For the heart - Chapter 3

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 3

Well then, I’ll be going.

Cassian disappeared with a light bow to Nina, who was looking at him with confused eyes.

He must be heading to the Emperor’s Audience Chamber.

“Haah…”

Nina leaned against a pillar in the corridor and quietly exhaled.

That strange Healer who had healed her was Montregger’s First Prince. What on earth was he thinking when he helped her?

“Nina.”

Just then, someone called Nina’s name.

When Nina looked up, her twin sister Lillien approached with two maids.

Wearing a bright light green dress and a necklace decorated with pearls, she walked gracefully with a lace shawl draped over her shoulders fluttering elegantly.

Unless someone told you they were twins, no one would think the two were twins – the two princesses differed in everything from their attire to their hair, appearance, and body type.

“Hehe, what a mess, isn’t it?”

Lillien smiled with a thoroughly pleased expression at the sight of her sister in combat attire.

Her upturned eyes were creasing with joy.

Nina’s gaze fell to her sister’s hand holding a hand mirror.

Her moderately long, glossy pink nails stood out particularly today.

Nina curled her own hands, which had blood stains under the fingernails, and nodded.

“I came straight from the battlefield.”

Of course it’s a mess.

Nina held back the words she wanted to spit out and looked at the two maids standing beside Lillien.

Only then did the two maids show her a light curtsy.

Since childhood, Lillien’s maids had treated Nina as a princess only reluctantly.

Because no one ever reprimanded them for such insolence.

“You’re quite amazing, always coming back safely. Ah, but that’s natural since you have that cursed undying body, isn’t it?”

“…”

“I can’t just let my sister go after meeting her upon her return. This is something Mother made for me by hand for my recent birthday – shall I give it to you?”

Nina looked at the ribbon-shaped hairpin studded with rubies that Lillien was pointing to.

‘If it was your birthday, it would have been my birthday too.’

That hairpin, which matched well with Lillien’s long, curly red hair, must be the work of the skillful Empress.

Since childhood, the Empress had been so devoted that she made everything for her daughter from one to ten with her own hands.

However, that devotion had never once been directed toward Nina.

Suddenly, a question she used to ask every day in childhood came to mind.

“If I had a heart too, would my parents have loved me like Lillien? Could I have received gifts filled with such affection?”

She had never once concluded that it would be so.

Perhaps it was because she had learned at too young an age that no matter what she did, a heart that didn’t exist wouldn’t suddenly appear.

“Well. You definitely have a heart. If you believe that so firmly… either someone deceived you. Or you deceived yourself.”

For some reason, Nina recalled what Cassian had said to her.

Though his words were completely wrong, that low voice filled with such certainty remained strangely unforgettable.

Along with his face.

“Hey! Aren’t you going to answer me?”

Ah, she had asked if I wanted the hairpin.

Only then did Nina shake her head.

“No. I’m fine.”

She knew what Lillien wanted was her hurt expression.

Until her early teens, she had unconsciously revealed envy and wounds she couldn’t hide, but after spending time on battlefields watching countless lives being cut down, ribbons and dresses were no longer in the category of things Nina wanted.

‘Now I have more things I want to throw away rather than things I want to have.’

Epithets like Cold Blade, the assumption of sacrifice, oracles that could only be thought of as curses.

If she wished for a little more, things like pain that never became familiar.

Lillien burst into laughter, “Pfft,” seeing Nina looking at her impassively.

“Well, putting this jeweled pin on that short hair of yours that’s like a man’s would only look ridiculous. I was just being too kind-hearted. Sorry~!”

Short hair is so much more convenient though.

Nina dismissed the thought that came to mind.

The birthday had already passed more than two months ago. And even though they were twins in childhood, the birthday belonged only to Lillien.

Nina had never once received a birthday gift from her parents, let alone heard them say happy birthday.

Since her first deployment at fourteen, she had mostly been on battlefields and had no energy to think about birthdays.

“The pin suits you well. I’m envious. Well then, I’ll be going.”

