Chapter 28
On the carriage ride to the dining hall, Selene sat close to Chyntia.
There wasn’t much conversation.
It was Selene who did most of the talking, and she mostly talked about the weather. How the sky was high and the clouds were pretty, how she’d seen a butterfly the other day and it was about to sprout. She’d heard it was cooler in the north in the summer, so she was looking forward to it.
Chyntia was amused by Selene’s nervousness as she came to stand beside her.
But the Grand Duchess was unperturbed by this reaction, and, as if it were enough to make eye contact, she smiled broadly and moved on to another topic.
It was a strange experience.
The ladies she met in the capital would say one thing or another at first, but they soon grew impatient and shut up. The few who stuck around and flattered me were all flatterers with their own agendas.
This little woman, on the other hand, seemed a little excited, but she didn’t embellish her words. She didn’t seem to be trying to deceive with words that sounded good.
She looked innocent, even naive.
Chyntia quickly intervened, looking for her sister, who might have interfered between her and Selene.
Barath, like a loyal dog, watched the back of his wife’s head, then, feeling his gaze, met her eyes.
She chuckled, recognizing the look on his face as he instantly froze on the subject he had just been mesmerized by.
Barath suddenly felt a twinge of embarrassment at the sight of my sister smiling a rotten smile at me.
Moreover, he was not even escorted by Selene as they stepped out of the carriage and into a room at the restaurant.
He expected her to take his hand, but instead, she clasped Chyntia hand and walked right past him.
He kept trying to make eye contact with Selene during the meal, but it didn’t work. This situation was strange.
He didn’t care about his sister in the first place.
He just wanted to make sure she wasn’t talking nonsense and that she wasn’t suspicious of Selene.
It was much more important to eat with Selene, who had been acting all pretty today. If he was lucky, he’d be able to wipe the corners of her tiny mouth and tidy up her stray hairs.
Barath gave her a sulky look, and Selene, who had given her a saucy glance, looked at him as if she didn’t matter anymore.
He is not sure why, but he thinks it’s because of his sister. Maybe she’s being cautious because it’s her first meal. Coming to his own conclusion, he peeled the ripe shrimp and placed it on Selene’s plate.
Selene casually dipped the shrimp that Barath had placed on her plate and turned to Chyntia.
“What’s the capital city like?”
Looking back and forth between Selene and Barath, Chyntia replied in an impassive tone.
“Inhabited, all the same.”
Selene smiled slightly at the resemblance to Barath’ tone.
“Still, I’m sure the capital has some beautiful architecture and rare items.”
Chyntia paused for a beat at her words. She glanced at Selene, who was smiling, then lowered her eyes and took a sip of water before asking.
“What was your hometown like?”
Chyntia asked, picking at the new shrimp on her plate with her fork.
“It’s in the southwest, lots of flowers and always humid…”
Selene stopped mid-sentence.
Her shaky eyes caught the reflection of Chyntia across from her, and Selene tried to compose herself, finishing her answer.
“… It was a humid place.”
Chyntia nodded and took another sip of water.
Selene didn’t know why she’d answered that way, even to herself.
It just came out of her mouth. As if her homeland was really the Southwest.
She knew best that it couldn’t be.
In her mind, she was still Yumi. Of course, the first twenty-nine years of her life were not entirely in her memory, but that didn’t mean her homeworld couldn’t be the Southwestern Region of the Empire.
She felt like she was facing something she didn’t understand.
It seemed unpleasant, and it seemed frightening.
The mood quickly subsided.
In a completely out-of-character move, Barath seemed to burst out laughing.
Had Selene already forgotten that she’d accused him of amnesia?
She was a weak witch after all.
At least this witch knew where Selene was from, he thought, studying her complexion.
Selene dropped her gaze and poked at the shrimp he’d given her with her fork. He wondered what was going on in her head.
His gaze then shifted to his sister’s face across the table.
Chyntia’s eyes had already cooled, and Barath’s had begun to subside in response.
She had said as soon as she arrived in the North that she knew he was looking for the witch.
