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“He is surveying the grounds with the estate overseer. He has only just taken the title, so there are matters without end to look into, wouldn't you say?”
The nanny answered absently as she set the table.
“Come now, cease your woolgathering and sit down. You must eat quickly to prepare for departure as well, Your Highness.”
Talia swallowed a heavy sigh and pulled out a chair. Appetite eluded her still, yet she lacked the heart to pick a quarrel with her nanny, who seemed cheerful for the first time in an age.
“I shall take only a morsel.”
“As you say, of course.”
Beaming, the nanny carved the food into bite-sized morsels and laid them upon her plate.
Talia took a crumb of bread no larger than a fingernail, shredded it finer still, and examined it closely for foreign matter. Convinced at last of its safety, she swallowed the mashed bread down with a smear of cloying jam. She wished to end the meal there, yet the nanny pushed forward a serving of meat glazed in a dark sauce along with a steamed egg.
The gamy scent of the meat turned her stomach, so she managed only the single egg before pushing back from the table. At that moment, footsteps approached the tent from without.
“Your Highness, I have arrived to inspect your wounds.”
It was the healer sent by Senevier. Talia answered in a faint, hollow tone.
“Enter.”
Given leave, a middle-aged woman with tidy features walked in. She asked gently,
“How fares the ache today?”
“Tolerable enough.”
Talia responded curtly, sitting upon the edge of the bed. The woman dropped naturally to her knees before her and unspooled the linen wrapped about her legs. As the mottled scars came into view, the nanny turned her head away at once.
Talia did her utmost to overlook the gesture, regarding her own limbs with an aloof detachment. The healer smoothed a thick salve over the discolored flesh, then took up fresh cloth to bind them again.
“The flesh may grow inflamed, so I shall wrap them loosely today.”
“I care nothing for that. Bind them tight. Ensure they do not slip.”
“Do you intend to carve yet more scars into yourself?”
The healer offered a firm reprimand. Talia glared with sharp contempt for an instant, but bit her lip and shook her head. With the shadow of a smile lingering at the corners of her mouth, the woman finished winding the loose bands and spoke in a soothing murmur.
“I have tied the ends firmly so they shall not come undone. Trouble yourself no further.”
Rather than reply, Talia tested the cloth with her fingers. It would not slip unless she tore it away with her own hands. As she breathed a small sigh of relief, the woman retrieved a small censer from the pouch at her hip.
“I shall light some incense before our departure. It will help ease the rigors of the carriage ride.”
She dropped a cluster of dried herbs into the small vessel. Talia reached out and caught the healer’s wrist, arresting her motion.
“That is unnecessary.”
The healer’s eyes widened with surprise.
“Will you bear it well? The jostling of the carriage will only sharpen the pain.”
“I shall endure it. Varkas—”
She nearly said that Varkas abhorred the reek of burning medicine, but clamped her mouth shut. She refused to let anyone perceive that she cared for his preferences. That remained true even now, when not a soul remained to mock her sentiments.
Talia snapped at her to brush the slip aside.
“When I say enough, it is enough.”
The healer watched her with lingering worry for a beat, then slipped the censer back into her satchel.
Talia rose, washed her face with cold water, and changed her clothes with her nanny’s assistance.
When she stepped out of the tent, the landscape opened before her in a sprawl of jagged rows of tawny tents and folk moving briskly between them.
Talia drew her shoulders tight at the alien scene. Barefoot children dashed through the high grass, women crouched over roaring pits turning flatbread and roasting meat, and men rode astride horses with their chests bared to the wind. Every sight was thoroughly foreign to her.
“Awake at last, are you?”
While she stood taking in the surroundings, an unwelcome voice drifted from the side.
Turning her head, Talia scowled at the slender youth with golden-brown eyes. Varkas’s peculiar younger brother sat perched atop a wooden chest, glowering at her.
“Are all who carry Imperial blood as indolent as you? Everyone has waited on your pleasure, wasting daylight until you saw fit to finish.”
Talia arched a brow. Before her cold gaze, a flicker of hesitation cracked the boy’s haughty sneer.
“That is to say… the sun stands high in the sky already, and you hadn't even shown your face—”
“Did no one teach you courtesy?”
Talia cut in frostily. The boy gave a shrug and countered without shame,
“I do not even bother with formal speech before my own father.”
“Do you take pride in being an insolent brat?”
The boy’s face twisted instantly.
“Whom do you call an insolent brat?! I am merely unburdened by rigid ceremony!”
Judging him unworthy of another breath, Talia turned her back. He scrambled down to dog her heels.
“Were you always born with such a vile disposition? Or rather, what could possibly make someone turn out like this?”
· · ·
“Rumor says you scourged your maids and cast them into the streets on a whim, and that you even poisoned the cup of the First Princess. Are those tales true?”
Talia, who had been dragging her feet forward, stopped dead. Fearful he might be struck, the youth took a hasty step back.
She fixed him with an unblinking stare, then slowly curled her lips into a cruel smirk.
“They are. Every word of it.”
The boy’s golden-brown eyes went wide. Holding his gaze, Talia spoke in a low, measured tone.
“I whipped my servants whenever boredom took me, and I did indeed steep poison into my half-sister’s wine.”
His pupils shook. He could not tell whether she spoke the plain truth or merely spun a monstrous lie. Talia leaned closer, thrusting her face into his space.
“Do you imagine it ended there? Every night I whetted my dagger, wondering when I might carve that pretty face of yours into ribbons.”
She could see the fine down prickling on his smooth, flushed cheek. Leaning toward the earlobe burning red with rushing blood, Talia whispered into the air,
“Take care around me. I have nothing left to lose.”
When she drew back and stood tall, she was met with a visage drained by sheer horror. Talia let out an open, mocking snort, then limped past him toward the awaiting carriage.
After resting a single night in the pastures near Raedgo Castle, the procession traveled eastward to inspect a sizable township before steering north.
Along the dirt roads linking one settlement to the next, camps large and small lay scattered across the plains. A vast portion of the Khan folk clearly preserved their nomadic traditions still. To drive herds of livestock numbering in the hundreds, an existence spent shifting between pastures with the changing seasons was unavoidable.
In contrast, the settled people in the villages lived in a manner little different from the folk of the Empire. They dwelled within homes of stone and mud, tilled the soil, crafted goods in modest workshops, or traded grain and meat in the central squares.
The wool trade, in particular, flourished above all else; fine cloth and thick felt sheared from eastern sheep served as the core source of wealth for the region.
Extensive markets opened within the primary towns, drawing hundreds of merchants from every corner of the Empire eager to secure expensive textiles. Vast sums of gold inevitably poured through the trade exchanges. Varkas’s principal duty lay in assessing the administration of these commercial centers.
“The market expands considerably with each passing year. Along with fabrics, the commerce in foodstuffs and finished goods remains remarkably brisk.”
The administrator attending Varkas spoke in a calm, dutiful voice.
“These pages record the tax levies harvested this season. Furthermore, every detail has been compiled without omission, including lease fees, passage tolls, and the ledger balances of the horse post operated directly under the Ducal House.”
Varkas turned the thick leaves of the ledger with swift precision. Talia, watching him with an empty gaze, grew weary of the tedium and turned her eyes to the window. Outside stretched the town vista, lined with tidy streets and dense stone dwellings.
The East was an uncanny realm. Folk who lived in tents across the untamed wilderness and those who kept an Imperial life behind stone walls… It seemed as though two wholly separate worlds were stitched tightly together.
“It seems this will take a while longer. Would you care to step out and look upon the trade hall for a spell?”
Talia, who had been staring blankly through the glass, started and turned her head.
END