“In the end, it’s all clothes and jewelry anyway.”
His tone was dry.
“There are many commercially developed cities in the northwest. You’ll be able to purchase enough goods to satisfy yourself there, so refrain from exhausting the servants before departure even begins.”
Talia scoffed.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re trying to make me look like some immoral imperial princess indulging in luxury during a pilgrimage so people can compare me to Aila, aren’t you? Did you really think I’d fall for that?”
“When have you ever cared about your reputation...?”
The corner of his mouth twisted ever so slightly, as though dumbfounded.
“To begin with, no one would ever place you and the First Imperial Princess on the same level for comparison. So stop worrying about pointless things.”
There was no one in the world she wanted less to hear those words from.
Talia abruptly raised her hand.
But Varkas was not the sort of man who would stand still and allow himself to be struck. He swiftly seized her wrist and jerked his chin toward the servants.
“Leave only the necessities and unload everything else. We depart in fifteen minutes, so hurry.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?!”
Talia struggled violently to wrench her arm from his grasp, practically shrieking the words. But the man did not budge in the slightest.
Driven completely mad with rage, Talia kicked his shin and screamed,
“How dare someone like you tell me what I can or can’t bring?! Are you already acting like you’re something important? You’re not the Grand Duke yet! You’re nothing more than an imperial guard knight! A mere knight dares to treat an imperial princess of the Empire like—!”
“What are you standing around for?”
Ignoring the rampaging Talia entirely, he cast a freezing stare toward the servants. The attendants who had been nervously watching the situation immediately scrambled to unload the luggage from the carriage.
Nothing could have demonstrated more clearly that Varkas’s authority—as the future Grand Duke of the East and Supreme Commander of the Imperial Guard—held greater weight than the orders of a princess in name alone.
Talia glared at the servants with maddened eyes before finally losing all reason and lunging at one of the maids.
“Take your hands off my luggage right now! If even one of my belongings goes missing, I’ll have every last one of you hanged—!”
Her words never finished.
Varkas abruptly lifted her with one arm and shoved her into the carriage as though tossing aside an annoying burden.
Forced down onto the carriage seat, Talia’s face turned bright red with fury.
Varkas was a man whose very bones were filled with loyalty toward the imperial family.
He would never dare lay rough hands on Aila.
The reason this man could treat her so carelessly was because he did not truly consider her part of the imperial family.
The humiliation burned so fiercely her eyes grew hot.
The man who always behaved with flawless courtesy toward her half-sister became endlessly rude only when facing her, and the misery of it was almost unbearable.