Chapter 7. A Feeling That Cannot Be Conveyed

Warm spring air was melting the frozen earth.

Clusters of Penner that had pushed up fresh shoots greeted Ajean at every turn.

“Your Highness, this is Penner, right?”

Zella had learned to distinguish Penner from ordinary wild grass within an hour. She had already filled half of a large basket.

Ajean looked on with pride and curled her lips into a smile.

“Zella, you really are clever. Let’s finish gathering and head back.”

Rustle.

Crouching down to collect herbs, Ajean stopped abruptly. She looked around with care, but only Milla and Zella were in sight.

Before her unease could fully settle, cold sweat trickled down her spine.

In truth, her senses had been unnervingly sharp for the past few days. What was this anxious, unsettling feeling?

Once more. Rustle.

When the grating noise came a second time, Ajean was certain. A suppressed presence and killing intent…… it was unmistakably an assassin.

Who had sent them? Were they from Empress Devolia’s side? Ajean’s small shoulders trembled as though seized by a spasm.

Better to strike first than sit and take the blow. Hoping Bistel nearby would hear, Ajean cried out with all her strength.

“How dare you! Who is it that has been following the imperial princess! Show yourself at once!”

In that instant, light flashed through the air. It was the sunset reflected off a blade.

Milla threw herself at Ajean and shoved her to the side. Almost simultaneously, a faint shadow drew near and thr*st out a sword.

The shadow closed in on Ajean as she tumbled to the ground. Milla covered her with her own body.

Whoosh. The blade the assassin brought down with deliberate care grazed past Ajean.

What? The startled assassin looked down to find a small girl clinging to his arm.

It was a desperate, last-ditch struggle, and it was, of course, Zella.

“Sir Bistel!”

Ajean screamed and shoved Milla away. She was gripped by overwhelming terror. Her entire body stiffened as though frozen, and a wrenching pain tore through her chest.

The assassin shook the arm Zella had seized with force, but there was no sign of her letting go. The girl had sunk her teeth into his forearm and clung on with everything she had. The assassin spat curses at her.

“Let go! You little vermin. Pathetic tricks!”

But it was the assassin, not Zella, who was pathetic.

The arm held by a child who should have been no match for him would not budge. Growing desperate, the assassin drove his fist up into Zella’s chin without mercy.

Thud. The dull impact made the skin crawl.

Zella, who had been clinging on for dear life, was flung against a tree trunk with blood pouring from her nose. Her limbs went limp at once and the girl did not move.

“No! Stop!”

Ajean screamed at the sight of Zella crumpled on the ground. Her mind snapped back into focus.

If she did not act now, Zella and Milla would lose their lives for nothing.

Ajean gathered herself with every ounce of will she had. When she opened her tightly shut eyes, her expression had clearly changed.

Done with the nuisance, the assassin let out a vile laugh and closed the distance to his target. The next in line was Ajean, without question.

She should have come with Bistel. Ajean shuddered at the belated regret.

“You coward.”

Ajean picked up a stone and fixed her gaze on the assassin. Fury that could tear him apart swelled in her black eyes.

“Pfft, and what will you do? Try to kill me with that?”

Even if she held a sword instead of a stone, the odds of winning were nonexistent. For now, she simply had to buy time for Bistel to come. He was a Sword Master. He would sense something was wrong and come running.

“Urgh, ngh, ugh!”

Milla forced out sounds from a throat that could barely produce them and stepped in front of Ajean.

Ajean stopped Milla and spoke in sign language with composure.

[All we need to do is buy time. None of us are going to die. Trust me.]

The assassin’s expression twisted into something ugly at the hand movements he could not understand.

“What are you scheming? You should be on your knees begging for your life.”

A voice of authority came from Ajean’s mouth. The assassin was somewhat taken aback. He had never seen anyone who did not tremble before a blade. A woman, at that.

“If you harm me…… you will become a traitor to both Aisha and Decan. You will be killing the last bloodline of Razcal Turandeus and the future Empress of Decan.”

The assassin’s thin lips stretched wide to either side.

“What a naive threat. If I feared your status, how would I have come here at all? Women really are foolish no matter what, pfft.”

Clatter clatter.

The assassin bent back at the waist and burst into laughter, and a small wooden piece tied at his hip rattled and clinked.

Ajean narrowed her eyes and studied it.

Carved into it was a “pattern to ward off the vengeance of wronged souls.” Ajean had learned about the world through books in the Aisha imperial library. This was unmistakably a talisman.

…… A man who kills people for money is afraid of wronged souls? And so he carries a talisman?

A glimmer of hope lit up in Ajean’s eyes.

“So you say my status does not frighten you. Then what about this?”

Ajean blinked slowly and swept a hand through her lush black hair.

“You have likely never seen hair this black before. I was quite notorious as a witch back in Aisha. My mother was also of a shamaness bloodline. There is no one in Aisha who does not know of it. Have you heard?”

The assassin’s eyes shifted almost imperceptibly, and Ajean did not miss it. If the assassin feared witches and put his faith in talismans, then the predator in this situation was herself.

Ajean furrowed her brow slightly and fixed her gaze on the empty space behind the assassin. Then, staring at nothing, she crafted a sinister voice.

“Let me see…… you brought all of them with you. The wronged souls you have killed are beyond counting. Oh? They are standing in line, waiting to tear your limbs apart…… wait…… what is that?”

Ajean stopped mid-sentence and recoiled in apparent shock, as though she had spotted something.

“Good heavens…… you killed a child too?”

The assassin’s complexion drained to white and then to something almost blue. He lost all reason and slashed wildly at the empty air, shouting.

“Shut up! You wretched witch.”

The assassin was furious. He felt as though he were being toyed with, and knowing it only made the fear worse.

The shadow of a ghost flickered before his eyes. No matter how fiercely he shook his head, the vision would not clear. The moment he began to doubt the talisman’s power, the nightmare was already starting again.

She’s completely taken the bait.

Ajean smiled in triumph. The assassin’s spirit was entirely broken.

Now was the time to plant something beyond fear, something closer to dread. Her lips twisted into something wicked, and her black eyes radiated a dark, unsettling quality.

Ajean did not realize that her voice was genuinely cracking and splitting, as though something had truly possessed her. It was a spine-chilling sound like metal being scraped, something that did not seem to belong to a human throat.

“That talisman you carry around? It is useless before me. Even the witch who made that crude thing cannot meet my eyes.”

He had barely managed to obtain it from the most infamous witch in Decan! The assassin truly believed Ajean was a witch. A sound like that could not possibly come from the throat of such a beautiful woman. His legs had begun to tremble without him noticing.

Ajean threw her head back. Her white, slender neck was laid bare beneath the sunset.

Black hair, a pallid face, and a voice that made the skin crawl…… even the flow of the air around her turned eerie.

“Come then, strike me. You are the sort who fears even the wronged souls of mere humans. Are you not curious what will happen if you kill a witch?”

For years, the wronged souls had been appearing in his dreams, and the assassin had suffered from insomnia. The nightmares had barely subsided after he received the talisman, and now this was happening.

“Go ahead and strike. I will turn your soul to ash.”

Cold sweat poured down the assassin’s forehead like rain. Dark thoughts flooded in. The strength in the hand gripping the sword began to drain away little by little.

“I…… I can’t do this.”

He tightened his grip on the sword hilt, and the blue veins along it quivered. At that moment, a large silhouette moved and then……

Whoosh. A clean, swift blade cut through the air.

The assassin collapsed to the ground with his arm severed. The motion was so fast that the individual movements were impossible to follow. It was Bistel, without question.