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Tilla was standing behind a food trolley. A vampire servant had helped her to bring it upstairs.

Tilla gave a sad smile to her friend who looked like a mess, and said, “Long time no see, Anna.”

Anastasia smiled and she pushed the trolley aside. She instantly pulled Tilla in her embrace.

“Tilla! I missed you. I needed you so much!” Anastasia felt like crying again now that she had found a shoulder to lean on.

Tilla hugged Anastasia back and replied while sniffling, “I am here now. I’m sorry that I took my time.”

“No, don’t be.” Anastasia looked at her friend with teary eyes and pulled her inside the chamber.

“Whoa... why are you sitting in the dark? I will light the lanterns first.” Tilla went to the antechamber to fetch a burning candle.

Tilla pushed the trolley inside Anastasia’s bedchamber while carrying a candle in one of her hands. She lit the room generously.

.....

And the two of them sat on the bed while facing each other.

Tilla then immediately scolded Anastasia, “I wasn’t here for a week and you already look so thin. And why are you skipping your meals? Do you want to fall sick and lie down in bed for a month? Why are you torturing your body like this?”

Anastasia guiltily looked down. Streams of tears kept on rolling down her eyes.

Tilla didn’t know the full story of what had happened but she guessed that it had something to do with the King. It hurt her to see her friend in that state.

She wiped Anastasia’s tears and gave her a pitiful glance. She wanted to ask what had happened but she wanted to feed the Queen first.

She took a bowl of mushroom soup in her hand and extended a spoonful of soup in front of Anastasia’s mouth. “You should have something.”

Anastasia looked at the soup and shook her head. “I don’t want to,” she mumbled like a pampered child.

Tilla was as stubborn as Anastasia when it came to feeding her. She took the Queen on a guilt trip. “Anna, I don’t want you getting sick because I will be the one who has to tend to you. It will be hard on me since I haven’t fully recovered yet.”

Anastasia glanced at Tilla’s neck. She wasn’t wearing bandages anymore. So she could see the sewn puncture marks that were yet to fully heal.

“You shouldn’t have come here. You should be resting,” Anastasia looked at Tilla and said in a concerned voice.

Tilla put the spoon back in the bowl and stirred the soup while scolding Anastasia again, “And whose fault is that, that I had to come here? If you had had your food then I wouldn’t need to be here to force you into eating.”

“Here,” Tilla offered another warm spoonful of soup and asked again, “Drink it before it gets cold. I will have to warm it up again if you don’t drink it soon.”

Anastasia finally agreed to have the meal. She didn’t do it because she wanted to eat; she did it because she didn’t want to be a burden to Tilla.

Tilla fed the whole bowl of soup and proceeded to feed Anastasia the rest of the food items as well. Anastasia cleared everything since she was starving, and also because Tilla wouldn’t let her get away without finishing everything.

After finishing the dinner, Tilla finally asked Anastasia, “Tell me what happened? Did the King do something to you?”

A few frown lines appeared on Anastasia’s forehead. She nodded and replied, “Everard had sent a letter to congratulate me on my marriage. Caspian got jealous and things escalated.”

“Escalated?” Tilla had been seeing the torn sleeve of the Queen’s gown. And she asked in haste, “He didn’t do anything bad, did he? Did he try to force himself-”

“No.” Anastasia tried pulling the torn sleeve up and said, “I did this myself.”

Anastasia took a deep breath in. She explained everything that Caspian had said to her and everything that she said to him in return.

And she finally said, “I don’t want to see his face anytime soon. So I asked Martha and Holly to shift my belongings back here.”

The Queen suddenly felt a cold shiver in her heart. She glanced at Tilla and asked in a worried voice, “Martha and Holly are fine, right? I hope they didn’t get punished because of me.”

Tilla smiled and reassured her, “They are fine. They are the ones who arranged the trolley for me.”

Anastasia heaved a deep sigh of relief. She then glanced at Tilla and asked her, “I did the right thing, yeah? By speaking up? I know that I should be trying to please him. But I couldn’t keep quiet and take his insults.”

Tilla held Anastasia’s hand and gave her a soft smile. She nodded her head and agreed with her friend, “That was the right thing to do. You shouldn’t let others step all over you, no matter who they are. I’m sure the King will realize his mistake and will apologize to you.”

Anastasia rested her head on her knees and mumbled, “To be honest, I don’t care if he apologizes or not. I don’t care if he never wants to look back at me. I simply wish to spend my remaining months or year in peace. I don’t care about the cure for my illness anymore. Honestly, I don’t think there is one. I was just clinging onto a non-existent hope.”

Tilla couldn’t say a word to console her friend. She had never believed that her friend’s illness could be cured by some vampire. Several doctors, shamans, and experts had already checked Anastasia. And none of them could cure her. How would being loved by a vampire change anything?

Tilla shifted closer to Anastasia and caressed her hair. That was all she could do for her friend – stay by her side.

After a while, when Anastasia had calmed down a little, Tilla helped her clean her face and change into her light and comfortable bedgown.

While Anastasia got on the bed, Tilla prepared to take the trolley back to the kitchen and rest for the night.

She then said while blowing the lanterns, “I am thinking of officially returning to your service from tomorrow. I will see you tomorrow then, Anna.”

However, Anastasia turned to look at the handmaid and asked her, “Tilla, why don’t you sleep here with me today? I don’t want to be left alone.”

Tilla fidgeted her fingers and said, “I am not allowed to-”

“If anyone asks, then say that it was an order from me. Come back after changing your dress,” Anastasia gave a pleading look to Tilla.

And Tilla couldn’t say no. “Okay. I will be back soon.”

A servant was waiting outside for Tilla. He took the trolley from her and swooshed it away.

‘I don’t think I will ever get used to the vampires,’ Tilla thought to herself as she slowly headed downstairs.

When she reached the main exit below, she got startled when she saw a silhouette of a man in the darkness.

Caspian emerged from the shadows and asked her, “How’s the Queen? Did she eat?”

Tilla took a deep breath in and bowed. And she replied in a monotone, “Yes, Your Majesty. She had her dinner. She is resting now.”

Caspian cleared his throat and asked, “Is she... is she still angry with me?”

Tilla didn’t know where she got her courage from. But she bluntly answered the King, “She is bound to be angry when her husband said hurtful words to her. I wish you hadn’t broken her spirit and her will to survive, Your Majesty.”

Tilla bowed to the King again while gritting her teeth and strode away from there.

Caspian scoffed and mumbled, “Even her handmaid is as feisty as her. I think I should ask Zenon to assign more duties to her from tomorrow. That’s no way to speak to a King. She should know her place.”

He disheveled his hair in frustration and slowly climbed the stairs.

While heading back to his empty bedchamber, he kept thinking back to Tilla’s words over and over again.

‘I think I should give Anna some time to calm her anger down. I will talk to her when her anger towards me decreases to some extent.’

He had frown lines in between his brows as he reiterated Tilla’s words in his mind, ‘Broken her spirit and her will to survive...’

For some reason, that particular sentence kept on bothering him.

‘She isn’t having suicidal thoughts, is she?’