Akan turned away, clearly unwilling to meet her gaze. His open rejection made Robellia’s eyes waver, filled with doubt and hesitation. 

She paused for a moment, but quickly steadied herself and resumed her walk towards Akan, each step hesitant. She was afraid that if she backed away now, she would be cut off from him completely. It was the cold indifference, more terrifying than any act of violence, that forced Robellia to continue. 

“Akan, why do you hate me? I… I-” 

“Shut your mouth.” 

Akan’s icy stare was unmistakably filled with contempt, and Robellia was fully aware of it. Still, there was a sadness in her eyes that she could not quite hide. But she didn’t stop walking. She approached Akan, who was rooted to the edge of the bed, and looked up at him with desperate eyes. 

What on earth had given the shy Robellia such courage? Akan couldn’t understand her at all. 

“I will do everything to help you. The only person who matters to me is you, Akan…” 

Slap! 

With a loud noise, sparks seemed to fly in front of her eyes. When she came to, Robellia was already on the floor. Her cheek, where his hand had struck, burned hotly. Clutching her face, Robellia stared up at Akan, dazed. 

Akan brushed his hand away indifferently, as if swatting away a fly. The slap hadn’t been nearly as hard as his previous outbursts, so there was no need for her to look so stunned. 

“Robellia.” 

“Mm…”

It seemed that Robellia had only just grasped the situation, for her body shook slightly. Akan leaned down and took hold of her chin, examining her cheek as it began to swell. The fear in her eyes was a little more bearable than before.

Today, Akan could confirm one thing. Strangely enough, the kindness twelve-year-old Robellia had shown him seemed genuine. But why? Was it simply because she was stupid? That was a question the present Robellia couldn’t answer. And even if she could, it wouldn’t matter.

Akan caressed Robellia’s cracked lips with his thumb. How would Robellia react if he sucked his d*ck in this state?

“You’re useless at twelve.”

Akan opened the front of Robellia’s dress roughly. Robellia stared blankly at Akan’s hand, exposing her upper br*ast. Her mind, not adapted to her body, could not even properly perceive such an explicit message.

“You said you wanted to play with me. Play with me now?”

When Akan pulled her skirt up roughly like a common thug, Robellia hastily brought her previously limp legs together. It seemed she had finally understood his intention. But her reaction was anything but what Akan had expected.

Even the unbruised side of her face turned a deep red as she lowered her gaze and fidgeted nervously with her fingers. While it resembled the expression of someone in shame, the gleam in her now focused violet-blue eyes clearly reflected curiosity and shyness.

Even her slightly narrowed, coyly slit eyes seemed out of place – completely incongruous with the situation of having been insulted and slapped. It was disconcerting to the point of being downright frightening. Akan saw no point in arguing with Robellia.

“Get lost. If you dare to show up uninvited again, I’ll break your legs for good.”

At his sharp and icy warning, Robellia stood up, her face clouded with disappointment. As she left the room on trembling legs, she looked back several times, hesitating with each step.

Akan had no intention of denying that he was mad. But Robellia – she was far from normal. Her mind was not only regressed to that day, but grotesquely twisted in a way that defied reason. He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t bring himself to deal with her, despite everything.

Perhaps they were already trapped in an endless cycle of driving each other mad.

* * *

Duke Mos’s plan seemed to have failed completely, but judging by the results, it was undeniably a success. Although Akan had issued a cold warning to stay out of his affairs, he seemed to have managed to contain his anger to some extent.

Robellia, momentarily dejected, quickly brightened at the Duke’s trivial lie. No, it hadn’t really been a lie. All Duke Mos had said was that Robellia was special to Akan Roxas. Could he really be blamed for how the foolish princess decided to interpret that on her own?

“Special… Yes, Akan is special to me too”.

The words Robellia uttered, her cheeks flushed red, were truly ridiculous to behold.

From then on, Duke Mos made frequent visits to the princess’s palace. He thought it would be wise to gain Robellia’s trust if he ever wanted to use her again in the future. Gaining the trust of the simple and naive princess was an easy task. On each of his visits, the Duke told Robellia stories about Akan – what he ate, what he drank, or other trivial details. But no matter how small or insignificant the stories, Robellia listened intently to every word.

Whenever Duke Mos visited, Robellia was either drawing or playing cards. That seemed to be how she spent most of her days.

“Akan doesn’t seem to like flowers. What should I draw for him that he would like…?”

“Well, let’s see…”

As usual, the Duke drank tea at Robellia’s side while she drew. His gaze suddenly fell on the cabinet. Come to think of it, even when he had occupied the palace and was completely lucid, the same items had been stored there.

Ten years ago, as now, these objects were carefully preserved. What could they mean? Duke Mos glanced at Robellia before standing up and approaching the cupboard. On the top shelf were several decks of cards and cloth dolls, the kind small children would sleep with. The lower shelf was randomly filled with books that even women might find worth reading. The Duke took a volume of poetry from the top pile and opened it.

After flipping through the sparse first page, with only a few sentences written, he found the next page densely covered with small handwritten notes that filled every available space. He turned the pages over and over, but the original poems were nowhere to be found – every page was buried under scribbles and doodles. The writing sprawled in different directions, overwritten again and again, with letters so tiny and cramped they were almost impossible to read.

Duke Mos turned the book back and forth until he could make out a single clear word. At that moment, 

“Duke…?” 

Robellia’s voice came from behind him, causing the Duke to hastily clutch the book to his chest. 

When he turned, feigning composure, Robellia was holding a canvas almost twice the size of her face at eye level. The painting, smeared with red and black dye, was disturbingly grotesque. Was it supposed to be hell? 

“What do you think? Does Akan like birds?” 

“Who knows?” 

Robellia pouted in disappointment at his indifferent reply. But to the Duke, if that was indeed a bird, it looked more like a crow pecking at corpses on a gallows. 

“Well, I’ll be going then.” 

With a discontented toss of his head, Robellia lifted the plain white canvas with the bird on it. 

Duke Mos stared at Robellia with an unfamiliar expression for a moment before promptly leaving the princess’s palace.

It was boring. Akan looked at the report, but none of its contents registered in his mind. Even though placing his seal at the bottom of the document would mean taking someone’s life, he felt nothing. What was the point of eliminating another worm who boasted of the benefits he had gained from the execution of Duke Roxas? It had no meaning anymore.

All he wanted was to throw it all away and rest. Preferably forever.

His moment of lethargic peace was quickly shattered. Duke Mos pushed a book onto the papers Akan was reading. Akan raised his head slowly, lacking the energy for even the slightest movement.

“What is it?”

“Take a look. It came from the princess’s room.”

While Akan remained still, Duke Mos opened the book of poetry himself. The page he had previously marked was completely filled with messy handwriting, covering every bit of empty space. The letters, already tiny, were made even harder to read by the smudges and blurred sections scattered throughout.

“Here, and here – look at these.”

The Duke first pointed to a relatively legible sentence. Then he turned the book over to show another sentence. It didn’t look as if it had been written in this way to be deliberately obscured, but rather as if it had been hastily scribbled at different times.

The two sentences had different beginnings but the same endings. They gave the names of a shabby slave trader in the north-west and a prominent slave trader in the capital. Both referred to a single pseudonym as their source of funding.

“At first I thought it was written out of sheer ignorance, but it turned out that the information wasn’t entirely unfounded.