Chapter 20
Bright sunlight streamed in through the window where the curtain was slightly parted. But that did nothing to warm Lena’s trembling body.
Cold tears fell, wetting her ears and seeping into her silver hair.
Drowsiness crept in, but she spent the daylight hours with her eyes wide open. She was afraid that if she fell asleep, they would appear in her dreams again.
As she passed the time staring blankly into empty space, twice a day the carriage would stop and a Taringian soldier would hand in something to eat.
The meals were far better than what she had received when first bound in the prisoner procession, but Lena left most of it untouched.
After the evening meal, when day turned to dusk, the man would soon enter. No words were exchanged between them. When the man cast his gaze at her, Lena lifted her skirt and spread her legs.
The man’s expression hardened, as if her resigned eyes and limp limbs thoroughly displeased him, but as he stared piercingly at her bare skin that glowed white even in the darkness, it did not take long for lust to ignite within him despite it all.
“Ah, uhng.”
From Lenasia’s mouth, which had abandoned all hope, strangely seductive sounds of pleasure leaked out naturally.
Amid her panting, labored breaths, the man poured his desire into the narrow passage inside her again and again. Before the morning star rose, he quietly disappeared.
Lena would wish he would torment her through the night so she could not fall asleep, then try to face the dim dawn with open eyes, only to black out from sheer exhaustion, and then invariably dream that dream.
Then she would wake up crying, and another identical day would repeat.
It was ten days later when Emperor Godfrid’s army arrived at Loren, the capital of Taringia.
* * *
“Long live the Emperor!”
“Long live His Majesty Emperor Godfrid!”
It was tumultuous.
The cheers of tens of thousands of people made her ears ring, and celebratory cannons fired incessantly overhead.
Rubbing her tired eyes, Lenasia naturally realized that the procession had reached its destination.
Loren. A place that had once been nothing more than a small frontier town, but had grown into the center of the world in an instant as the monstrous emperor swallowed up one nation after another.
After hesitating, Lena carefully opened the closed window. The clamor unique to a great city and the smell of manure wafting from somewhere rode in on the wind.
Peering through the gap in the curtain, she saw well-dressed people each waving small flags. Their attire used slightly less fabric than that of the Aitalosians and was tailored to fit the body instead.
True to a people for whom, just half a century ago, even ordinary farmers casually raiding neighboring territories had been routine, their builds were large, their movements agile, and their eyes fierce.
They cheered wildly for their emperor, who had risen like a comet. Godfrid von Taringit led the front of the procession upon a black horse.
She stared for a long while at that gallant, beautiful, and cruel figure. Once he had passed, she looked at the Aitalosian slaves who made up the procession. In their eyes, admiration was instantly replaced by contempt.
“Filthy Aitalosian bastards. Ptui!”
Starting with someone spitting sharply, disparaging remarks about Aitalos poured out from the surroundings.
“It’d be stranger if a barbaric nation where siblings sleep together didn’t fall to ruin.”
“And what about that ritual where they offer prisoners as sacrifices?”
“Just disgusted to death, honestly.”
Lena’s wrist, gripping the window frame, trembled violently. Sibling marriage had been maintained for centuries to preserve the royal bloodline, but it had been abolished several generations ago because it did not align with the sentiments of the people.
However, it was true that every year at the Harvest Festival, there had been a human sacrifice ritual.
Lena had deeply agonized over the sight of prisoners being brutally sacrificed, but hearing them speak now, she felt as though the responsibility for all of it lay with her as well.
The eyes of the men spewing hatred toward Aitalos soon landed on the female prisoners being dragged along in rags.
They smiled dark, leering smiles.
“Well, they are a dreadful lot, but the women are certainly… appealing.”
“Right. They look just right to hold close and have some fun with.”
Just as their gazes were about to reach the open window, Lena snapped it shut. She covered her ears and curled up, but the cheers calling the emperor’s name resonated through her very bones.
It was long after the carriage had entered the imperial palace that the surroundings grew quiet.
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