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Chapter 4
Heina wasn’t able to sleep until late at night. After the war, she was taken prisoner and locked in this room for over a year. It was a hidden room deep inside Nike’s annex. During that time, she tried one suicide attempt and seven escape attempts, all unsuccessful. She never died, and she couldn’t even get out of this room. She couldn’t forget the look on his face as Yuri gave her a gruesome grin when he found an eating knife she had hidden under the bed.
─ “What? Are you trying to stab me with this? Do you think you could cut off a single hair of my head with such a blunt knife? Haha. You are very funny.”
When she broke the mirror and cut her wrist, she heard him threaten to strangle her to death and behead her parents. When she pushed the handmaiden, who was attending for her meal, with all her might and got out, she was interrupted by Nike’s soldiers all over the palace. After Yuri, who had been away from his expedition, returned and heard the story, he increased the number of maids serving her meals to three at a time.
─ “Aack!”
The thought of changing her method came late in the morning after she nearly fell far down while trying to escape out of the window using the curtains. Nike’s annex was surrounded by sand walls, and there was no place for her to step on and support her body. Heina barely climbed back to her room, her whole body was drenched in cold sweat.
─ “I miss my mother….”
Every night, she wept in front of the handmaid, who came to watch her in the name of making her bed. It has been a month since she had been begging as if she only wanted to know her mother’s well-being with a delicate voice. After seeing the sad expression flash across the face of the oldest and most blunt-looking maid, she begged more and more, and increased the number of times. She was going to appeal for sympathy, but that was it.
‘Am I going to die like this in the end?’
Heina bit her nails, which had been messed up. The candle, which had lit the room as the maid walked by, had long since lost its light, but the moonlight shining through the large window continued to disturb her.
It was the last day when the moon with a slightly shriveled edge shone on her flesh.
‘That moon is the same moon that I saw in Constance, how could it be so scary now….’
There were only three days left until the rain festival. On the third night after the moon had risen and set twice, she would be killed before the people of Nike.
Death was not terrifying, but it was a shame that she had to die for the welfare of the people of Nike who trampled Constance.
What made her even more troubled was the fact that many Constance citizens, who had followed the imperial family to Nike, must also watch her death.
‘Will I be able to die honorably in front of my people?’
Heina leaned against the window sill, wiping away the tears that filled her eyes with her hand, looking at the hazy moon.
It has only been twenty years since she lived in this world. Among them, 19 years were the days when she saw, ate, wore and grew up with only good things in Constance. There was no reason not to be afraid of death.
During the hellish past year, where she had to live after getting caught by Nike, Heina constantly vowed. She shouldn’t be showing her shabby appearance. No matter how it was, she was of the imperial family, she should not beg for death from the enemy in front of the people of her motherland.
She even imagined spitting in Yuri’s face with a smirk, sneering at him, as she could quickly meet Arzen in heaven when she ends this hellish life that doesn’t seem alive even though she’s alive.
It was when she put her hands together and prayed to the moon for courage to die resolutely until the end.
Creak.
When she heard the wooden door open behind her, Heina turned her head in surprise.
At this moment, the face, which she didn’t want to face the most, was in front of her.
Heina’s expression automatically hardened when she saw Yuri, drenched in blood here and there in knee-high strappy leather shoes.
“Wh… what?”
Instead of an answer, Yuri moved closer to the window, where she was standing. Her body trembled with fear as he placed his hand on the window sill. Yuri gave her a cruel smile as he smoothed her lips with his thumb.
“I went hunting. I put the sword on the backs of five musk deer and two wild boars.”
Heina shuddered at the feeling of a fishy smell of blood all over his body.
It was. The prince of a devil enemy country always smelled of death.
Yuri stood right next to her and leaned his body at the window, looking at Heina.
“I feel a lot better.”
Seeing the long bloodstains on Yuri’s white nape, her head was dizzy. How many times had she imagined inserting a knife in his neck?
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“Dirty. Step back.”
Heina barely spit the voice out of her mouth.
Yuri raised his lips and smiled, grabbed her by the shoulders and forced to hug her from behind. Heina, forced to look out of the window, bit the flesh in her mouth.
Yuri’s pointed chin touched her crown.
“It seems that when it comes the time to die, you will no longer be afraid.”
His cool voice echoed above Heina’s head.
She struggled to get out of his arms, but to no avail. Yuri seemed unwilling to let her go, who had been trapped in his arms like a frail bird.
“Open your eyes and take a good look. This is Granada, the capital of Nike. It’s where I was born.”
Yuri stood still with his one hand wrapped around her waist and hugged her tightly, and with the other opened the large window in the room.
The cool night air of the cold desert brushed her cheeks.
Outside the palace, old buildings that had been darkened were densely packed, and a large oasis in the middle was reflecting the moonlight and the sky like a mirror.
In the dense forest created by humans around the water, the strange chirping of birds was faintly heard. Nike’s night was suffocatingly dark except for the moon in the sky.
Yuri was speaking to her slowly.
“The country was built on a land like a mirage where sand winds pile up and disappear countless times along the moon. Your native Constance, who is now gone, can’t even imagine what it’s like to have a barren land.”
“…….”
“But as you walk along that sand dune, you will see the breathtaking view of the countless stars rising and setting in the sky. We, the people of Nike, have been making our home on these sand dunes for hundreds of years.”
Yuri took a deep breath and inhaled the dry wind deep into his lungs.
The distant smell of sand and dust in the desert always made his heart beat faster.
Heina’s hair was blown away by the wind and touched his face. Yuri gave strength to the arm that was holding Heina.
“Something like this….”
Heina bit her lip and shouted to herself, ‘Why do I have to know about this horrible city?’. To her, Nike was nothing more than a cruel enemy who trampled her own homeland.
Yuri spat coldly towards her as she twisted her body.
“If you don’t want to be killed, stay still.”
Her lips trembled as she bit it tight. No matter how many times she faced the humiliating situation, she never got used to it. She was a spoil given to Yuri, who opened the gates to the conquest of Constance. When she first awoke in the unfamiliar room, she could not forget the terrifying gaze as he stared right in front of her nose. After staring at Heina for a long while with a chilling cold gaze, he hugged her and went to sleep. Since then, she has been locked up in this room, unable to step out.
Her homeland, Constance. The flowers blooming profusely by the lake and boasting beautiful colors came to mind.
The imperial palace where she played hide and seek with Arzen. She missed the endless green garden. She missed the sound of water gushing out of the large fountain.
Yes, she can meet Arzen in heaven in three days. Then this hell would be over. Heina struggled, trying not to notice the cool body temperature that hugged her from behind.
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“… I have one request.”
She barely opened her mouth, fixing her gaze out of the window. There was nothing she could do about the trembling of her voice.
Yuri smiled slightly as he rested his chin on her head.
“What?”
“… If I die.”
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