My face contorted miserably, and I slapped him violently on the cheek.
"You wretched bastard! You have to disturb me every time to get rid of your intuition!"
His blue eyes shimmered faintly in the darkness. However, his face looked down at me and was as cold as usual. His firm composure was terrifying.
I raised my nails and scraped them down his cheek. Barcas, clutching at my wrist without flinching, looked around the cluttered camp.
His icy eyes scanned the contemplative faces of the maids, the bewildered knights, and the sobbing woman clutching her burnt cheeks.
A dry sigh came out of his mouth.
"Take him to a doctor."
Barcas pointed to the woman with a light chin gesture and then turned around.
I screamed, twisting my limbs.
"Whoever you want! She's a sinner! We must decapitate her right now!"
The people who had heard the commotion and rushed to see me whispered. However, I didn't have the strength to protect my body. I cried out for the whole camp to leave.
"You bloody bastard! What kind of knight are you!"
But Barcas didn't blink an eye.
Crossing the tent in silence, Barcas went straight into the barracks and set me down on a wide couch.
I didn't even realize that I had been dragged into his bedroom, and I was just trying to vent my boiling anger.
"You've never really protected me! Always! Always! You let me be a mess! You didn't want to save me this time, did you? You would have wanted me to die. So, that's why you left me, right? Didn't you come to rescue them right away? I know everything!"
Ignoring my raising my voice, he pressed my wrist down on the bed and forced me to open my hand.
Blood and oozing dripped from my burned palms. Looking down at it with frowning eyes, Barkas picked up a small glass jar from the shelf.
I screamed as he poured an unknown liquid into my hands.
"I don't like it! Do not! Leave me alone!"
He drugged my wound silently, and then wrapped a white bandage he had brought from somewhere.
Meanwhile, I had pounded him on the shoulder with my other hand, and soon I had exhausted all my strength, and my limbs went limp. Barcas, who had been staring down at me with dry eyes, slowly straightened up.
"I'll bring you a tranquilizer."
Half of my face buried in the pillow, I was breathing heavily, and I raised my eyes to look at him.
Barcas walked slowly and took a vial from a shelf on one side of the barracks and examined it.
Above his straight back, the image of him running toward Ayla was superimposed. A burning pain came over me.
I spit out a twisted voice.
"I'm going to die of disgust for being alive and breathing like this, right?"
I could see his hand stiffen as he wandered on the shelf.
He stood motionless for a while, then turned his head slowly enough to feel unnatural.
When I saw his face, which seemed to have distilled all his emotions, something inside shattered and crumbled.
I had a smile on my lips.
"What a shame. It was an opportunity for a thorny woman to disappear from this world."
Tears flooded my cheeks. My chilly face was also soaked in the thin surface of the water.
He came over and bent down in front of me. A cold glass bottle touched my lower lip.
"Drink it. It will be a little more comfortable."
"I don't need it."
"You don't need anything I give you anymore."
Barcas put the bottle down.
Just in time, the light of the lamp faded, casting a pitch-black shadow over his face.
It didn't matter; I couldn't see what kind of expression he was wearing. They may have a nonchalant face as usual, or they may be looking at each other with a mixture of fatigue and annoyance.
He turned his back on me.
The man who stared at me silently left the barracks.
I, listening to the footsteps in the distance, lowered my hand and groped my leg. The hard felt like a piece of wood sent chills down my spine.
Deformity.
I hurriedly drove the word out of my mind.
It can't be. Those who don't like me are just talking about it.
The imperial court was full of excellent healers. If it's my mother, she knows many witch practitioners who use forbidden magic.
I'm sure they will fix me by any means necessary.
At that time, I will show off my perfect body in front of those who laughed at me.
I, clutching my throbbing knees, lowered my eyelids.
***
The majestic pilgrimage procession that began at the imperial court turned into a gloomy funeral procession.
The royal retinue wore black robes instead of red scruffs, and the knights also wore drab drapes of dull hues over their armor.
The wagon, which was loaded with precious liquor, silk, and jewelry, was loaded with thirty-four corpses, which were carefully carved, and the musicians played a dirge in low scales at regular intervals.
I, who had been listening to the sound in a daze in the carriage, felt the pain that had been subdued Intensify again, and I stammered and grabbed the censer.
The cold brass jar was filled with ashes.
After a short swearing-in word, I managed to pull myself up from the cushion. Then I opened the box under the seat and took out a new scented candle.
It was a tightly packed bunch of frozen herbs, evening primroses, mandrago leaves, and red shard flowers.
When I inserted it into the jar and lit it with a gemstone, a thick puff of smoke billowed out.
I felt my mind shrouded in a thick fog and slumped back onto the blanket.
Since the return procession began, I spent most of my time under the influence of painkillers. If you are immersed in acrid smoke, tomorrow becomes today, and today becomes yesterday.
I was vaguely aware of the occasional mage coming to check on my condition or the Praetorian Knight bringing food to annoy me, but their presence always haunted the surface of my consciousness.
It was only Barcas who brought me into a painful reality.
Opening the door of the stalled carriage and looking up at the shadow that had appeared, I narrowed my hazy eyes.
For some reason, my carriage, which was at the end of the procession, moved to the upper part and was intensively escorted by the head of the Imperial Knights. Perhaps he felt the need to personally monitor me so that I could not cause any more trouble.
Barcas stepped into the carriage and bent over me as I sprawled like seaweed.
I felt his cold fingers sweep a few strands of hair from my sweaty forehead.
"Smoke scented candles in moderation. If you do this, you will quickly become resistant."
"..."
I looked at his face as if I had been doing my homework for a long time.
The man who had been silent as if waiting for my reaction let out a faint sigh.
"We are going to camp here today."
The sun has set, and the carriage has stopped, so of course, you plan to spend the night here.
I had no way of knowing why he was saying something that he didn't need to explain. Wasn't he a man who kept silent even when he had to speak?
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