Chapter 40 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 40: Visitor from the Royal Capital 06
Stasia calmed the lingering palpitations of her heartbeat, caressing her own lips, her other hand clutching the coat Kelsey had left behind, stained with the fragrance of roses.
Would she return soon?
When she came back, should she be more proactive instead of playing dumb like this, pretending to sleep and waiting for her to lean over?
Stasia didn't think for very long, not because she suddenly figured things out, but because circumstances didn't really allow it.
Knights of the guards in iron-black armor rushed into the garden full of toasting and drinking. Amid panic and chaos, they precisely subdued some familiar faces.
...Including herself.
She recognized the face pointing the sword tip at her. It was Tussaud, Kelsey’s personal attendant, one of the most promising among the younger generation of royal guards.
Having grown familiar with Kelsey, she'd met Tussaud a few times. Their relationship was fairly harmonious. Even now, facing a sword tip gleaming with cold light, she dared to speak up and ask: "What's happening?"
Tussaud didn't answer, only coldly glanced at her and threateningly moved the sword tip an inch closer, almost touching her throat.
The personal attendants beside the princes were all cultivated from childhood. Their intentions could almost represent the lords they served.
And Stasia had never seen such a look in Tussaud's eyes before.
Her heart went cold.
Lowering her gaze at the long sword across her throat, she raised her eyelids and persisted in asking: "What happened to Kel—the Third Prince?"
A sharp pain came from her throat.
Tussaud's sword pressed forward again, opening a thin cut on Stasia's throat. A trace of blood stained that section of blade.
This was a signal of threat and impatience.
Stasia waited but still got no answer.
She closed her mouth, stopped asking, and turned to observe the situation in the garden.
The guards clearly had a purpose in arresting people. They didn't arrest just anyone. Most people were only frightened, now driven to a corner of the garden, whispering in groups of three or five facing the chaotic scene in the garden.
Several families pressed under the knights' long swords were slowly driven to the center of the garden and surrounded, including Stasia herself.
She secretly scanned around, no sign of her mother and sister.
Beside her was Zeta, the duke's eldest daughter whom she'd recently met. The duke wasn't with her either.
Counting carefully, the families in the encirclement all seemed to be missing some people…
What had they gone to do?
Whatever they did, now that their relatives were arrested, either they were being held hostage, or their plan had failed and they were being purged.
Whichever the case, her mother and sister's safety wasn't optimistic.
Of course—she looked at the long sword before her and thought bitterly: neither was her own.
The sun gradually rose higher, gradually reaching noon.
Usually at this time, the pampered noble young lords would all be hiding in the hall and under corridors exchanging toasts. Now exposed to the sun, they wilted one by one like frost-beaten eggplants, sweating while drooping, not even daring to take out handkerchiefs to wipe.
Some couldn't stand anymore, faces pale as paper, looking extremely disheveled.
Just as they couldn't endure anymore, someone came from the front hall.
"Tap, tap, tap."
The sound of boots treading on the ground.
Stasia looked up and met Kelsey's cold gaze flashing with moisture.
She was pinned in place by that ice-blade-like gaze. The hand clutching that coat didn't know how to position itself for a moment.
In her blank mind, the first thought that flashed through was: she had cried.
Kelsey had just given her coat to her. She hadn't changed into another coat, wearing only a snow-white lace undershirt. Among a crowd in full formal dress, she appeared particularly conspicuous.
But her figure didn't appear thin because of her clothing. Instead, she seemed much more upright than when she'd just left.
Of course, at this moment no one was picking on this prince's dress etiquette anymore, because she held a long sword in her hand, the sword tip still dripping blood.
Drop by drop, falling on the marble-paved ground.
For a moment, the crowd all fell silent.
Seeing Kelsey, Tussaud bowed and reported loudly: "Your Highness, all the rebel remnants in the palace are here. Those not in the palace—Karan has already been sent with troops to arrest them door by door."
Rebels?
Stasia's heart went cold. Her gaze fell on the continuously dripping blood. The glaring red made her temples throb faintly.
Whose blood was this?
Kelsey nodded slightly, hummed once, and scanned the anxious, uneasy crowd: "Lock them up first. I don't have time to deal with them at the moment."
Tussaud assented. Kelsey patrolled once and lifted her foot to leave the garden.
Reaching the doorway, she suddenly stopped again, pointed at Stasia, and added to Tussaud: "Put her in a separate cell."
Tussaud looked very unwilling but still upheld the knight attendant's code and obediently agreed.
Other than that, no other reaction.
Stasia watched Kelsey's receding back while being pushed and shoved by the malicious Tussaud, following the crowd as they were pressed into the palace dungeon.
Before this, Stasia had never known there was such a large dungeon under the palace.
The prisoners held on both sides had slender pointed ears, pale skin, all with long golden hair, and extraordinarily beautiful features.
Some had their eyes already gouged out. At a glance, just two black holes staring straight out.
Stasia shivered, some prehistoric legends floating up in her mind.
Amid waves of resentful, venomous wailing, she was pushed into her own single cell.
The dungeon was very damp and cold, with only a weak light source provided by oil lamps hanging on the walls.
