Chapter 13. An imaginably large and terrifying creature
***
Corneline had been in the service of the Empress Dowager for three months. Unlike the other young ladies, who were quickly replaced, she was able to stay in the palace for as long as she did because she worked tirelessly to please the old woman. Even if it's a small thing, you have to scratch the itch. Nothing comes for free.
There was another thing she did every day. Corneline had already bribed the Keeper of the Star Palace, so even when she wasn't looking, she knew what the Princesses were doing.
Hmm. They really don't listen.
After hearing from the star palace keeper about who moved around last night, she headed straight for the two princesses.
The two princesses in charge of cleaning the Star Palace had spotted Corneline and were scurrying about in a hurry. It happened every time. But she didn't let it bother her.
"Lady Corneline Havilt. Shall I bring Princess of Izef with me?"
"No. She is not needed at this time. I have someone here who needs my attention more."
Princess Brill of Alta, who had hoped to bring Princess of Izef into the situation, was disappointed at Corneline's refusal.
"Princess Charlotte. I told you, don't wander around late at night."
Charlotte’s eyes widened at Corneline's bluntness.
"I'm afraid you might catch a cold and become ill."
Corneline's voice sounded kind, but Charlotte's skin crawled with goosebumps.
"What... I went to bed early last night."
A cold light flashed in Corneline's eyes as she looked into Charlotte's panicked face.
"In this country, you get in trouble for lying."
With that kindly reminder, Corneline turned to leave, but then turned back to Charlotte.
"Who's in charge of cleaning the first floor here?"
"I..."
Charlotte stammered out the answer, her face crumpling. She knew it all.
"You'll have to do it again."
Corneline flashed her a fake smile, then turned on her heel and strode out of the palace.
"Now she’s catching people alive, and I'm not happy about it...."
A tear trickled down Princess Charlotte’s cheek. It must be hard to cry so pretty.
"There must have been some misunderstanding. I'll help you clean up here, and you can go over there and get some rest."
Charlotte looked up at her with eyes that could only be Princess Brill's, but her tears continued to fall.
***
"The god Lamu has been angry since the Princesses came, so I order you all to go to the altar and pray reverently."
The next day, the Princesses were stunned by the order, but they could not help but obey.
"I was so curious to see the most beautiful woman in all of Izef, so what's the big deal?"
Trisha was walking down the hallway with Tanya when a sharp voice suddenly spoke from the side. She turned around to see a man she didn't recognize.
Tanya, standing behind her, sucked in an unusually loud breath.
This man. He was being a jerk. But she didn't sense any malice, which was still a bad thing.
"You don't seem to have much to say, either."
Her voice was as calm as water, but her words said the opposite.
The eyes of the man standing in front of her, whose name she didn't know and didn't want to know, widened at her words. And then his face immediately turned grim. Anger flashed across his face, and he reacted violently, as if he hadn't seen her coming. It was a typical reaction of a hothead.
"You... You... What do you think you're doing, being so arrogant?"
A little tired, no, a lot tired.
"And you?"
Trisha asked in the same tone as the first time, without a change in expression.
"What... what?"
A small sigh escaped her lips, as if she didn't understand, and it was getting a little annoying trying to repeat herself.
"And I asked you what you believe in that makes you act like this."
At her words, the man was stunned and backed away.
"Where do you get off talking to me like this when you're a captured princess?"
The man's voice was getting higher and higher.
"You know who I am! I am the king's brother."
"Yes. I see."
The man's voice sounded exaggerated, as if he were a theater actor, as if he could have said something quietly and been understood.
She wondered how this country educated its royalty to behave like this. Well, she had one back home. Princess Flora, so it had nothing to do with training royalty. She was afraid she'd learned to do this sort of thing on her own.
She strode resolutely past the man, who was still marveling, his fiery temper on full display.
His Majesty's brother.
It was a ridiculous way of speaking, but she knew who it was.
She already knew the king had two younger brothers. His twin brothers, three years younger than him, but this younger one, this fiery one. They looked nothing alike, and if it weren't for this man's words, she wouldn't have thought he was related to the king at all. He had the thinnest limbs of any Tasar man she had ever met.
To each his own. She didn't like his fiery personality and the way he said things.
He left his manners buried in the snow. Well, so did the king, but he's a king. There's something about this man, the way he talked. The look in his eyes.
He was like a raging pyre. But there was no pain in her body. Aaron had called it an ability, but Trisha didn’t know.
She'd shivered at the sight of her cold stepmother and tingled like a thorn in her side at the sight of the evil Flora.
But what kind of power was it that only applied to a few people? Perhaps the kind-hearted Aaron was trying to comfort her with his warm words.
Trisha dismissed the thought and quickly made her way to the center where people were gathering.
The Princesses who had been hastily dragged to the altar looked disgruntled. The other two princesses had several handmaidens, but Trisha had only one. It was tiresome to have them with her. She was tired of listening to their grumbling, so she took only Tanya with her.
Luckily, they were traveling in a carriage.
They had to get out of the carriage when it stopped and climbed up a path in the snow, listening to the grumbling here and there again. She just wanted to cover her ears.
"Nothing happened when we came, did it?"
"Yes. Rumor has it that that princess is the one in trouble."
The last time they'd met, the two princesses had been gossiping quite loudly for Trisha to hear. Or not.
Trisha pushed ahead of the two overdressed and shuffling princesses, a line of soldiers ahead of her, and before them, the King of the North and the High priests, though it was a consolation that it was less cold than the night.
Finally, she reached the altar.
Above them, steep cliffs rose high, a menacing landscape.
As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a magnificent forest covered in snow.
Trisha looked away suddenly, feeling the uncomfortable stares she'd been getting since they'd set out.
Then her eyes locked with a man with neatly combed brown hair a few feet away.
It was as if she knew right away. Who he was. He looked like the fiery prince she had met before she left the castle, but he had a completely different vibe. The other of Kalos' twin brothers.
She shivered as she felt a chill run down her spine, as if she'd fallen into a cracked lake of ice.
What was this... what was this?
She'd never felt this way about anyone other than her stepmother and Flora. It was worse than with her stepmother. And it wasn't just because this was a cold mountainside.
"Princesses, please come forward."
Trisha snapped out of her panic.
At the command of the most frightening-looking man she'd ever seen, she left her companions behind, and the three princesses ascended the altar. The altar stood in the middle of a snowy plain at the foot of a sheer cliff. The two princesses recoiled in disgust as they saw dozens of bleeding, dead boars piled up beside it.
The priest had already begun to raise the sacrifice with smoke.
Trisha looked up at the steep cliffs, awe-struck at the snow-covered buds, large and small, towering above her. The white of everything around her was blinding.
It was then.
Krrrrr........
The cry she'd heard so many times in the night sounded eerily close, and then one of the white buds she'd thought was a mountain moved.
Thump.
Suddenly, a huge snowball fell right next to the altar. The ground shook, but.
It wasn't a snowball.
Trisha was dumbfounded to see a pupil moving in the giant snowball. It was the white, giant wolf from the painting. She'd never seen anything that big and terrifying before.
Krrrrr...
Ack.
The wolf howled ferociously, and the two princesses standing beside it began to scream and run away. When she saw Kalos, the high priest, and the priests scrambling back in fear, she tried to flee as well. She was terrified.
And then.
Kaaaaaah!
Screams echoed in all directions.
The white wolf had suddenly leapt up and mercilessly pounced on one person.
It was Princess Trisha.
****
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Write a comment
Romy (Wednesday, 28 August 2024 01:37)
Oh, is it going to be her pet god?