The Forgotten Field - Chapter 62

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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 62
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Ants must have crawled beneath my eyelids while I slept.
Plagued by an unpleasant prickling sensation behind my eyes, I fixed my gaze upon my half-sister.
She gazed down at me with her customary elegance, not a single strand of hair out of place.
Facing that haughty countenance, my already burning eyes felt as though they might ignite entirely.
I gripped the blanket like a shield and shot her a piercing glare.
“Come to gawk? If you have something to say, spit it out and leave.”
“…How is your body feeling?”
“How does it look?”
Her pale green eyes swept over me slowly in response to my caustic remark.
“You don’t look well.”
My lips tightened into a rigid line.
My fingertips trembled. Had my legs been sound, I would have seized her by the hair and hurled her through the door that very instant.
Swallowing the rising fury with difficulty, I managed to squeeze out a composed tone.
“Since you’ve seen enough, wouldn’t you leave? Your presence only makes my condition worse.”
Aila’s lips pressed firmly shut.
As the silence stretched, my nerves grew razor-sharp. When the pain I had barely suppressed began creeping up through my bones, I raised my voice.
“Didn’t you hear me? Leave.”
“I told you I have something to discuss.”
Aila spoke with evident agitation.
I glared at her through narrowed eyes.
“Then speak quickly and get out. The mere sight of your face turns my stomach. And you expect me to sit here and wait patiently for you? Don’t be absurd. Either state your business now, or disappear from my sight!”
Faced with such relentless hostility, Aila’s expression visibly hardened.
She cast a cold gaze upon me and spoke.
“Fine. I came to ask what you intend to do moving forward.”
“Do about what?”
I replied with indifference.
My headache was intensifying. The ants gnawing at the back of my eyes now seemed to be burrowing into my skull itself. The prickling pain radiated to the back of my head.
While my entire attention was consumed by it, Aila continued her tirade.
“Don’t play innocent. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Am I a mind reader? How could I know what you haven’t said?”
“You…!”
Aila’s voice rose slightly.
Turning my head, I frowned at the contempt twisting my half-sister’s face.
Aila paused as if struggling to maintain composure, then continued in a considerably calmer tone.
“I want to know if you truly intend to marry that man.”
I offered no response, merely studying her face intently.
It seemed that now it was Aila, not I, who found the silence unbearable.
She pressed on anxiously.
“You’ve always hated Barcas. You tormented him relentlessly since childhood, and now you’re saying you’ll become his wife?”
At her imploring gaze, a hollow laugh escaped—the sound of air deflating from a punctured vessel.
Aila’s lips hardened into a rigid line.
Witnessing that pitiful expression, the sporadic laughter that had been leaking through grew increasingly harsh.
Talia clutched her abdomen and roared with laughter, oblivious to the splitting headache and the sharp, tingling pain crawling up her legs.
“So you came running out of fear?”
Aila’s complexion had turned nearly the color of wet plaster, drained of all vitality.
Talia gazed upon that face as though admiring a work of art, then continued softly.
“Were you burning with anxiety that I might steal your betrothed from you?”
“….”
“But what can I do? Now that you’ve said it, I’m tempted to take him away by any means necessary.”
Aila’s lovely face contorted into something far more sinister. Even her eyes, which had once reminded one of verdant evergreens, now brimmed with venom.
Talia was seized by a strange exhilaration.
This sister had always looked down upon her with an unblemished countenance. And now, finally, she was revealing raw, unguarded emotion.
“He only wants to marry you out of a sense of responsibility.”
Aila’s voice trembled with barely contained fury as she cried out.
“He feels guilty about what happened to you! But your injury wasn’t his fault, was it? So why should Barcas make such a sacrifice?”
Talia erased the smile from her lips.
The pleasant sensation evaporated in an instant, replaced by a cold, crystalline rage. Her fingers itched with the desire to seize that tongue as it prattled on like Barcas’s own mouthpiece.
Talia swallowed the curses crawling up her throat, grinding them between her teeth, and forced out a deceptively gentle voice.
“I thought you were more intelligent than this. But it seems you’re far more foolish than I imagined.”
Aila’s lips froze rigid.
Talia continued slowly, deliberately.
“What you should be saying to me right now isn’t that. You should ask politely, earnestly—you should *beg*.”
“….”
“Please, don’t marry Barcas Laedgo Sierkan.”
Aila’s eyes began to twitch with convulsive intensity.
As Talia gazed upon that face twisted in humiliation with malicious eyes, Aila moistened her lips and forced out the words with tremendous effort.
“If I ask you, will you refuse to marry him?”
“Perhaps.”
Talia replied with calculated indifference.
“Doesn’t it depend on how desperately the person making the request shows their sincerity?”
Aila bit her lip and stared down at the floor, as though her mouth refused to obey her will.
A suffocating silence stretched between them. Finally, Aila’s eyes took on a resolute gleam, and from between her perfectly shaped pink lips poured a voice laden with anguish.
“I’m begging you—refuse to marry Barcas. If you won’t consent, His Majesty won’t force the matter either. So please….”
Her voice shattered and scattered, unable to continue further.
Talia looked up at that forlorn face and swallowed the bitter mockery that threatened to spill forth.
This woman surely believed she had just surrendered something of great value.
Her pride as the Princess, no less.
She imagined that by yielding to a mere bastard, she deserved compensation for her noble sacrifice.
I lowered my gaze to my legs, hidden beneath the blanket.
Only now, reduced to this state, could I be considered a suitable bride for him.
Yet this woman believed she could reclaim him simply by surrendering a pittance of her meager pride.
To her, my legs—Talia Roem Guerta’s legs—were worth far less than her own dignity.
I spoke abruptly.
“Fine.”
Color returned to her face.
Watching her expression carefully, I added calmly.
“But I have a condition.”
“A condition?”
Wariness flickered across her features.
I turned my head to examine the shelf. A tray held fruit, bread, butter, and several silver utensils.
I picked up the small knife used for cutting butter and hurled it at my half-sister’s feet.
The silvered blade skidded to a stop before her. Watching Aila stare down at it blankly, I spoke softly.
“Use that to stab your leg.”
“…What?”
Aila looked at me as though doubting her own ears.
Meeting her vacant gaze directly, I enunciated each word with deliberate force.
“Use it to scar your leg. Like this…”
I slowly drew back the blanket. Her eyes widened in horror, fixed upon the grotesquely swollen scar.
Before her gaze, I deliberately traced the long, hideous mark with my fingertips, starting from my shin.
“From here… to here. Make a long cut with the blade. Then I’ll do as you say.”
Aila’s eyes darted between the knife on the floor and her own legs wrapped in the velvet dress. Her eyelids twitched with tremors.
Soon, a cold sneer escaped her bloodless lips.
“From the start, you never had the slightest intention of listening to me.”
I said nothing in response.
In the next moment, the mask of the Princess settled over Aila’s face.
As though she had never displayed such degradation, she lifted her chin high and stepped toward the door. Her footfalls rang out evenly—until they ceased abruptly at the entrance to the Bedroom.
Aila turned to face me, her hand gripping the door handle. Her swamp-like eyes gleamed with something sinister.
“You will regret what you’ve done today, Talia Roem Guerta.”
She spoke the words like a curse as she stepped beyond the threshold, her voice turning glacial.
“Without fail.”

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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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