The Young Daughter of the Goddess 8

The next day, when a message came that the king had summoned her, Sabina steeled her heart. There couldn’t be any evidence. She just had to insist she knew nothing. As the queen, she couldn’t be tortured or imprisoned. Polytimos was not only His Majesty’s only blood relative but also her child, the mother of all subjects. To think that the queen would harm such a precious child out of mere jealousy, did His Majesty really see her as such an irrational woman? She would shed tears, saying that being barren led to such misunderstandings, and she’d rather go out and take her own life. Of course, His Majesty probably didn’t care whether she went out and hanged herself, but he couldn’t outright tell her to do so.

Repeating such thoughts, she was dazed when Roandros spoke the first word.

“Do you know why I summoned you?”

“I do not.”

“Really? I thought you might change my mind if you were honest.”

“I hide nothing from Your Majesty.”

“That’s good. Then bring Politimos and Erectina here immediately.”

Sabina bit her lip slightly and looked surprised.

“Why do you give such an order to me? I am also more concerned than anyone about the prince’s safety, but I do not understand why you ask me about their whereabouts. I love Politimos as my own.”

“Exactly, since you love him so much, bring him here. I want to see the prince unharmed, along with Erectina.”

“Your Majesty, I simply cannot…”

Roandros suddenly threw his teacup, causing Sabina to scream in fright. The teacup shattered, and hot tea splashed onto Sabina’s clothes. Roandros shouted.

“How dare you try to deceive me! Didn’t you conspire with your brother to smuggle them out? Tell me where you sent them!”

Sabina froze. For a moment, she instinctively flinched, fearing that Roandros might hit her. Though the king had been indifferent to her before, he had never treated her improperly, but now his attitude was no different from how he treated a slave. She suddenly wished he would go back to being indifferent as usual. She even almost said it out loud.

Sabina was terrified of the whip. Her mother was the third wife, and because she was favored by Sabina’s father, the first wife, or Sabina’s aunt, would often find reasons to pick on her and beat her with a whip. Even when she ran to her mother, the sound of the whip would make her quickly turn back, desperately praying that the whip’s fire wouldn’t reach her. At the same time, she worried about what would happen if her mother got beaten to death. Would her father avenge her? Why couldn’t she run and protect her mother? Why did her father, who claimed to love her mother, allow such things to happen? These conflicting thoughts swirled in her mind.

In the end, she could never run to her beaten mother. The fear of the whipping was too great for a young girl to bear. Her self-loathing turned into a desire for revenge. She even sharpened a dagger every day, determined to one day stab her aunt to death. However, she never exacted revenge. Even after her father passed away, her aunt remained the head of the family, and her aunt’s son, Herodion, inherited the family. Although she became a queen, or rather because she became a queen, she could not even dream of avenging her natal family. Sabina knew better than anyone how foolish that would be. Like her father, her elder brother Herodion ruled the family and was also Sabina’s most important ally.

Although Sabina’s mother no longer received beatings, the scars were still visible whenever she changed clothes. The moment she recalled those scars, Sabina’s brow trembled. She had long harbored hatred for Roandros’ indifferent attitude. His indifference was so profound that she couldn’t even fight or anger him. He never spoke to her except in formalities. One day, after returning from a banquet, he even asked a court lady, “Do you see me?”

Living in such a state for years made her feel like a ghost. She intentionally acted ferociously, hurting herself, hitting the court ladies, and breaking household items, but not even a word of reprimand came from Roandros. Whatever Sabina did or said merely slipped past his ears without ever truly entering them.

She would rather have been hated. She wanted to do something that would surprise him. Before being treated as a queen, she wanted to be treated as a person. She wanted to prove that she was a living person who could hurt him, not just a ghost wandering around the palace. But as soon as the terror of the whip resurfaced, she thought indifference would have been better. What were all those years for? Was the anger from back then just a tantrum?

Sabina suddenly stood, picking up a broken piece of the teacup to stab her neck. Roandros grabbed her arm.

“What are you doing?”

“Leave me be. Just as you always have!”

“This won’t solve anything!”

Sabina tried to shake him off a few times, but when she couldn’t, she glared at Loandros with tears streaming down her face. Loandros snatched the teacup pieces from her hand and threw them away. At the sound of the commotion, an attendant rushed in, and Roandros turned and barked.

“Get out!”

The attendant, dumbfounded at the sight in the inner room, immediately fled. When Roandros let go of Sabina’s hand, she collapsed into a chair, covering her mouth and sobbing. During this time, the king was momentarily silent, giving her a fleeting hope, but it was a foolish expectation.

“Know that you do not even have the freedom to die until you reveal the prince’s whereabouts.”

Roandros hadn’t saved her out of care. Sabina bit her lip and resolved never to forgive Erectina and Politimos. Until now, her goal had been to make them disappear from her sight, but now it was different. Even if they never returned to the palace, she would chase them to the ends of the earth and definitely kill them.

“Your Majesty, please hear me. What I say now is the absolute truth.”

She looked up at Roandros with tear-filled eyes. When he nodded, Sabina stood up and sat in the chair.

“Your Majesty, I thought that taking my own life was the only way to clear up this terrible misunderstanding. However, since you have stopped me, I will speak, though it may be in vain. Your Majesty claims that I conspired to hide the prince and his mother and has accused my brother of committing such an act. But none of my brothers have entered the palace this year or last year. I have not seen their faces for more than two years. How could they have hidden the prince and his mother without entering the palace?”

Roandros’ face filled with contempt.

“I have no interest in how you and your brother conspired and what schemes you used. I had the entire palace thoroughly searched. Then, I had those who left the castle gate investigated. The gatekeepers unanimously claimed they hadn’t seen such a woman and child. But then, one of the soldiers guarding the Full Moon Gate reported that the gatekeeper let a suspicious man and woman out last night without recording it. So, I brought the gatekeeper in and asked who they were and why they were let out secretly. His loyalty to you must have been insignificant since he confessed before losing a single finger.”

Up until then, Sabina had not anticipated this story at all and just stared up at Roanderos with wide eyes. As she listened to the following words, her throat and tongue froze.

“He said it was the Queen’s youngest brother, Laban.”