Chapter 265 – 41. Forbidden Emotions
“Bang!”
“Is this all you’ve got, Captain Alagina?”
In the depths of the tavern, the tall Helena swung a powerful punch at Alagina’s face, and the tremendous impact exploded on her face like the tolling of a great bell, awakening her dulled senses from the Ice Prince’s long freeze and making her feel real pain.
Alagina’s gown was torn from the battle, revealing her reasonably strong muscles. She shot a cold glance at Helena, whose helmet was dented from the blow, spat a mouthful of bloody saliva, and stood up again.
“You haven’t improved at all, just like when you were ten years older and I still managed to give you a black eye.”
“Is that so?”
Helena scoffed, then suddenly yanked off her helmet, revealing a face somewhat similar to Alagina’s, with some bruising from Alagina’s earlier attack, but Alagina’s bloodied face was not much better off.
As if no words were needed, their eyes, the same color yet filled with entirely different meanings, locked in an intense stare, resembling the collision of a storm with frost and snow.
It seemed like it was snowing again in the tavern, turning cold like the dueling grounds in the court of the Sardinian fiefdom, casting the shadows of the two confrontational figures into the years gone by.
The previous fiefdom king of Hammond was cruel and merciless, yet he was generous and methodical in nurturing his children.
As her daughter, Alagina had to master literature and poetry, know horse riding, archery, and dueling, and be proficient in various weapons and firearms. As her son, he had to meet standards of etiquette, exquisite taste, and be gentle and graceful.
There was little familial affection; only a mechanistic survival of the fittest and progress was what the children of these fief kings were expected to consider. This Spartan education shaped Alagina and Helena and their sisters.
Even without the incident of Alagina slaying her mother, they would eventually have fought due to their yearning for power, yet most of them had perished in the massive upheaval that shook the Sardinian kingdom.
The relationships among the children of the Hammond fief were not harmonious; even Helena and Alagina, who were not particularly close and had no evident conflicts, would be considered to have a “good relationship.”
In their childhood, since Helena was much older than Alagina, they did not study theory together; they only occasionally met during combat training.
Helena did not bully Alagina as other sisters of her age did with their stronger bodies, and she hardly spoke to her, merely looking at her with disdain from a distance. Meanwhile, Alagina was too busy dealing with other sisters who directly attacked her; even knowing Helena looked down on her, she had never let it escalate into conflict.
However, Alagina was not an ordinary child; she was exceptionally talented, and those sisters who had once looked down on her were consecutively defeated by her in the dueling arena, until finally, her elder sister, who had never fought her, confronted her and gave her a severe lesson.
Yes, in her memory, Alagina had fought Helena only once, just before she was about to leave the Hammond fiefdom to become a Phoenix Knight under the sovereign.
In that blizzard, Helena took the initiative to provoke Alagina for the first time. Just like today, they didn’t carry other weapons, and in the snow, within the unmonitored courtyard of the fiefdom, they secretly engaged in a one-on-one brawl.
“Bang!”
At this moment, Alagina was once again struck in the abdomen by Helena’s punch, causing her to uncontrollably fall backward, creating a visible depression in the wooden floor.
Gasping, she looked at Helena, and the tavern’s lights turned into a biting cold wind, bringing the nearly 35-year-old Helena back to ten years prior.
Ten years ago, in the courtyard’s back, two young women of the kingdom stood barefoot in thick snow among the trees, their bodies intertwined, fully employing the combat techniques they had learned to transform them into strength, landing blows on each other’s most vulnerable points—faces, eyes, noses, abdomens, and chests.
At that time, Alagina’s physical strength was no match for her elder sister, who was as powerful as a giant bear. Alagina’s punches against her sturdy muscles were as ineffective as today’s strikes against her heavy armor. Nevertheless, she continued to fight relentlessly, trying to knock her down.
Helena shared that same sentiment, seemingly harboring grievances against herself, which motivated her to confront Alagina and engage in a duel.
“Princess Alagina! Princess Helena! Where are you?!”
From afar, the calls of the attendants echoed; it seemed other sisters had informed the steward about the secret duel between the two princesses. They followed the wind and snow, getting closer.
But in their heated battle, the two paid no mind to anyone else; their eyes were seemingly locked solely on each other’s faces and fists, focused only on knocking each other down and wondering how long they could last.
In a daze, apart from the day’s wind and snow, Alagina seemed to recall some words that the other had said to her, though she could not quite remember what they were.
“…”
“Princess Alagina.”
“Princess Helena!”
“Where are you?!”
As the attendants’ voices drew nearer, the battle was turning increasingly unfavorable for Alagina; her strength and combat skills were completely overwhelmed by her elder sister. She was battered and exhausted.
The cold of the frost and snow spread through her senses, which had not yet dulled by the Ice Prince’s freeze, making her uncomfortable. In the moment of feeling this cold and becoming distracted, Alagina fell prey to Helena’s seizing of an opportunity, as her strong arms locked around Alagina’s neck, restraining her movements.
Helena appeared to be enraged, applying heavy force as if she intended to strangle Alagina to death.
“…”
The tinnitus from hypoxia and the surrounding blizzard masked Helena’s words. At that moment, Alagina could only think of how to break free, leading her to now struggle to recall what Helena had said to her then.
What did she say?
Back to the present in the tavern, as memories flooded back, Alagina showed a clear opening again, and Helena exploited the same move against her once more.
