The Sand Bride - Chapter 84

“You said you needed a pass to get in…….”

Greta, who had called her but remained silent, finally spoke after a long while and took something from her bosom. It was an entry pass stamped with the king’s seal, and with it, one could enter or leave anywhere. Seeing what she had wanted, Bianca looked at Greta’s back with trembling eyes.

Though Greta knew Bianca was watching her, she still did not turn her gaze even once, keeping her back turned. Upon learning that she was her sister who resembled their mother, she couldn’t bring herself to look at that face. To Greta, their mother had been such a foreign and shameful existence until then.

“Fine. I’ll give it to you. If you want, I’ll even help with that wench’s escape.”

Nevertheless, the reason she decided to give the entry pass, prepared for discord with Karzhen, was separate. Just because she had read words of love and apology about herself in a letter didn’t mean familial affection for her mother and Bianca had sprung up.

Too much time had passed for that, and Greta had long been independent from desiring anyone’s affection. So she had not loved her mother. Nor had she forgiven her. Greta had simply decided to respect her mother.

It was respect for that woman who, while preparing herself for desperate affection and guilt in the glass bottle, said she did not regret it and went in search of her own life.

Her mother had not fled in fear of fate because she did not love Greta. She had loved Greta, but had fought against that feeling for the sake of her own freedom. Greta respected such a woman, such courage.

“Don’t misunderstand.”

Greta, who had thrown the entry pass stamped with her seal to Bianca, arrogantly lifted her chin.

“I just…… don’t want to see the sight of those two.”

Greta, who finally turned around to look at her sister silently holding the entry pass, bared her teeth in a smile. It was a somewhat sorrowful-looking smile. But instead of thinking such thoughts, Bianca decided to think that she had shown a fierce smile.

Because that was what she wanted.

* * *

The room in the Aldana temple used to confine guilty kings was made entirely of black stone on the walls and floor, with not a single window pierced through.

The furniture consisted only of a chair and a bed. The single massive door had bars the width of a palm pierced through it like a prisoner’s door, and through those bars one could see the Aldana priests rolling their eyes as they monitored Greta—priests who respected the king but were absolutely obedient to Sayar.

The cold chill flowing from the dark stones and stone-like people licked and caressed her arms and nape eerily, but Greta looked at the wall with calm eyes as if she felt nothing.

The Aldana priests had raided Greta’s palace not long after Karzhen left the palace. Dressed in white, they approached like the north wind, sweeping aside the servants and Greta’s subordinates who blocked their path, pressing all the way to Greta’s bedroom located in the center of the palace.

In the desolate palace, there were no sounds of breaking or objects rolling. Only the sounds of countless footsteps and voices.

Whether because that sound was loud, or whether it was an illusion created by her expecting mind, Greta recognized the sound of the Aldana priests. But her calm face did not waver in the slightest. It was all too natural that Karzhen would move the Aldana priests, who held the only right to punish a king. Separate from the fact that there was no sharp countermeasure for it.

But Greta did not despair. She had already established different measures through different methods long ago. Before sending someone to help Bianca and Esther escape, Greta gave the man instructions to escape while simultaneously issuing one command.

“In addition to helping those two escape, you have one more task.”

The man whom Greta ordered to help Bianca and Esther escape was Greta’s long-time confidant and her only ally. From the moment she gave this dangerous order to help Sayar’s woman escape, the man had said this was madness, but Greta pushed ahead forcefully.

“If things seem to go wrong, look for an opportunity and kill the woman.”

“Which woman do you mean?”

“Sayar’s woman.”

At Greta’s words, the man raised his bowed head and gazed at Greta for a long time.

“Then you will truly be ruined.”

Helping Sayar’s beloved escape from the inner palace, and even killing her on top of that, was something that could not be tolerated even for a king. Much less for Greta, who had no justification whatsoever.

She was already unstable in her royal position due to her bloodline. If he, her confidant, killed the woman, no matter how tightly the principal kept her mouth shut, the arrow of punishment would not pass by Greta. The man could endure his own ruin, but could not endure the king’s ruin.

“Beasts have good enough senses to easily notice poison or meat.”

Greta, who had turned her back on the man, spoke quietly.

“But if you throw poisoned meat to a starving beast, the beast hesitates. Even knowing it’s poisoned, thinking it might not be because of hunger, or that they might be able to endure it…….”

“…….”

“I hate seeing such beasts. More than death. No…….”

Greta slowly turned her head. Then the brilliant sunlight she had been blocking poured through the complex bars. The bars decorating the king’s bedroom window were a single picture expressing the status of Gamore, the god of iron, victory, and fear, and the chief deity of Gharyam.