The Sand Bride - Chapter 56

Hakan, his face hardening as he listened to the story, muttered that, then spoke to the young servant, who had an awkward expression.

“You will be transferred to the central palace starting tomorrow. Your job there will be to report to me everything that happens between my brother and that woman.”

“That woman…… are you referring to the woman Sayar has placed in the inner palace?”

When the young servant hesitated and confirmed, Hakan nodded.

“Yes. The woman who was a sacrifice. Tell me everything that happens between her and my brother, without missing a single detail. And…….”

Hakan issued one more command.

“Continue to visit that sick woman’s father frequently, as you do now. Find out his condition and keep gathering information about his daughter, and report it all to me.”

“But Your Highness.”

The young servant looked at Hakan with a troubled expression. The person in question was none other than the woman in Sayar’s inner palace and her father. This situation meant that if anything went wrong, strange rumors could spread. The young servant worried that his own neck might be on the line because of this.

But Hakan already knew this and threw a bait that was too tempting for the young servant to refuse.

“If you carry out this order well, your family might someday sit near me.”

A place near the King. The young servant swallowed hard. That meant his family could sit near the King at banquets or meetings, and that wasn’t just a simple honor; it was a promise of real power. For an ambitious young servant, it was a difficult offer to refuse.

“Yes…… I understand.”

In the end, the young servant bowed to Hakan. After all, as long as he wasn’t caught reporting on Sayar, it wouldn’t be a big problem.

Simply reporting what he heard, without being told to directly approach the woman, and reporting about her father, who was still a slave, seemed fine. As time passed, this thought, fueled by desire, rose into the young servant’s mind.

If only Esther’s father hadn’t died today.

As the sun fully set, the young servant swallowed hard and, with his shadow trailing behind him, headed for the royal garden. It was a night when his own footsteps seemed unusually loud.

It was time for him to see the King.

* * *

On one side of the royal garden is a greenhouse.

Once always beautifully maintained by Hemor and the man she favored, the greenhouse has long been the place most avoided by palace residents since the intelligent and promising royal, Hemor, committed suicide. It had been largely neglected.

However, recently, by Hakan’s command, a gardener was assigned to it, clearing away overgrown weeds and reviving dying flowers and trees, slowly restoring it to a proper greenhouse garden.

Inside the recovering greenhouse were various plants and flowering trees, but the most numerous among them were the Lepiran flowers. These beautiful flowers with crimson petals grew mainly in the southeastern region and were once planted in the greenhouse by Hemor as a gift for her lover.

Her lover, a gardener by trade, loved these flowers very much. So, Hemor always picked them whenever she met him.

“Ah, these flowers?”

Hakan, sitting on a chair in a corner of the greenhouse, quietly reminisced about the past. It hadn’t been that long ago, so just looking at the place brought back vivid memories, as if they were happening now.

“I’m taking them to him. He loves these flowers the most.”

Hemor, picking an armful of Lepiran flowers, answered Hakan with a bright face. Hearing her reply, Hakan asked something else.

“What’s the flower’s name?”

“Lepiran flower. By the way, the flower language of this flower is…….”

His sister, carrying a basket full of flowers, entering the man’s room, wore a face Hakan had never seen before. A face brimming with deep satisfaction, or perhaps anticipation. Hakan had never forgotten that face. Even now, it appeared before his eyes if he simply closed them.

But no matter how clear the memory, a memory was just a memory, and the past was merely the past, and thus, there was no returning to that time.

“Ah, this?”

Hakan now recalled Karzhen. This memory had occurred more recently than Hemor’s. Late in the evening, Karzhen, whom he had coincidentally met in the palace corridor, was carrying a box himself, not by a slave or chamberlain, and walking.

His direction was towards his own palace. The box, adorned with splendid mother-of-pearl, clearly contained something precious to anyone who saw it. When Hakan, who had met him, asked, Karzhen replied as if it were nothing significant, yet his face was filled with anticipation.

“I’m going to give it to that woman.”

No matter how vivid the past, it remains just that; no matter how much one recalls it, it cannot be changed. Hakan knew this better than anyone. Hemor had taught him that.

However, Karzhen was not the past. Therefore, Hakan believed he could still change things. That was why he had begun to set these plans in motion.

Having made up his mind, Hakan placed the investigative report, which his subordinate, whom he had personally sent to the Kingdom of Donova, had just submitted today, on the table the very next day after meeting the young servant.

The rolled-up report, tied with a string, contained the name of Esther’s father and the results of the investigation traced through the information the young servant had reported. It stated that Esther’s mother had died long ago, unable to overcome an illness, shocked by the news that the merchant group to which the father and daughter belonged had been executed for smuggling.

‘All preparations are now complete.’

Hakan decided to carry out his final action.

Before him, seated in the greenhouse, a long shadow appeared, obscuring the pale moonlight. Hakan beckoned him in, and the shadow lengthened, then was swallowed by the tree shadows and vanished. Click. The greenhouse door lightly closed. The person standing before Hakan was the young servant.

“Your Majesty.”