Chapter 88
“If something happens to His Majesty because he’s being tortured, will you take responsibility?!”
In the end, the commander had no choice but to surrender.
“It will only delay the inevitable! This place will burn to the ground! My soldiers will flay you and tan your skins into shoes!”
The Emperor raged and screamed, but his voice was muffled inside the glass container and barely carried.
Despite commanding an army of ten thousand, the Golden Army ultimately failed to conquer Aldehallow. Watching the golden tide retreat without a single gain, Virelda buried her face in her hands.
“I… I really did it…”
Throughout the negotiations she had remained calm and composed, but the moment it was over, she collapsed in front of Fay. She had clearly been running on fumes, barely sleeping or eating.
Fay’s eyes stung with tears at the sight of her exhausted friend. She hugged Virelda and patted her back, whispering that she had done well.
Then she felt a sharp, unsettling gaze.
The culprit was Alnazir.
He didn’t say anything, but he watched Fay and Virelda with clear dissatisfaction. Strangely enough, Zynie stood beside him.
[She acted like she hated her the most, and now she’s pretending to be fragile. Isn’t that funny?]
Zynie scribbled her complaint to the man who couldn’t understand their spoken words. Once Alnazir finished reading, he tore up the paper and fed it to Donovan, so Fay never knew what had been written.
But what bothered her more was that Zynie kept hovering around such a dangerous man.
“Zynie.”
Fay tried to warn her with her eyes, but she ignored it.
Zynie seemed to view him as ‘the pitiful boyfriend who always gets pushed aside whenever Virelda is around,’ and felt a strange sense of kinship.
Zynie had always been friendly, but oddly enough, Alnazir didn’t reject her presence either. He considered her Fay’s younger sister and extended a certain leniency. To outsiders, they even appeared somewhat friendly.
It wasn’t entirely one-sided, either. Zynie often supplied him with bits of information Fay didn’t share.
That was how he had learned that Fay had found the Emperor’s head repulsive.
He had thought she would appreciate it fresh.
It had helped save the city, yes, but if Fay hadn’t been pleased, then it was a failed gift. Next time, he would bring something other than a head. Alnazir quietly sorted through his thoughts based on Zynie’s information.
[It’s pointless always taking Fay’s side. The one she likes best is Virelda, anyway.]
Not all the information Zynie provided was pleasant.
She should like me the most. He wanted to argue that point confidently. But Fay’s behavior proved Zynie right.
When their eyes met, Fay flinched and instinctively burrowed closer into Virelda’s embrace, as if hiding her small body. If she acted like that, it made it look as though she feared him. Surely that wasn’t the case.
But why behave in a way that invited such misunderstandings?
Alnazir found her attitude deeply displeasing. And there was something else.
Suddenly recalling it, he snatched the pen from Zynie’s hand as she continued scribbling.
[Fay has been strange lately.]
It was the first time he had written something himself instead of merely responding. Zynie interpreted it as him opening up to her as an ally and took it seriously.
[For example?]
[She calls me “Lord Alnazir.”]
At first, he had dismissed it as nothing. Frankly, it was humans who were strange for addressing him so casually.
If she had finally understood what it meant that he was a ruler and was being polite, that was commendable—but unnecessary. She was a witch he favored.
“Call me comfortably.”
He had been generous, telling her she could address him as before, that he would tolerate it from her.
Thinking back, her face had been unusually pale at the time. He had assumed it was from hours of cutting and hauling wood under the sun.
Now he realized that might have been the moment something shifted.
After that, she never called him casually again. Either she avoided saying his name entirely, or she carefully added “Lord” every time.
“She hasn’t started revering me. No… it’s as if she’s trying to put distance between us…”
Alnazir narrowed his eyes as he stared at Fay.
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