She did not understand why the sight of a baby bird — abandoned by its mother, stripped of its home, struggling helplessly in the mud and resting now in her hands — hurt her so much.
She carefully wrapped her hands around the bird and held it against the warmest spot beneath her throat.
Then she stared blankly up at the steep muddy slope surrounding the pit.
The dirt had grown even softer beneath the thickening rain.
She tried taking several experimental steps, but there was no way she could walk back up.
If she wanted to escape, she would have to crawl out on all fours like an animal.
Talia bit down hard on her lip.
She could not abandon the tiny bird she had just saved.
But neither could she throw away the dignity of an imperial princess and crawl through the mud like livestock.
So she simply stood there for a long time beneath the cold drizzle.
That was when he appeared through the pale curtain of rain drifting like mist.
A boy.
He was very tall and wore a black robe like those used by monks, with the hood pulled low over his head.
But through the white veil of rain, Talia could clearly see a pair of pale blue eyes shining coldly beneath it.
They were beautiful eyes.
“What are you doing down there?”
The blue-eyed boy bent slightly toward her as he spoke.
His voice was cold in a way that did not suit his youthful, delicate face.
Talia felt a shiver run down her spine.
At the time, she thought it was simply because of the cold.
But now that she looked back on it, she thought perhaps she had sensed it instinctively the moment she heard his voice.
That the indifferent-faced boy looking down at her would one day drag her life into hellish suffering.
If she had fully understood the meaning of that distant sensation back then, Talia would have thrown the tiny bird gasping weakly in her hands straight back into the mud and crawled out on all fours through the filth like some shameless pig.
Then she would have run far, far away from the blue-eyed boy.
She would have erased even the memory of seeing him.
But eight-year-old Talia never imagined that the boy who appeared in the rain would someday become her despair.
So she merely glared up at him and snapped in her usual thorny tone,
“Can’t you tell? I fell into a pit and can’t get out.”
The boy’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He looked as though he wanted to ask why she had entered such a place to begin with.
But instead of questioning her, he stepped smoothly down into the pit without caring in the slightest that his finely tailored trousers and expensive leather boots were being stained with mud.
Talia stared at him in surprise.
She had never expected a boy with such a cold face — one that looked as though you could stab it and not draw a single drop of blood — to do something like that.
He walked steadily across the swamp-like mud toward her.
Up close, the boy seemed even taller and leaner than he had from below.
He looked at least a full head taller than she was.
Crossing the mud with long graceful strides, the boy stopped in front of her and held out one hand.
“Take it.”