Chapter 16. Watch out for her
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Sponsored by Io. Thank you ❤️ (½)
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At Kayan's call, Netira whirled around to face him again.
"Huh?"
“I need to go to the palace right away."
Now that he had returned from his envoy duties, his first priority was to get to the imperial palace and report to the emperor.
Netira's jaw dropped when she heard that Kayan was going straight to the palace.
"At this hour? Don't do that, let's go when it's light."
"I'll see you when I get back."
Ihedia never heard that Kayan Bayate had a wife, so perhaps they were lovers with a promised future.
Here, Kayan seemed like a normal man, neither the commander-in-chief of Anut nor a murderous warmonger.
'As far as I'm concerned, he's terrible.'
Ihedia felt a peculiar sense of alienation at the duality of Kayan's appearance.
Kayan patted Netira's shoulder as she was pouting, then swung back to his horse.
As soon as he was out of sight, Netira's cheerful expression vanished.
Without a trace of a smile on her face, Netira had a rather stern look.
As if she'd been waiting for it, she walked over to Ihedia and ripped the mask off her face with a rude swipe of her hand.
As soon as Netira saw Ihedia's scars, she let out a sneer.
"What was the King of Elmir thinking sending such a mess, but hey, it's not bad."
Netira grabbed Ihedia by the chin and turned her face side to side.
Then she smiled with satisfaction at the sight of Ihedia's distorted half face.
An unpleasant viciousness radiated from her captured jaw, but Ihedia did not show it.
Netira flung the mask she'd taken off Ihedia to the floor, and turned to the brown-haired woman at her side.
"Ellie, take her to the annex."
As soon as Netira had disappeared into the mansion, the woman named Ellie gave Ihedia a stern warning.
"As you may already know, outsiders are treated the same here, regardless of status. It's my job to keep people like you in line. If you bring your vain pride with you all the way here, you're not going to like what you see."
"Yes."
"Outsiders like you live only in the outbuildings. You're not allowed in the main house at all unless you have Lady Netira's permission. If you want to fit in quickly, you'd better get those days of living in the lap of luxury with your noble status out of your head. If you follow the rules, at least you won't be dying overnight."
Ellie said in a dry voice that didn't contain an ounce of emotion.
"I'll keep that in mind."
"Around here, we don't mention our real names when we call each other, so since 77 is empty right now, we'll call you that."
In the case of nobility or royalty, you could roughly infer a person's status and identity from their name alone, but it would be useless here anyway.
Taking away names might be one way for a ruler to better manage his slaves, but the idea of calling people by numbers instead of names made Ihedia feel uncomfortable.
"Follow me."
Ihedia picked up her fallen mask and followed her.
The Bayate family's outbuilding was secluded at the farthest point from the main house.
It was terribly shabby, at odds with the grandeur and splendor of the main house.
It seemed to have been hastily constructed, perhaps to accommodate a growing number of people.
As the door opened and they stepped inside, a series of wooden doors on either side of the central hallway greeted them.
It was a far cry from the mansions Ihedia was used to, resembling a prison camp for criminals.
Ellie's footsteps stopped in a room at the far end of the hallway.
She opened the door to reveal four beds and three women.
The women's expressions hardened rapidly as soon as they saw Ellie's face.
"Change your clothes into the ones up there. You'll be on the move all day tomorrow, starting at dawn."
The tattered plain clothes Ellie pointed to were embroidered with the number '77'.
As she closed the door and left, the two women sitting on the bed looked at each other.
Ihedia saw the numbers on their clothes.
They were five and three.
"Ugh, every time I see the disgusting face, I get so mad!"
"Shhh, she’s going to hear it."
5 called attention to 3.
"Hmph, you wait and see. One of these days I'm going to twist that bitch's hair like a rag. I can’t believe that someone who used to serve me is now acting as a manager!”
3 seemed to harbor quite a grudge against Ellie, the outbuilding caretaker.
