Seeds in the Court

The news about the Emperor bringing a "border beggar woman" back and confining her right inside the gold-plated bedroom flared up like a spark falling onto dry grassland, sweeping through the entire Ice Kingdom palace in just one single night.

At the splendid banquets of the Old Aristocracy faction or the solemn grand ceremonies at the Old Church Cathedral, the name "Wench" became a filthy bump-mark severely insulting the purity of the royal bloodline.

"A creature without background, without a name, yet His Majesty keeps her beside his pillow? This is truly an insult toward the dynasty!"

"The Church cannot sit still watching a filthy person stain the noble bloodline of the Ice Kingdom!"

Those calculating whispering sounds quickly transformed into action. To extinguish that seed of chaos and re-impose authority over the palace, the Church immediately intervened. The Chief Attendant — Lady Hester, a capable henchperson of the High Pontiff — was ordered to lead the team of servants stepping straight into the girl's bedroom.

Hester carried an old face wrinkled like dry cedar bark, draped in a grey robe embroidered with strict silver thread. She stood in the center of the room, curling her lips in contempt, looking at the emaciated body curling up on the bed.

"Get up!" Hester rasped a dry, hollow voice, striking her wooden staff hard against the stone floor. "A wild beast picked up from an ash pile must learn how to be obedient. In this palace, any person who wants to live must also know how to bow their head in submission."

The girl lay on the vast feather mattress bed, her slender body still being scorched by the magic-poison fever from the pair of Dark Gold shackles. The neck-skin strip burning red due to the silver chain alongside Kieran's dry blood trails smeared on her lips were still emanating extreme bone-chilling coldness. Her deep purple eyes slowly opened, looking at her with instinctual wildness and contempt.

"Get out..." The girl uttered a single word through her dry teeth gap, her voice raspy yet cold.

"Uneducated beast!" Hester's face hardened, immediately turning toward the team of female attendants who followed her.

"Open wide all the windows! Cut off all her food rations, each day give only one bowl of dirty water. Let us see how long her wild nature lasts before the snowstorm of the Ice Kingdom!"

In the next three days, the gold-plated room transformed into a quiet torturing dungeon.

All the stone-arch window frames were opened wide, left to allow the Border snowstorm to surge in roaring, turning the inside air into a bone-chilling ice cellar. The surrounding team of female attendants forced her to kneel down on the cold stone floor. Every time her body trembled, collapsing down because the magic-poison was biting and tearing her blood veins, Hester stepped forward, raising the magic thorned whip in her hand.

Lash!

"Kneel with a straight back!" Hester roared. "Speak! Will you kneel down in repentance before the Church?"

Lash!

"Answer!" The thorned whip struck hard down on the girl's shoulder. "Will you submit?"

The burning-like-fire raw pain spread across her body, but the girl only gritted her teeth tightly. She did not cry, did not groan, nor did she bow her spine down to the floor surface. Even though she could not remember who she herself was, every single muscle fiber in her body violently opposed the act of submission.

By the fourth day, Hester completely lost her patience upon seeing those purple eyes still blazing with a hatred without a shred of fear.

"Chief Attendant, she... she adamantly refuses to speak up begging for mercy!" A serving female attendant trembled and said.

"Stubborn beast!" Hester was so angry that her old face distorted. She stepped close, raising high her emaciated hand covered full of sharp metal rings. "Today I will smash to pieces this filthy arrogance of yours!"

The hand swung up tearing through the wind, aiming straight at the girl's face.

"I told you... to get out!"

The girl roared a wild sound. Without a shred of fear, she put all her remaining residual strength into pouncing forward. Her small hand bleeding because of the Dark Gold iron shackles grabbed tightly onto Hester's wrist, then with a ruthless twisting strike of survival instinct, she put force into snapping her two ring-wearing fingers backward.

Snap!

"Ah...!" Hester shrieked a mournful scream. The sound of finger bones snapping and crushing sounded crisp, making the team of servants freeze on the spot. She collapsed down onto the stone floor, her face pale-dead due to severe pain.

The girl braced one hand against the floor, breathing heavily and rapidly. Her deep purple eyes flared up with a threatening ancient pattern. She pressed her bleeding face close to Hester's ear, whispering in a voice bone-chilling like ice and snow:

"Look clearly... I never kneel before a dog of the Church."

Having spoken, she violently shoved Hester's hand away like discarding a filthy item.

"You... you monsters!" Hester hugged her snapped, crushed hand, both terrified and enraged, roaring at the team of servants.

"Retreat! Quickly retreat out of here! Lock the door tight!"

The team of servants frantically supported Hester, scrambling and crawling up, then fled for their lives out of the room.

That night, at the Church's secret room located deep beneath the Palace ground.

Hester wrapped a white bandage strip around her snapped hand, her face grey-ashen standing in front of the High Pontiff.

"She is not a mortal... Your Excellency the High Pontiff, she truly is a monster!" Hester gritted her teeth, her voice trembling due to hatred.

"She would rather die than kneel! If such a wild person is allowed to continue staying beside His Majesty Kieran, our Church will eternally never be able to intervene in this palace again!"

The High Pontiff quietly looked at the half-burning candle, his eyes hidden behind a silver mask flashing a ruthless light. He unhurriedly took a sip of tea, rasped a deep voice:

"A person who cannot be tamed... then only has value when they have become a corpse."

"Your meaning is..." Hester raised her head up.

"His Majesty Kieran is attending the Border parliament meeting, returning only at midnight." The High Pontiff lowered his voice, his eyes flashing with murderous intent.

"Bring the Ice Tear Poison to her. Let us end this impudent game of Kieran's right in this night."

"Understood, sir!" Hester curled her lips into a ruthless smile.

One watch-hour later, the snowstorm outside had calmed its waves. The palace sank into a terrifying solitude.

The double doors slowly opened a crack. A young female attendant stealthily stepped inside, carrying on her hand a splendid silver tray strip. On the tray was a jade-inlaid porcelain bowl emanating a thin wisp of smoke carrying the fragrant, sweet scent of herbal medicine.

She approached close to the bed, tremulously speaking: "Mil... Lady, this is a bowl of tonic medicine specially bestowed by the Church to help you recover your health after the past few days..."

The girl braced her hands sitting up on the vast feather mattress bed, her deep purple eyes staring dead at the bowl of medicine emanating smoke under the moonlight.

"Tonic medicine?" The girl curled her lips, rasped a dry voice full of sarcasm. "Since when did your Church become suddenly good-hearted like this?"

The female attendant swallowed her saliva with an ahem, trying to maintain a calm appearance: "Lady Hester already knows her mistake... The Church only wants you to quickly get well to serve His Majesty. Please drink it while it is still hot."

She hastily set the bowl of medicine down on the small table beside the bed, then quickly withdrew outside, locking the door latch very fast as if afraid of catching a plague.

Click.

The door-lock sound echoed lonely. Under the flickering candle light, the thin wisp of smoke on the mouth of the porcelain bowl slowly rose up. But behind that gentle, sweet scent was the hidden bitter-astringent taste of the Ice Tear Poison — the most ruthless magic-poison on the continent held by the Church, possessing the ability to seep into blood vessels and melt the internal organs of mortals in just a few breaths.

The girl looked dead-staringly into the bowl of medicine, her natural survival instinct helping her feel the bone-chilling murderous stream hidden behind that sweet, fragrant water. Her chapped lips burst out a cold, sneering laugh amidst the black night.