The Forgotten Field - Chapter 118

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 118
Barcas’s pupils dilated sharply, and the silvery flecks scattered across his blue irises trembled. Yet the trace of that turmoil lasted only an instant.
In the next breath, he returned to an expression of glacial composure, his gaze piercing through her with eyes that gleamed a vivid blue. A hollow laugh escaped his parched voice, cleaving through the silence.
“Do you even comprehend what you’re saying?”
“Who do you take me for a fool?”
Talia forced an air of arrogance despite the tension that made her knees weak. She would not—absolutely would not—appear as though she were begging.
“It means I intend to share your bed.”
….
“What? Do I need to be more explicit?”
She lifted her chin and sent him a challenging gaze, and the sneer playing at the corners of his mouth faded.
He uncrossed his arms and approached her slowly.
“You wish to lie with me?”
The heavy, low timbre of his voice struck down upon her crown, sending a chill down her spine.
Talia forced strength into her neck, which instinctively wanted to shrink away. Barcas gazed down at her without the slightest movement, then grasped her chin and pressed his thumb firmly against her lower lip.
“Is that why you’ve come dressed like this?”
She felt the sticky dye smear across her lips. Talia’s face flushed crimson as she struck his hand away sharply. A faint smirk played across Barcas’s features.
“You recoil at such minimal contact, yet you claim to want this?”
“That’s because you’re always touching me so suddenly…!”
Talia, who had been protesting with a flustered expression, clamped her mouth shut. She could not allow herself to be swept away by this man.
“Why do you talk so much? I’ve already said I would do it!”
Barcas’s lips twisted subtly.
“If you demand it, am I simply to comply without question?”
His response was sharper than she had anticipated, and heat rose to her neck.
She swallowed her indignation and glared at him with fierce eyes.
“Yes.”
….
“You must do as I require.”
His wide-set eyes narrowed. It was less an expression of displeasure than one of utter incredulity.
Talia forced strength into her stiffened legs and rose to her feet. Then she stepped close to his face and tilted her chin up provocatively.
“You are now the head of House Sierkan, and you have a duty to leave an heir. This is what a married man ought to do.”
“I wonder when you became so conscientious.”
A bitter mockery traced his lips.
“So what you’re saying is, you’ll sacrifice yourself for me and my house?”
Talia looked up at him with a rigid expression.
She had anticipated he might show reluctance, but she had not expected him to mock her so openly. Since their marriage, he had treated her with a gentleness that had been almost bewildering. Perhaps, she thought, he found lying with her truly repugnant.
Talia swallowed her humiliation and responded coldly.
“How much longer do you think we can maintain this façade of formality? It won’t take long for it to be discovered that we are not truly husband and wife, and I will become an even greater laughingstock. If we remain without an heir for much longer, your vassals will not remain silent either.”
Talia, who had been speaking in rapid succession, let out a sharp laugh.
“Or perhaps that’s what you want?”
Barcas’s elegant jawline visibly hardened.
Talia ignored the warning glint in his eyes and continued with a mocking tone.
“If I simply endure for a few more years, people from all sides will clamor for the dissolution of our marriage and demand a new Grand Duchess. Perhaps even His Majesty the Emperor will pretend to be helpless and grant the divorce. Could it be that you’ve been sabotaging my sister’s marriage in hopes of remarrying Aila when that time comes….”
“That’s enough.”
A voice honed to a razor’s edge scraped across her forehead with savage intensity. The man, leaning sharply toward her, spoke with unmistakable menace.
“There are limits to what I will silently endure.”
Talia knew she was crossing a line she should not cross. Yet she could not retreat.
She drove a piercing gaze into his face and raised her voice.
“Then comply with my demands! You have no free will anyway, do you? You’re nothing but a puppet moving according to obligation.”
“And are you not the Empress’s puppet?”
Barcas spoke with bitter mockery.
Talia felt the color drain from her face.
Barcas, gazing down at her pallid form, added coldly.
“I don’t know what that woman whispered to you, but I will not serve as your breeding stallion.”
He straightened his bent frame and retrieved his discarded coat.
“Your Highness may use this Chamber for the evening.”
Talia watched him move toward the door with bewildered eyes.
A chill swept through her from crown to toe, as though she’d been doused with ice water.
Trembling with humiliation, Talia lunged after him in the next moment with an uneven gait.
She seized the fabric of his coat wrapping his broad shoulders with rough force, and felt the massive body, tightly bound with powerful muscle, stiffen.
She pushed him with all her might, but his fortress-like frame didn’t budge an inch. Venting her frustration, she shoved him again with force, and Barcas seized her shoulders. A cry escaped her lips from the iron grip. Hearing that sound, the man’s hands faltered. Talia seized the moment and drove herself against his chest like a lump of iron. At last, his body, solid as the City Walls, tilted backward.
Talia brought him down and straddled his abdomen. The struggle had left her breathing ragged, scraping her throat like sandpaper.
Exhaling hot breath, her heaving chest rose and fell as she glared down at him with eyes like burning embers.
“You must not defy me.”
The man’s beautiful face contorted faintly. She spat her words at him as though coughing blood.
“You said you’d do everything I asked. You said you’d do whatever you could.”
His hands, which had been moving to push her away, froze in mid-air.
Talia gripped the front of his shirt and yanked it with desperate force.
Her trembling intensified, growing ever more violent. She fought desperately not to plead, but her voice began to crack with sobs.
Talia clenched her quivering jaw and cried out with stubborn ferocity.
“Keep your word!”
With that ringing cry, a storm of silence descended.
Talia could not bring herself to meet his eyes directly and lowered her forehead to his slowly rising and falling chest.
A bead of sweat traced down her temple, lingering briefly at the corner of her eye before falling with a soft tap onto his shirt.
As she stared blankly downward, a firm finger touched her chin. Her head was tilted upward, and an inscrutable face filled her blurred vision. Before she could comprehend its meaning, her shoulders were pushed back.
“…I understand.”
Barcas, sitting upright, exhaled a hoarse voice. Talia met his gaze with trembling eyes. She could see his throat convulsing as he swallowed hard. After a long moment, he opened his mouth to add to his answer.
“I will do as Your Highness wishes.”
Even having obtained the answer she desired, her trembling only intensified. Talia wrapped her convulsing fingers around her own forearms. Then, a taut voice pierced her ears once more.
“But not tonight.”
But that’s not possible today.
She snapped her head up, glaring at him.
Barcas continued, his tone growing somewhat urgent.
“It was only a few weeks ago that you coughed blood and collapsed. Surely we should wait until your health has fully recovered….”
“My body is perfectly fine.”
Talia cried out harshly.
“I will do this with you when I decide the time is right. And that time is today—right now.”
I felt his entire body stiffen with tension. Perhaps he resented the tyrannical way I was behaving.
But it didn’t matter. If I retreated now, I would never muster such resolve again.
Once this madness-like impulse faded, I would barricade myself behind my own City Walls once more.
So this moment—when I had wrung out every last drop of courage I possessed—had to be now.
“You cannot refuse me.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Anger? Disillusionment? It didn’t matter.
This wasn’t… this wasn’t… love. Not passion, not desire. It was merely a desperate struggle to survive. So there was no need to feel shame.

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