Thalia, her fingers twisting awkwardly in her lap, forced out a sharp, brittle reply.
"Yes...
and if you damage so much as a single hair, I will make you regret it."
Barkas didn't answer, but his movements became even more deliberate, more precise.
As his fingers brushed against her scalp—a touch so light it was almost a caress—Thalia swallowed hard against the dryness in her throat.
Between the open lapels of his shirt, she could see the corded muscles of his neck and the graceful, sharp line of his collarbones.
She was acutely aware of the movement of his forearms, the subtle shift of his weight.
His long legs, clad in dark, fitted trousers, were pressed nearly against her hips, making it impossible to find any semblance of calm.
She bowed her head, desperately trying to hide the flush that was spreading across her face.
"How...
how much longer?" she whispered.
Could hair truly be so difficult to free from a single button?
Or was it just that her own heightened awareness made every second feel like an eternity?
Her palms were slick with sweat.
She wiped them on a pile of discarded silks on the floor, then winced as she noticed the dark, frantic red staining the inside of her wrists.
She must be glowing like a coal.
How utterly ridiculous she must look.
"That’s enough!" she snapped, her voice rising with a nervous edge.
"Just cut it!"
Barkas, usually so swift and efficient, took an agonizingly long time to respond.
He finally reached for the belt at his waist.
Thalia went rigid as he drew a small, gleaming dagger.
When his hand moved behind her back again, she instinctively gripped the hem of his tunic.
"Wait—just...
don't cut off too much.
My hair—"
Before she could finish, there was a faint, metallic *snip*, and the tension at the roots of her hair vanished.
Her heart skipped a beat.
What if he had taken an entire strand?
In a panic, she whirled around.
To her immense relief, there was no hair on the floor.
Instead, a single, sparkling silver button lay upon the carpet.
She picked it up, her fingers tracing the intricate engraving on its polished surface—the coat of arms of the Knights of Roem.
Thalia looked up at him.
Barkas was already on his feet, sliding the dagger back into its sheath.
"How long do you intend to sit there?" he asked dryly, smoothing the front of his disheveled tunic.
Thalia scrambled to her feet, her face burning with a fresh wave of embarrassment.
The air between them felt thick, charged with an awkward, unspoken energy.
She cleared her throat and held out the button.
"Here.
You...
you dropped this."
"No need.
Throw it away," Barkas said with a flat indifference.
He glanced briefly toward the window, where the sky was beginning to bleed into the deep, bruised reds of sunset.
He looked around the disaster of her room and let out a long, weary exhale.
"May I leave?"
Thalia nodded, unable to find her voice.
He offered a curt, perfunctory bow and strode from the room.
She stood there for a long time, listening to the fading echo of his footsteps.
Then, she hurried to her nightstand, pulled out her most ornate jewelry box, and tucked the silver button into its deepest, most hidden corner.
That night, sleep was an impossibility.
A strange, persistent ache throbbed in her chest—an unfamiliar cocktail of emotions she couldn't quite name.
She replayed his words, his movements, and his glances in her mind, over and over again.
*What if...
no, it’s impossible.
And yet...*
Her thoughts were a tangled mess, a loud, chaotic noise in her head.
She felt as though her brain might fracture under the weight of it.
And yet, for the first time in her life, she found herself wanting to smile for no reason at all.
She tossed and turned until dawn, her heart buoyed by a fragile, newfound happiness.
But youthful dreams are rarely built to last.
Only a few days later, the news of the official engagement between Barkas and Ayla swept through the palace like a wildfire.
It was like being jolted awake from a sweet, shimmering dream.
Worse—it was like being cast from the heavens and shattering upon the cold, hard earth.
Thalia fled her quarters, her feet carrying her toward the training grounds.
Though he wasn't due to escort her until noon, she couldn't wait a second longer.
She burst onto the parade ground, ignoring the wary, curious glances of the knights in training.
She scanned the field for a flash of ash-gold hair, but realized only recruits were present.
He was likely in the administrative wing.
She whirled around and headed for the military department.
As she reached for the handle of his office door, the sound of a soft, muffled sob made her freeze.
Through the narrow crack in the door, she saw him.
Barkas was standing by the window, his silhouette dark against the afternoon light.
A woman was clinging to him, her face buried in his chest as she wept uncontrollably.
Thalia felt as though she had been struck by a physical wave of ice.
It was a sight she had never even dared to imagine.
The woman looked up at Barkas, her eyes wide with a desperate, frantic plea.
"You don't love her, do you?"
The voice was so thin, so pathetic, it made Thalia’s stomach churn.
The woman was begging, clinging to the last shred of a dying hope.
"You’re only marrying her for the alliance, right?
Please...
tell me it’s the truth."
Thalia’s throat tightened as she watched Barkas’s face.
Finally, his lips moved.
"I fail to see why my answer should matter to you in the slightest."
His voice was so cold it sent a shiver down Thalia’s spine.
Barkas looked down at the weeping woman as if she were a broken wax doll, his head tilting in a gesture of faint, clinical bewilderment.
"Whether it is an alliance or not, what does it change?
I have given my word to take the First Princess as my wife, and I intend to honor that commitment."
The woman’s shoulders went rigid.
Thalia could almost hear the sound of a heart breaking.
But Barkas wasn't finished.
"I don't know what you were hoping for, but I made it clear from the beginning that I could not return your feelings.
I hope we can avoid such awkward encounters in the future.
Now that the engagement is public, I have no desire for unnecessary scandals."
The girl recoiled, sinking to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been severed.
For a fleeting second, a look of pure annoyance crossed Barkas’s face.
His impassive mask, utterly devoid of sympathy or remorse, made Thalia’s blood run cold.
That expression.
That look.
It was a side of him she had always sensed but never fully seen.
Thalia fled the corridor.
If she had arrived a moment earlier, it might have been her on that floor, sobbing at his feet.
The sheer horror of the thought made her want to retch.
If Barkas had looked at her with that same hollow indifference...
if she had been forced to beg him for a love he didn't possess...
she would have died.
Truly, she would have simply ceased to exist on the spot.
That was the moment Thalia began to truly fear him.
He could destroy her with nothing more than a few well-chosen words, and the realization terrified her to her core.
From that day forward, her behavior toward Barkas shifted.
He was no longer the object of her secret, glowing love.
He was an enemy.
A mortal adversary.
If she could not completely excise the feelings she had for him, her only future was a life of endless, excruciating torment.