"I guess we’ll just have to deal with it, now that we’re stuck here."
3 was about to raise her voice to 5, but stopped, aware of Ihedia's presence.
She stared into Ihedia's face and smiled an odd smile before speaking again.
"Princess of Elmir, right, I think we've met before."
Up close, Ihedia could see that her face was vaguely familiar.
"I didn't expect to see you again like this, do you remember me?"
3's demeanor changed to something strangely condescending.
It triggered a memory in Idedia's mind that she didn't want to think about.
She didn't recognize her immediately, not with the heavy makeup and jewelry she wore, but the arrogant stare was still there.
Monica Lianko was the Crown Princess of the doomed nation of Kaltburg, and she knew Lena.
Lena's maternal grandmother had come from the nobility of Kaltburg.
Before she was crowned, Monica had traveled to Elmir.
Lena had dismissed Ihedia's existence in front of Monica.
"Ihedia, Monica is taking up archery as a hobby, and she needs a target, so why don't you go over there and stand. The arrows aren't particularly sharp, so don't be too intimidated."
Beside her, Monica giggled along with Lena, looking very amused.
Ihedia could still hear their unpleasant laughter in her ears.
Her focus, momentarily distracted by the unpleasant past, shifted to Monica, who was now named number three.
Now that they were in the same situation, Monica was still looking at her with a mocking gaze.
Not wanting to get involved with Monica at this point, Ihedia wordlessly moved to the empty bed.
"Ahh...... ahh...."
Suddenly, Ihedia realized that a pained moan was emanating from the bed right next to hers.
The woman with the number '30' was in a cold sweat and wrapped tightly in the covers.
"Are you sick?"
Ihedia asked worriedly, and 5 stepped forward.
"She’s been running a fever since last night, and they won't give out medicine here, let alone a doctor, so she’s bound to stay that way."
Ihedia put her hand to her forehead to feel the fever.
It was worse than she thought.
"She’d been standing outside all day in this cold weather with nothing but thin clothes on, and this is what she got. The excuse was that wolves might come down from the mountains behind us, but so far no wolves have come down to the manor and harmed us. She’s lucky she didn't freeze to death."
It would have been torture to leave her out in the bitter cold without a coat.
The woman, who had probably just come of age, seemed to be running out of life like a dying ember.
As Ihedia and 5 looked at 30 with wistful eyes, Monica, number 3, added grimly.
“There’s nothing she can do since she was taken by Netira. She already got glares from the first time she came here because of her smooth face, but what happened when she got lost and ran into Kayan Bayate? Anyway, she’s unlucky.”
Did this mean that 30 became like this simply because she encountered Kayan?
When Ihedia made a face of incomprehension, 5 spoke again, this time in a lowered voice.
"Netira thinks that 30 has an ulterior motive with master Kayan, thinking she's playing tricks on him, and she's blowing it out of proportion. You'd better watch out for her, too, because if it has anything to do with Kayan Bayate, she'll light up and ruin you, and it's not the first time she's done that."
“Pfff, what is there to be careful about when she looks like that.”
Monica glanced at Ihedia's face, barely holding back the laughter that threatened to burst out.
5 frowned as she patted her arm.
"Ha, ha......."
Ihedia was undeterred by Monica's sarcasm, somehow.
She'd gotten used to the insults by now.
Her attention was focused on the poor woman moaning in agony before her.
"By the way, isn't that a plague, and out of all those people, the one who shares a room with me just happens to have it, and I'm not going to let you infect us, I swear!"
Monica spat the poisonous words at the dying woman.
This time, though, 5 didn't say anything back, as if she agreed with Monica.
They were both afraid that 30 would do them any harm.
Ihedia swallowed hard at the bleak scene.
***
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Write a comment
Io (Sunday, 10 December 2023 07:12)
Thanks so much for the chapter!! I dont believe all these princesses really deserve to be treated like this �