* * *
An ant had clearly crawled beneath her eyelid while she slept.
Tormented by the unpleasant sensation of something stinging behind her eyeball, Talia fixed her gaze on her half-sister.
As always, the woman stood over her in flawless elegance, not a single hair out of place.
Just looking at that noble face made her already aching eyes feel as though they were burning away.
Clutching the blanket like a shield, Talia shot her a sharp glare.
“Did you come to stare? If you've got something to say, say it and leave.”
“...How are you feeling?”
“How do I look?”
At her mocking reply, pale green eyes slowly swept over her.
“You don't look well.”
Talia's mouth tightened.
Her fingertips trembled.
If her legs had still worked properly, she would have grabbed the woman by the hair and thrown her straight out the door.
Forcing down the rage boiling inside her, she barely managed to squeeze out a calm voice.
“Since you've figured that out, why don't you leave? Just looking at you is making me feel worse.”
Aila's lips pressed together.
The longer the silence stretched, the sharper Talia's nerves became. The pain she had barely managed to suppress gradually climbed through her bones.
“Didn't you hear me tell you to leave?”
“I told you there's something I wanted to discuss.”
Aila spoke with visible impatience.
Talia narrowed her eyes.
“Then hurry up and say it and get out. Just seeing your face makes me sick. And now I'm supposed to sit here and patiently wait for you? Don't be ridiculous. Either tell me why you're here right now, or disappear from my sight.”
The fierce hostility pouring from her seemed to stun Aila.
Her expression visibly stiffened.
Then she cast Talia a cold look.
“Fine. Then I'll tell you why I came. I wanted to know what you're planning to do.”
“What do you mean?”
Talia asked carelessly.
Her headache was growing worse.
The ant that had been gnawing behind her eye now seemed to have burrowed into the marrow of her skull. The stinging pain spread all the way to the back of her head.
While all her attention was focused on that agony, Aila kept talking.
“Stop pretending. You know exactly what I'm talking about.”
“Am I a mind reader? How am I supposed to know something you haven't said?”
“You—!”
Aila's voice rose slightly.
Turning her head, Talia frowned at the sight of her half-sister's face twisted with humiliation.
Aila took a moment to steady her breathing, trying to regain her composure before speaking again in a calmer voice.
“I want to know whether you truly intend to marry him.”
Talia simply stared at her face without answering.
At some point, it seemed that Aila had become the one unable to endure the silence.
She spoke again, her voice tense.
“You hate Varkas. You've tormented him ever since childhood. You're not seriously saying that after all that, you intend to become his wife.”
A hollow laugh escaped Talia's lips.
It sounded almost as though the air had leaked out of her.
Aila's mouth hardened.
The more she looked at that miserable expression, the rougher Talia's laughter became.
Forgetting both the splitting headache and the tingling pain crawling up her legs, Talia doubled over and laughed.
“So that's why you came running here.”
Aila's complexion had become nearly as white as plaster.