Chapter 16 (1/2)

When I encountered his cold eyes, I felt a cold sweat breaking out on my back. On the one hand, my body felt hot. On the other, I suddenly remembered the last few moments of my life:his expressionless face when he had sex with me, his cruel laughing after he told me he killed my father, and his smirking bloody lips.

Did the wind blow over me? I felt cold on my neck. I trembled because I felt the same feeling as when my neck was cut by the ax blade in my past life. My eyes began to burn black. The eyes of the boy who I just encountered in my darkened view came to mind. His eyes that I had met for the last time were overlapped with the boy’s.

Right at that moment my blood was frozen. The cold energy that began to spread from my heart ran all over and bound me tightly.

After keeping silent for a while, he spoke, “Silver hair. I wonder if you are the daughter of the Monique family.”

“… ”

I knew I had to show him due manners, but I couldn’t do anything. I had to reply, but my frozen lips refused to move.

When I was just blinking my eyes without opening my eyes, he said, “Even though you are the daughter of the Monique family, you are very arrogant. I think you know who I am, then where is your manners?”

“… ”

He shouted as if he was dumbfounded by my silence. My face turned white. Now that the hot energy that flowed through my heart disappeared, I was shivering in fear that my past would be repeated right now.

“You don’t want to answer my question?”

“… ”

“Oh my goodness, how arrogant you are! I hear every political faction is supporting your family. It looks like you are holding your head high because of them.”

My heart sunk at his annoying voice. I tried to open my trembling lips but couldn’t.

“You beat me. Enough. I think it’s useless to talk to you more. ”

While trying to tell me more, he stopped and turned. It was not until I heard his footsteps disappearing that I began to relax. I flopped down as if the noose that was coiling all over my body had loosened. My hands had turned pale and were shaking.

How much time passed? I stiffened when I heard somebody approaching me.

‘Is he coming back?’ When I looked back with my trembling eyes, I saw shiny silver hair reflecting the sun.

‘Daddy?’

My father walked to me with quick strides and reached out to me. My cold heart began to pound little by little.

“Oh, you are here, Tia.”

“…Dad.”

I grasped the sleeves of my father’s navy blue uniform with my trembling hands. He looked at me suspiciously, his eyes full of anxiety.

“Why are you trembling so badly? What happened?”

“… ”

When I turned into his arms, he stopped asking and hugged me silently. I felt his warmth spreading over my body. Just like the snow melting in the warm sunlight, my frozen blood melted little by little. The terrible horror that had surrounded me gradually disappeared.

When he touched my back gently, I fell asleep before I knew it. Suddenly, I saw his cold blue eyes faintly, but they quickly disappeared like the melting snow.

I began to hear my father’s voice disappearing gradually. In no time, I was being sucked into the world of sleep.

After meeting the emperor, I stayed put in the house and spent my days peacefully. Was it because I always led a busy life? Spending everyday without doing anything was very strange and precious to me.

I woke up late in the morning and had breakfast with my father after he came from training and spent the afternoons reading books or taking walks. I decided not to go to the training field as much as possible. Whenever I walked near the field, the training knights seemed to watch me, which seemed to disturbed them. After dinner, I was very happy with the ordinary life that I had never experienced before, going to sleep after checking the papers or quietly reading books next to my father.

A little after three weeks after I spent peaceful days, an unexpected visitor visited me.

“Who came to see me, Lina?”

“Second son of Duke Verita, Alendis de Verita came to see you, lady.”

“Verita’s second son is here, not his father?”

“Yes, lady.”

“Well, okay.”

I woke up nervously. Just a few weeks ago I made a suggestion about a new taxation based on the same one he announced in the past as if it was mine.

Had he already devised the method at this point? So, did he come here to take issue with my suggestion, arguing that it was originally his?

Pondering over it, I headed to the parlor. When I came into the room with Lina, the boy sitting on a cream sofa stood up. I bowed slowly towards the stranger.