Since the very delicate and fragile Lillien, who often acted like she was collapsing, had come all this way, even if she couldn’t act hurt, she could at least give the answer her sister wanted.

As Nina turned to leave after throwing out the word “envious” like charity, Lillien spoke.

“You heard too, right? That proud Montregger became Arsed’s vassal state.”

“Yeah.”

“The First Prince, who was the internal choice for Crown Prince, became a hostage. At today’s meeting, I’m going to make him kneel at my feet. I’ll have to watch his face contort with humiliation. It’ll be fun, won’t it, girls?”

Lillien burst into laughter, “Kekeke,” as if just imagining it was delightful, and the maids chimed in agreement.

Nina turned away silently and couldn’t help but let out a snort.

‘Well. He didn’t seem like someone who would be humiliated by such things.’

After all, he had already knelt before me and even kissed my hand before disappearing.

* * *

From the bathtub filled with warm water, the scent of mint and eucalyptus that Tila had prepared wafted gently.

Nina, sitting with her body submerged in it, thought of the man she had seen earlier—the Prince of the Montregger Empire, whom she had simply thought of as just a strange Healer.

It seemed like Montregger had been preparing for quite a while before contacting Arsed, so was he perhaps in exile?

She recalled his dusty clothes that didn’t suit his status and his roughly cut hair.

It was publicly known that the cursed Princess of Arsed wandered the battlefields.

On the day he healed my broken body on the battlefield, he must have recognized that I was the Princess of Arsed.

That’s why he said it would be an ill-fated relationship if we met again.

Because the Second Prince of Montregger coveted the throne, Arsed swallowed that country without war, but if war had started, an enormous number of people from both countries would have been sacrificed.

And the person who would stand at the forefront, never dying and ultimately conquering Montregger, would have been me.

Since the conqueror and the conquered had faced each other, it could be called an ill-fated relationship.

Then in that situation, instead of so readily healing me like that, he should have tried to eliminate me by any means necessary…

‘Strange person.’

Nina wiped her wet face with both hands and leaned her head back, letting out a deep breath.

“Your Highness. Would you like some soup? I’ll put the tray over the bathtub for you.”

It was Tila who entered carrying mushroom soup with a rich flavor that could be felt from the aroma alone.

Approaching the bathtub, she smiled brightly as she looked at Nina, who was looking up at her with a relaxed expression from within the water.

“Just like when you were a baby, our Princess looks truly beautiful when she comes out after bathing like this. The most beautiful in the world.”

“Tila is the only one who calls me beautiful. So no matter how much I hear those words, they have no persuasive power.”

“Well, that’s because no one else has seen you like this.”

Tila spoke as if it were obvious while placing the tray over the bathtub.

As she was about to turn around, she reached out her hand to brush away the wet hair that had fallen over Nina’s forehead, and Nina unconsciously avoided her touch.

“Sorry, it’s a habit.”

At Nina’s apology and the word “habit” that came with it, Tila’s face filled with hurt.

Seeing this, Nina quietly closed her eyes and obediently presented her face.

Gently brushing Nina’s wet hair aside, Tila let out a sigh.

“Why do such terrible rumors spread? I raised Your Highness with my own milk, so does that make this Tila already a dead ghost?”

“It’s just that they believe you’ll die just by touching me. Even if they almost touch me, they get so startled that I feel sorry for them.”

“What does Your Highness have to be sorry about!”

“Still, it’s better if I just avoid them first. They can’t openly show their dislike because I’m a princess. And it’s true that Healers die because of me… so it’s not entirely a false rumor.”

At Nina’s voice flowing out so matter-of-factly, Tila’s nose stung.

Pretending not to notice such Tila, Nina turned her body and looked down at her chest area.

One of the proofs that she had no heart.

Inside her rounded chest, a circular chain pattern with thorns remained faintly like an old shadow.

It had become so faint now that it couldn’t be seen unless shadows fell on her body, but thanks to the flickering candle lit beside her, that scar looked particularly clear today.

Nina gently caressed that scar with her fingertips.

“Tila.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“This mark on my chest. Since when has it been there?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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