Ch.825Her Circumstances
by fnovelpia
– Crack!
The last pursuer falls from his horse as an arrow pierces his forehead, only to be crushed under the hooves of his startled mount.
Brain matter oozes between fragments of the shattered skull, while the trampled abdomen bursts open, bright red intestines protruding below the groin.
“Haaah…”
Imara slipped her bow into the leather pouch beside her saddle and wiped the sweat from her brow with trembling arms.
‘As expected, it’s too much for me.’
Her muscles ached as if her arms would fall off. Though she had managed to hunt down all five warriors pursuing her after a fierce chase and firefight, her arms were now so fatigued she could barely wield a dagger.
Haschal’s powerful bow was a formidable weapon capable of killing even seasoned warriors with a single shot, but for those without her inhuman strength, it was merely a defective item that would numb one’s arm muscles after firing seven or eight arrows.
Even Imara, who had secretly practiced archery since childhood, could barely handle it—nothing like Haschal who could fire twenty or thirty arrows endlessly.
‘…I need to hurry. I was fortunate there were only five pursuers; if there had been twice as many, I would have been captured.’
Imara opened the water pouch hanging at her waist and gulped down the lukewarm water. She then lightly kicked the side of her horse, which had been grazing impatiently, and galloped away.
Once the bodies of her pursuers were discovered, Targiyan’s warriors would swarm after her in packs. There was no time to waste on rest.
If she were captured by Targiyan’s warriors again, she would surely face terrible humiliation and death.
‘…Can I make it safely? Even if I do, what happens after…’
Despite trying to calm herself, anxiety leaked through, causing her to bite her lip as she continued her desperate gallop toward the setting sun.
No matter how anxious she felt, she had no other choice.
‘Yes, I’ll go and beg. Surely “that woman,” my sis…ter, won’t try to kill me on sight. …Right?’
Rationally, Imara’s wisest course of action would be to return to Ordos.
Targiyan’s forces trying to capture her wouldn’t pursue her all the way to Ordos where the Blue Banner Army was stationed.
She could turn back, make up some excuse to those worried about her disappearance, and continue living as if nothing had happened, ensuring her safety.
But—
‘Mother is insane. And my brother who just watches is equally mad.’
Imara had no intention of returning to Ordos. If she had, she wouldn’t have fled in the first place.
By chance or fate, she had unwillingly discovered Meiharin’s secret. After seeing ‘that,’ returning to the palace would be like stepping back into a poisonous swamp she had barely escaped.
So she galloped on, looking only westward, toward the kingdom beyond the barrier called Hestella, the Gurun of the Abha Knights she had heard about in rumors.
‘After all, the only person I can trust is sis…ter. She might be crazy too, but compared to ‘that thing,’ it’s nothing.’
Imara recalled reports from spies she had planted among the 4th Guard Cavalry Division and Haschal’s handmaidens.
A life of daily slaughter and plunder to accumulate Karma and fame, followed by nights of drinking potent alcohol by the jarful before falling asleep. Her excessive cruelty supposedly made no distinction between friend and foe.
Imara knew this was a misunderstanding.
While Haschal often slaughtered her subordinates for trivial reasons, most of those who died were spies planted by her siblings.
In Imara’s opinion, Haschal wasn’t a madwoman who disregarded her subordinates’ lives; rather, she simply had few trustworthy subordinates to begin with.
The only ones she seemed to trust were her closest aides, Jahan and Mersin.
Trusting no one, she could cut down a subordinate without hesitation or remorse at the slightest suspicion.
‘That’s aggressive and cruel, but far from insane.’
If anything, she had been much closer to madness when she was around fifteen.
Drunkenly declaring herself the “Abha Knight”—the reincarnation of the Celestial Horse—demanding applause, claiming a black dragon was sealed in her right arm while wielding a dragon’s head created with her unique power of murder Karma.
For someone who had reached the level of Champion to behave this way was truly the mark of a madwoman.
People even suspected her mind had slightly broken from awakening to the power of Karma at too young an age.
Of course, she only showed such behavior in front of her closest confidant Jahan; when raiding, she would tear apart western people like a ghost, without a trace of playfulness.
Regardless, Imara had no one else to trust now.
Though their relationship had deteriorated to the point of sending spies to each other as a monthly ritual…
Still, Imara had been the one showing one-sided hostility, while her half-sister never confronted her about the spies she sent.
Even when those spies, who were supposed to merely gather information, transformed into assassins—perhaps on her mother Meiharin’s orders.
The fact that Haschal hadn’t rushed at her with a sword in that situation clearly showed she still cherished Imara.
Perhaps she thought Imara wasn’t worth harming… but at least, Imara believed Haschal still cared for her as a sister. After all, she still admired Haschal as her sister.
She simply didn’t show it because Meiharin would grimace and wave her hand dismissively at the slightest hint of such feelings.
It made sense when she thought about it.
Targiyan with his extremely cruel personality.
Sahakal, with whom she never particularly bonded.
Compared to Amin, who seemed like embodied pathetic weakness, Haschal—though somewhat fierce—was surprisingly generous and open-hearted to those she cared about.
Her personality seemed to have changed somewhat since defecting to the west and dabbling in sorcery, not to mention finally slaying their father, Kagan Orhan…
But unless she had completely transformed, she wouldn’t harm a younger sister prostrating herself for forgiveness. Imara was convinced of this.
That’s why she chose to flee west without hesitation after witnessing that scene.
‘Yes, this is right. If I had stayed there…’
As the headwind cooled her body heated from battle, Imara recalled the scenes she had witnessed days ago.
——[ Days Earlier ]——
After news reached the Great Plains that Haschal had established a country near the Wall, Imara’s mother Meiharin had become increasingly irritable.
She spent entire days locked away in the depths of the imperial palace with mysterious people who claimed to be from her maternal family, or left with them for days at a time.
She left the wars with the remnants of the Black and Red Banner Armies led by Targiyan who proclaimed himself Khan, the tribal leaders who sided with him, and the tribes attempting to break away from the Aishan entirely to Sahakal.
“Where is Mother? Is she absent again today?”
“Yes. I regretfully inform you that we do not know her whereabouts.”
“Sigh, where could she be and what could she be doing…”
The court lady bowed her head, apologizing for being unable to answer. Imara sighed lightly, gestured for her to leave, and irritably fiddled with her hair tied in two braids.
For the sixteen-year-old, her mother’s sudden transformation was extremely frustrating.
If she at least knew what her mother was doing, she might have been able to tolerate it, but whenever they met and she asked about it, her mother would simply say Imara didn’t need to know.
‘Am I so untrustworthy? Because I’m not a warrior?’
Her brother Sahakal clearly knew about Meiharin’s activities.
He even gently advised Imara not to bother their mother too much as she was engaged in important business.
The fact that her mother had told Sahakal but not her a single word—this blatant discrimination was the fundamental reason for Imara’s irritation.
Therefore.
‘…If you find me so untrustworthy, I’ll have to find out myself.’
Imara decided to secretly investigate her mother’s activities.
It wasn’t difficult. She simply needed to thoroughly search her mother’s chambers while Meiharin was away from the palace.
“—Lady Imara, this is not a place for someone as noble as yourself to—”
“Step aside. How dare those who eat Aishan’s salt block the path of an Aishan-Gioro blood relative? Who gave you such authority?”
“Empress Meiharin ordered—”
“I already have Mother’s permission. I won’t ask three times. Step aside.”
After pushing aside the servants who blocked her way with authority and lies, she reached the underground chamber beneath the sleeping quarters—
“…What is this?”
There, she saw it. The truth her mother had tried to conceal.
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