly and get out.”
“…How are you feeling?”
“How do I look?”
At the barbed retort, a pair of pale green eyes slowly raked over her.
“You do not look well.”
Talia’s mouth pulled into a hard line.
Her fingertips trembled. If her legs were whole, she would have seized the woman by the hair and hurled her out the door this very second.
Swallowing down the surging fury, she forced a measured voice through her teeth.
“If you’ve seen your fill, why don’t you leave? Having you here only makes me sicker.”
Ayla’s lips pressed together.
As the silence stretched, Talia’s nerves frayed to a razor’s edge. When the pain she had barely kept down began to gnaw its way back up through her bones, she raised her voice.
“Didn’t you hear me? I told you to get out.”
“I told you, I came to speak with you,” Ayla said, a faint edge of impatience fraying her tone.
Talia narrowed her eyes in a vicious glare.
“Then speak and get lost! The sight of your face turns my stomach. Did you expect me to sit here and wait on your pleasure? Don’t make me laugh. State your business this instant or get out of my sight!”
As if struck by the venom lashing against her, Ayla’s face went rigid.
Her eyes turned cold as she spoke.
“Very well. I will tell you why I am here. I came to see what you intend to do from here on.”
“What I intend to do? About what?” Talia asked coldly.
Her headache was worsening. The ants that had been chewing behind her eyes now seemed to bore straight into her brain. The piercing ache radiated to the base of her skull.
While every nerve screamed with the pain, Ayla kept talking.
“Do not play dumb. You know exactly what I am referring to.”
“Can I read your mind? How am I supposed to know what you haven’t said?”
“You…!”
Ayla’s voice rose a fraction.
Talia tilted her head, watching with a sneer as humiliation twisted her half-sister’s face.
Ayla drew a breath, struggling to gather her composure, before continuing in a far calmer tone.
“I am asking if you truly mean to marry that man.”
Talia gave no answer, merely staring at her with blank indifference.
It seemed Ayla was the one who could no longer bear the quiet.
She pressed on, the anxiety leaking through.
“You hate Varkas. You’ve tormented him since we were children. You cannot seriously intend to become his wife now, can you?”
Seeing the desperate need for reassurance in Ayla’s eyes, a hollow, breathless laugh broke from Talia’s mouth.
Ayla’s lips set into a tight, hard line.
Watching that wretched look, Talia let her jagged laughter spill unchecked.
Forgetting the splitting ache in her head and the needles shooting up her legs, Talia clutched her belly and doubled over with laughter.
“So you ran all the way here because you’re terrified?”
Ayla’s face had drained to the color of plaster.
Talia spoke softly, savoring every inch of that drained expression.
“It must burn like fire in your gut to think I might steal your fiancé away.”
· · ·
“What should I do, then? Seeing you like this makes me want to tear him away from you at all costs.”
Ayla’s delicate features warped into something ugly. Her eyes, usually the clear green of evergreens, clouded with dark poison.
A strange thrill swept through Talia.
This was the sister who had always looked down on her with an immaculate mask. That very sister was finally baring her raw, bleeding pride.
“He only agreed to marry you out of duty!” Ayla cried out, her temper snapping.
“He feels guilty that your body was ruined like that! But it isn’t his fault you were hurt. Why should Varkas have to make such a sacrifice?”
The smile vanished from Talia’s face.
Her amusement died instantly, snuffed out by a freezing fury. Her fingers twitched with the urge to rip out that tongue for daring to speak as Varkas’s keeper.
Swallowing down the curses clawing up her throat, Talia forced her voice into a saccharine lilt.
“I thought you had some wit about you. But you’re far more foolish than I imagined.”
Ayla’s lips froze.
Talia continued, measuring each word.
“Those aren’t the words you should be offering me right now. You ought to be begging me. Politely, and on your knees.”
· · ·
“Begging me, please, not to marry Varkas Raedgo Shearkan.”
Ayla’s eyelid twitched.
Talia drank in that humiliated face with malicious delight. Ayla wet her lips, the words tearing out with excruciating effort.
“If I beg you… will you refuse the marriage?”
“Well, now,” Talia said lightly.
“Wouldn’t that depend on how desperate the beggar is?”
Ayla bit her lip and stared down at the floorboards, barely able to force out the breath.
After a suffocating silence, she raised her head with grim resolve. Soon, a pathetic plea trickled from her shapely, pink lips.
“I beg of you. Please refuse the marriage to Varkas. If you refuse, His Majesty will not force it through either. So, please…”
Unable to bring herself to finish, her voice broke and dissolved into silence.
Looking upon that tragic display, Talia swallowed down a bitter sneer.
This woman truly believed she had surrendered something immense just now.
Her dignity as an Imperial Princess.
She thought that because she, an exalted princess, had bowed to a lowborn bastard, she was owed her reward.
Talia lowered her gaze to her legs beneath the blanket.
Only when she had been broken into this wretched thing had she even been weighed as a bride for him.
Yet this woman thought she could win him back with nothing more than a scrap of her petty pride.
To her, the ruined legs of Talia Roem Guirta were worth less than her own vanity.
Talia spoke flatly.
“Fine.”
A rush of color flooded back into Ayla’s cheeks.
Watching her calmly, Talia added, “On one condition.”
“A condition?”
A wary shadow crossed Ayla’s face.
Talia turned her head toward the side table. On a tray laid with fruit, bread, and butter rested several pieces of silverware.
Reaching out, Talia took the small butter knife and tossed it at her half-sister’s feet.
The silver blade skidded to a stop against the hem of Ayla’s gown. Talia spoke quietly to the woman staring blankly down at it.
“Stab your leg with that.”
“…What?”
Ayla looked up, her expression saying she could not fathom what she had heard.
Meeting those hollow eyes, Talia carved out every syllable.
“I’m telling you to ruin your leg with it. Just like this…”
Talia slowly dragged the blanket back. Ayla’s wide eyes locked onto the hideously raised, swollen scars.
Before her very eyes, Talia dragged a fingertip down the long, hideous furrow scoring her shin, making sure she saw every mark.
“From here… to here. Carve a long wound with that knife. If you do, I will grant your wish.”
Ayla glanced frantically between the knife on the floor and her own legs, draped in velvet. Her eyelids fluttered uncontrollably.
At last, a cold, mocking laugh spilled from her bloodless lips.
“You never had the slightest intention of listening to me from the start.”
Talia gave no answer.
Soon enough, the mask of the princess settled back over Ayla’s features.
As if she had never demeaned herself for a single second, Ayla lifted her chin and turned toward the door. Her brisk, rhythmic steps halted sharply at the threshold.
Catching the handle, Ayla looked back over her shoulder. A chilling light gleamed in her murky, swamp-green eyes.
“You will regret this day, Talia Roem Guirta.”
Having spat out the words like a curse, Ayla added ice as she stepped out into the hall.
“I will see to it that you do.”
END