He needed to find out just how much her sister knew.
Maybe hse hadn’t realized Selene was a witch.
If she already knew, she would surely be looking for a way to use her as a sacrifice.
The source of a witch’s power is the ancient demon Crodon. Its power cannot be diminished on this earth, nor can it be increased.
So what can a single witch do to increase her power?
Steal it.
To steal the power of another witch by any means necessary, even by cutting off her breath.
Barath looked into his sister’s dark eyes.
He knew well the cruel and fierce nature of Chyntia Lengranz behind that enchanting face. The number of witches she had sacrificed was, to his knowledge, over two hundred.
He has no idea how much power she possesses, or what she intends to do with it.
More than that, he wondered if his sister was satisfied with the power she now possessed.
Barath no longer wished to be in the same room with Chyntia Lengranz and a small, unkempt witch he knew nothing about.
He moved his hand to cover the back of Selene’s right hand. It was the hand that had been clutching the fork and tormenting the shrimp.
When he saw that Selene had stopped forking, he turned to her and said.
“Get up.”
Then he spat at his sister.
“I think we should finish our meal here.”
Selene took his hand and stood up, looking at Barath in bewilderment and then at Chyntia.
Chyntia gestured for her to go ahead, and Selene smiled awkwardly in response. She didn’t even have time to say she’d go first before she was pulled by Barath’ hand out into the darkness.
Barath, who had abruptly left the table, didn’t let go of Selene’s hand until they had walked for some distance.
He glanced behind him, even though he knew his sister’s eyes wouldn’t reach him at this point.
He sighed heavily and turned his eyes back to Selene, and for some reason her head seemed to be slightly above his.
It was definitely a little above his head, but now it was up to his chest.
He asked her without thinking.
“Have you grown taller?”
Selene was about to ask him why he’d come out of the blue, when Barath’s offhand remark caught her off guard.
“Do I still look like I’m growing up to you?”
He immediately wanted to shout out that of course not, never did she look like a child.
But he couldn’t think of a polite way to say that she looked like a mature woman, so he didn’t have time to reply.
She started walking off on her own, as if she didn’t like it, and Barath, cursing his own rash mouth, strode after her.
Selene was beginning to feel a little less angry at Barath for sitting there, uneaten, picking at the prawns, but she was sharply offended again when he asked if she had grown taller.
Sure, from his point of view, she might look small. But that was because he was too big, not because she was too small.
She wondered if he saw her as a child, not a woman.
She doesn’t think he’d say that to her when she is wearing a revealing outfit and heels.
***
Alone in the room, Chyntia ordered another cup of hot tea and waited for her soon-to-be visitor.
A few moments later, there was a knock. A knock sounded on the door and Zart entered.
He bowed deeply in greeting, and Chyntia didn’t even bother to look at him.
He was not the one she had been waiting for.
Zart took a deep breath before addressing her.
“How have you been?”
Chyntia smirked at the stiff greeting, and she gestured for him to get on with it.
Gathering her courage, Zart told the Empress had asked her to be at Selene’s side on the full moon in two days.
“Why me?”
Her expression was bored, as if she really didn’t know why she was doing this. At a loss for words, Zart’s head hung low.
The Empress’s “Why?” was less of a question and more of a rejection.
Zart wondered how he could get an affirmative answer, so he decided to grasp at straws and ask for what she wanted.
He wasn’t a great man, after all, and appeals to approval wouldn’t work.
“Tell me,” he said, “what kind of answer would make you happy, Your Majesty?”
He said he would do whatever she wanted.
Understanding was not what mattered to Zart right now. Nothing was more important to him now than the Empress’s assurance that Selene would be safe.
It was almost a blank contract on his part, but it wasn’t really a very useful offer on hers.
She was already in a position to have everything she wanted. She didn’t have enough to want anything in particular.
The longer the silence lengthened, the more Zart seemed to dry up inside.
When he had lost count of how many times he swallowed dryly, Chyntia languidly asked a question.
“Tell me why Barath is looking for the witch.”