By the time Alagina realized and prepared to strike back against Helena, it was already too late. The massive body absorbed all of Alagina’s attack, and then Helena suddenly reached out her arms, tightly locking Alagina in her embrace and using her body’s strength to cut off Alagina’s breathing.
With that familiar sensation of hypoxia returning, accompanied by the renewed sounds of tinnitus, Alagina bit down on her teeth.
From behind, Helena’s voice resonated, just as familiar as it had been ten years ago during their duel in the snow.
Everything was overlapping, suddenly causing Alagina to recall what she had once heard.
“Alagina.”
“Alagina!”
“I am jealous of you!”
Yes, this was what the furious Helena had said to her back then.
The fourteen-year-old Alagina heard that perplexing statement from behind her; she could not comprehend at the time why Helena would be jealous of her.
Mother treated all her children equally, the elder sister was adored by their other sisters because she resembled Mother more, and she was stronger and more responsible toward the Hammond family than Alagina.
So then, what could she possibly be jealous of?
“Stop! Let her go! Helena, I beg you, let her go!”
In Alagina’s memory, amidst the snowstorm, just on the verge of losing consciousness from hypoxia, she suddenly saw a gentle man wrapped in furs rushing toward them, surrounded by numerous attendants.
His eyes were solely on her, urgently calling out to Helena, who had her grip on Alagina’s neck.
That was her father.
Then, Alagina felt her elder sister’s body tense up behind her, even loosening her hold on Alagina’s neck, allowing Alagina to escape from the extreme hypoxia.
“Alagina, Alagina! You scared me; are you alright? My daughter, no… Helena! What have you done?!”
Released by Helena, Alagina weakly fell to the ground, enveloped in her father’s warm furs, once again separated from the outside snow.
She heard her father’s questioning voice directed at Helena, feeling his breaths rise and fall in anger.
“Aedras. I…”
In blurred memories, Helena’s fragmented voice returned; it seemed she had called out their father’s name, tinged with some guilt, tentatively, but the angered father and her past self had completely failed to notice the meanings hidden within those words, to the extent that Alagina had nearly forgotten them by now.
“Shut up! You disrespectful thing! How dare you speak to me like that? How dare you treat your sister this way?!”
“I didn’t mean to! But I won’t call you that; I just…”
“Get away!”
“…I understand.”
The wind and snow gradually subsided. In the tavern, Alagina suddenly widened her eyes, having been locked up by Helena. Unlike ten years ago when she lost consciousness from being choked, her body slowly ceased to struggle, but in the next moment, when Helena was caught off guard, Alagina surged up, landing a punch squarely on her face, breaking free from her confinement.
Alagina ignored the fainting sensation caused by hypoxia. Gritting her teeth, she turned and lunged at Helena, pinning her to the ground, throwing punch after punch at her face.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
Not just her face, the fierce attacks extended with Alagina’s fury all the way down from her armor to her abdomen.
With those furious strikes, even the Phoenix Knight’s hard armor was left dented; though Alagina’s knuckles were bloodied, she remained fixated on the necklace around Helena’s neck that had been revealed by her attacks.
The necklace worn by Helena was their father’s keepsake; when Alagina hurriedly fled the Sardinian kingdom after murdering her mother, she hadn’t taken any of her father’s belongings from the palace, yet today, she saw this item that should have remained in their father’s grave hanging around Helena’s neck.
At this moment, Alagina finally understood why Helena had once said to her, “I am jealous of you.”
“Haha.”
Alagina gasped, and when she had beaten Helena until she was bloodied and had no strength left to raise her fist again, the room in the tavern finally fell silent once more.
Though Helena was covered in wounds, her eyes, the same color as Alagina’s, continued to fixate on her, as if she could see through Alagina’s current face to the past.
“You have improved.”
“Indeed. Even now, I am still very jealous of you, Alagina.”
Alagina’s white hair fell slightly, covering her profile, but she slowly raised her fist, seemingly wanting to strike to prevent Helena from continuing her words. But the fatigued fist was far too slow compared to Helena’s pace of speech, and she failed to stop her from saying the next words.
“Do you really think that we, the children treated like that by Mother, would have deep feelings for her? Even the second sister, who had the best relationship with Mother, secretly wished for her to die sooner; they resent you, they resent your talent, they resent you for potentially taking away their power and position. But I am different. I resent you simply because I am jealous of you, jealous that you could always be by Aedras’s side.”
Aedras, was the name of Alagina’s father.
“Aedras’s gaze has always been upon you, because you are his daughter and should enjoy all his love. While I, being so similar to Mother, was naturally disliked and feared by him. Because of this, I could never get close to him; I could only suffer through the pains of the world in the shadows.”
Before she could finish her words, Alagina landed another punch on her face, knocking out a tooth with a noticeable sound.
“Shut up.”
But Helena was utterly unfazed; she tilted her head slightly and spat out the dislodged tooth.
“But now, how could the Alagina who committed the great crime of killing her mother criticize me? Aedras is already dead, and my heart has left with him, which led me to this self-destructive state today. I just want to tell you, Alagina, I have fallen for the man brought back by Mother, I have fallen for your father.”
“And because of that, I am deeply jealous of you.”
At the age of fourteen, Helena, the first daughter of the Hammond fiefdom in the Sardinian kingdom, defied convention by falling in love with the man brought into the palace by her mother—Aedras, who was only 22 years old.
This forbidden emotion bloomed quietly like poison, and at this moment, through Helena’s long-buried words, it thinly became the answer to many sealed stories and questions within the past of the Sardinian kingdom’s Hammond fief.
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(End of chapter)
