The Forgotten Field - Chapter 125

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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 125
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Withered leaves tumbled across the earth.
The skeletal trees, stripped to bone, writhed violently in the fierce wind, while icy rain poured down upon the grayish-brown Hill.
Talia, who had been sitting on the windowsill gazing out at the ash-colored landscape, spotted mounted warriors entering the Inner Courtyard of the Castle and pressed her face against the cold glass.
Beyond the rain-spattered eaves, she caught sight of Barcas atop a massive gray war horse. Talia watched as he descended from the saddle with elegant grace.
Barcas handed the reins to the Elderly Attendant and swept back his rain-soaked robe, revealing his marble-white face. It was difficult to believe this serene, dignified figure was the same barbarian who drove her relentlessly almost every night.
Talia wiped the glass fogged by her breath with her palm and stared intently at him below, but the moment Barcas turned his head in her direction, she hastily drew the curtain.
A mere glance—their eyes meeting for just an instant—sent her body temperature soaring and her heart into irregular beats. Talia nervously bit her lip, then descended from the windowsill and huddled before the Fireplace. Yet even before the roaring flames, her trembling would not subside.
She wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her face against her knees.
I had no idea how to face Barcas. Since that night we spent together, everything I had believed to be clear had become hopelessly tangled.
Sometimes the man in daylight and the man in darkness felt like entirely different people.
During the day, he wore an indifferent expression as though he had never experienced desire in his life, treating me with his usual detachment.
But the man in darkness was different. That figure existing only in dim silhouettes was as fierce and primal as the pagan kings of the Eastern Territories who once struck terror into ancient nations.
I felt the area he had persistently worked on last night throbbing, and I pressed my thighs tightly together. My cheeks burned with heat.
I had never anticipated that Barcas would be so actively engaged in intercourse. Wasn’t he a man as ascetic as the High Priests themselves?
Considering that the encounter had begun through my coercion, his passionate response felt almost inexplicable.
It was even more so when I recalled how all the women of the Imperial Palace who had attempted every conceivable seduction upon him had tasted bitter defeat.
‘…Did he respond the same way to Aila?’
My thoughts immediately spiraled into self-torment.
Previously, I had firmly believed he was incapable of burning with passion for anyone, so I had assumed he was merely fulfilling his duty as her betrothed to Aila.
But perhaps they shared something more. He was a man who poured his desires upon me with such intensity, yet the next day wore a composed expression as though nothing had occurred.
He may have engaged in all manner of crude acts with Aila while pretending to be her respectable betrothed. No—he surely did.
I could never be special to anyone. It was a truth I had learned long ago.
If he could feel desire for me, he could feel it for someone else. Had he married any other woman instead of me, he would have responded in precisely the same manner.
‘So stop attributing special meaning to his actions.’
“My goodness, really! Do stop gnawing at your lips like that.”
A frivolous voice cut through my brooding thoughts. I lifted my head with a start.
The Nursemaid, carrying a large basket at her side, stood watching me—I hadn’t even noticed when she’d entered the Chamber.
“If you wound them, the dye won’t take properly.”
“It doesn’t matter. Besides…”
Barcas won’t see me anyway. I nearly spat those words before catching myself.
The Nursemaid fussed over my appearance every evening. If she discovered that all her efforts were in vain, she would become even more insufferable than she already was.
I hid my bloodied fingernails beneath my skirts and rested my forehead against my knees. The Nursemaid, regarding me with disapproval, clicked her tongue and set the basket upon the table.
“Don’t be so pathetic. Have some of this instead. The Healer has just prepared fresh medicinal herbs that Her Majesty the Empress sent.”
I stared down at the mysterious decoction with a grimace.
Ever since returning to the Imperial Palace, Senevir had been sending all manner of dubious remedies claimed to aid conception—silent pressure to obey her will. And the Nursemaid faithfully served as the Empress’s instrument.
She thrust a bowl containing dark liquid before me, pressing insistently.
“Come now, drink it. Her Majesty the Empress was most emphatic that you must take it without fail, every single day.”
Reluctantly accepting the bowl, I drained the medicinal draught in one gulp.
It felt as though I had swallowed molten mud. Desperately suppressing the urge to retch, I hastily poured water and rinsed my mouth.
Suddenly, Barcas’s sardonic remark—that playing the brood mare seemed to trouble him not at all—echoed through my mind. I bit down on my bloodied lips, swallowing the humiliation.
I made this choice for myself alone. There is no shame in that.
Repeating this to myself, I wiped my damp lips roughly with the back of my hand when the Nursemaid’s excited voice pierced my ears.
“Shall we prepare you now?”
Turning my head over my shoulder, I frowned at the sight of the Nursemaid laying out garments from the trunk. She clearly assumed, as always, that I would be spending the night in his Sleeping Chamber.
I shifted my gaze back to the window. Having returned drenched in rain, Barcas would surely be bathing by now. After that, he would attend to the administrative duties he hadn’t yet managed. His workload had increased considerably of late, so he would likely not retire to his Sleeping Chamber until dusk. Even as I thought this, my legs were already carrying me away from the bed.
With my hair loosened from its tight braids, I walked toward the bath that the Handmaidens had prepared. As I sank into the lukewarm water infused with fragrant oils, the Nursemaid approached from behind and began to wash my hair.
Surrendering to her rough, practiced hands, I gazed down at my own body.
Wherever his lips had brushed, they had left marks like crimson flowers. Tracing my fingers along the mottled marks as though I were recovering from a fever, I felt a faint vertigo and closed my eyes.
What I had expected to occur only sporadically out of obligation had somehow become an ordinary part of my daily existence.
At first, I knocked on his door only once every few days. But before I knew it, I found myself entering his Sleeping Chamber every single day.
I told myself it was merely because I could not resist the Nursemaid’s persistence, that I simply wished to conceive a child and be done with it. Yet some corner of my heart knew this was a lie. With each passing day, it became harder to tear myself from his embrace.
When I lay alone upon the vast bed after leaving Barcas, emptiness would flood through me. And each time I washed away his traces, I felt a peculiar ache.
I found myself abhorrent, yet I could not control myself. That wretched fever that had tormented me since I was nine years old had clearly returned.
‘No. This is not that. I am merely using him.’
I hastily denied my own thoughts.
I could not allow myself to sink into that mire again.
Gathering my resolve, I rose from the bath with a determined expression. I dried myself with a soft towel and dressed in the blue velvet gown I had brought from the Imperial Palace.
Though I knew Barcas could not see me properly, I still did not wish to face him looking disheveled.
Gazing into the mirror at a face that bore an unsettling resemblance to Senevir, I soon rose from my seat.
Opening the door and stepping out, the candlelit Corridor came into view.
I stepped onto the carpet where firelight flickered, then turned my eyes toward the window where raindrops spattered. At that very moment, a golden flash of lightning tore across the darkened sky.
Pausing briefly to regard the rumbling heavens, I continued forward.
At last, I reached his door, and the Elderly Attendant who had been waiting opened it as though he had anticipated my arrival.
I stepped carefully into the darkened Chamber.
In that instant, a brilliant flash illuminated the silhouette of the man standing by the window in stark white.

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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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