She used Kelsey's coat as a cushion beneath her and curled up in a corner.
She spent an afternoon piecing together what happened from fragments of the jailers' conversations.
Actually, from her mother and sister's frequent visits to the Second Prince's residence, she should have been alert.
They weren't ordinary socializing, nor was it for scattered political resources, but for a big gamble—supporting the Second Prince in forcing the palace to seize position, thereby obtaining higher titles and more territory.
They chose the day of the king's birthday celebration.
She didn't know exactly what they did. In any case, now that Stasia had landed in the dungeon, it already indicated the final outcome of the event.
Her mother and sister's fates were uncertain, but Stasia only felt absurd.
Not only had they concealed such matters from her, they'd also coldly allowed her to enter the palace today, placing her in the most dangerous location.
Had they ever planned even a fraction for her?
Just because she was an experiment-obsessed, disgraceful, strange daughter?
And Kelsey, her Kelsey...
What would she think of her?
She remembered Kelsey's cold gaze at their last meeting, curled up tighter, and only felt colder.
"What are you thinking?" Kelsey's voice suddenly rang out. Stasia was startled to see the youth in military uniform standing before the cell door, coldly watching her through the wall's cracks.
The warmth that had flickered for a brief moment vanished instantly under that indifferent gaze.
Kelsey’s voice was edged with mockery. “Thinking about whether your mother and sister escaped?”
"What a good daughter, good younger sister. Unfortunately—" Kelsey looked at her full of malice: "The mother you sacrificed your freedom and life to help wasn’t so lucky. I killed her myself."
Stasia froze.
She struggled to understand Kelsey's words. At one moment wanting to curse, at another to cry, at another to explain that she truly didn't know. But she said nothing. She only suddenly rushed to the corner of the cell and began dry heaving.
She retched for a long time but vomited nothing, standing dazedly in place with her hand on the wall.
Kelsey laughed softly: "What, how does this feel? How come you can't bear it when it's your turn? Weren't you very smug? You thought I was so easy to deceive, that a crook of your finger would make me rush to be played by you, trampled by you—then you tricked me to the garden to drink with you, letting your mother take the opportunity to kill my eldest sister, causing my whole family to turn against each other. Why aren't you smug anymore?" She became more agitated as she spoke. Her eyes filled with frightening bloodshot threads, staring gloomily at Stasia: "Anastasia, you'll get your karmic retribution."
"I didn't—" Stasia's mind was blank. Her mouth instinctively refuted: "I didn't deceive you, truly didn't..."
"This trick of yours is useless now." Kelsey said: "I'll kill your eldest sister next, then I'll put you, I'll put you..."
She suddenly got stuck.
Finally she continued: "I'll avenge my eldest sister. None of you can escape."
That summer after, Stasia hadn’t seen Kelsey for a long time.
In that dungeon, she intermittently heard that the crown prince had died, the Second Prince was defeated and confined, King grieved greatly, established Kelsey as the new crown prince, and extensively searched for remaining rebels.
Until the weather turned cool, in early autumn, Stasia was transferred out of the dungeon and moved into a secluded courtyard.
Having lived long underground without light, Stasia suddenly saw daylight. She couldn't help but squint, involuntarily shedding tears.
She turned her head. From the corner of her eye, she seemed to glimpse an upright silhouette in military uniform flashing past at the end of the corridor.
She was slightly dazed.
The second day after moving to the new courtyard, she read under the corridor by the rose trellis in the backyard.
What a coincidence, the backyard here also planted these deep red and light purple roses.
The fir trees had already started dropping leaves. Stepping on them made rustling sounds.
Stasia heard the sound, squinted, and raised her head.
"Your sister escaped back to Heberley City. Don't know what methods she used, but under the royal capital's wanted warrant, she still inherited all of Heberley's ownership. She's the new city lord now." Kelsey's expression and voice both held a weary calm.
She bent one leg and casually sat beside her: "The royal capital is using you as hostage, forcing your sister to deliver herself to execution. Guess what the result was?"
Stasia's voice was also very calm: "How could she possibly go to her death for me? You're all too fanciful."
"Mm, that's right." Kelsey casually agreed: "The current situation isn't peaceful. Mother doesn't want to completely tear apart relations with Heberley City, so she hasn't touched you and is temporarily holding you under house arrest here as a hostage."
"Don't cry."
I'm crying?
Stasia wiped her face—a patch of icy moisture.
She looked dazedly at her fingers stained with tears.
Doesn't want to tear apart relations... blood feud of patricide, and that doesn't count as tearing apart relations? Even if she didn't understand politics, she wouldn't be fooled by such a clumsy reason.
That she still wasn't dead could only mean one person wanted her alive.
She said quietly: "You are, for so long... the only person who hoped I'd live."
"I wronged you." Kelsey pulled out her handkerchief and handed it to her: "I lost my reason then and said many hurtful things. I regret it deeply."
Stasia raised her head.
Kelsey paused, holding the handkerchief and clumsily wiping her face for her.
"Stop crying, Anna. A grown woman—people will laugh if word gets out."
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