Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Avisak shook her head with an arrogant look. Like her proud nature, she eventually left their hut with a confident gait. After she left, Enya was alone with Tarhan. She gave up trying to fix her legs, which had been trembling until then, and sat down.

Tarhan, whose face changed in an instant, grabbed her body as she fell. Enya leaned on his side and whispered in a crawling voice as she pressed herself against his chest.

“Tah, Tarhan. let go…”

However, the man pretended not to hear her and lifted her up. Enya couldn’t stand it any longer and cry out.

Soon, the tears she had been holding back spilled out.

“Let go!”

At that, Tarhan also gritted his teeth and raised his voice.

“I know what you want to say. Just listen to me…!”

Enya, with a bursting feeling, roughly wiped away the tears that flowed down her face. She was rubbing her eyes so hard that her skin even felt itchy. Tarhan, who saw this, groaned and quickly grabbed her hand.

“Don’t rub it that hard. You’ll get hurt.”

“What, what does it have to do with you?”

Even though she really didn’t want to, her voice broke out harshly.

Enya glanced up at him, startled by her barbed words. Sure enough, Tarhan was looking down at her with wounded eyes. It was ridiculous… Wasn’t that man someone who could hurt others? Still, Tarhan really begged her with quivering eyes as if her brusque manner was the greatest pain for him.

“Don’t cry. It’s my fault.”

He grabbed Enya’s trembling hand and wrapped her small hand around his big one.

“I didn’t want to worry you. It was a matter of life and death for the entire tribe. It took me a long time to accept and decide.”

Tarhan, who sadly wiped away the tears welling up in the woman’s eyes, pulled her little body into a tight hug as he couldn’t stand it.

Enya collapsed in Tarhan’s arms and sobbed.

She hated herself for not being able to get angry with this person as she blinked her eyes, that were filled with tears.

Enya, who was born and raised in Aquilea all her life, had never set foot on the land of another tribe. She was naturally unfamiliar with the stories of the vast continent or of the other tribes outside the lands of Aquilea. However, Tarhan would not have been unfamiliar with it.

His decision must have been the right one. He didn’t even need her consent to make each of those decisions.

Tarhan was Aquilea’s new leader. Everyone acquiesced, but everyone knew that Kahanti would not survive long. So, his decision was Aquilea’s decision… So, who dared to thrash over Aquilea’s decision?

“Still… Don’t hide things like that from now on. Please, don’t let me hear from other people first.”

However, Enya dared to put a condition. She knew she was shameless, but at that moment, she wanted to get that promise from him more than anything else.

“Of course. I understand.”

Tarhan repeated, rubbing her back relentlessly. Enya felt as if her body was melting in the arms of the man and held him for a while. At this moment, she was so grateful to the man who answered like that even if it was just words.

Then, the man lifted her chin. His strong eyes made her heart turn into a handful of water and seemed to flow down, and he opened his lips and came to kiss her. There was strength in her lips as he pushed his tongue in.

Enya placed her hand on his chest and received the passionate kiss. Almost as if out of habit, her body was lifted in an instant and her legs wrapped around his waist.

How passionately they kiss each other afterwards.

At one point, Tarhan pulled his face away from the gasping Enya. He wiped the tears from her eyes and sat her on his thigh.

“…Are you calming down now?”

It seemed that the man, who asked her as he pressed his forehead against hers, kissed her to calm her down, but Enya didn’t say anything and nodded her head. He pressed the tip of his nose to her nose with a painful sigh.

Tarhan, who had lightly rubbed the tip of her nose, pulled her into his arms, holding her breathlessly.

“You must have heard about Garganta of the Argon Desert.”

Enya stroked his chest as he held her in his arms.

It was the spot with the largest scar across the broad pectoralis major muscle. No matter how many nights she stayed up, the blood didn’t stop, and how she and Old Lady Piache were so anxious that they pressed his heart alternately throughout the night to stop the bleeding.

At that time, Enya, who took care of him, was prepared to die if Tarhan died. It was said that the one who inflicted this wound was a warrior from Argon.

…The Argon Desert was a people in constant conflict with the Great Plain.

Enya answered as she groped for the spot left now as a scar that could not be washed away.

“Yes. We recently went out on a reconnaissance, saying that the hole viper’s movements were unusual.”

As Tarhan always did when he brought up a troubling story, he said with a frown across the bridge of his nose.

“They said that the egg of the hole viper, which was thought to be able to dry seeds, woke up. They say that the area around Garganta has been completely devastated. Argon ended up asking for help from Perugia and Aquilea in turn.”

As soon as she heard that, Enya’s face hardened at once. Seeing her expression, Tarhan smiled bitterly and touched her wrinkled forehead from frowning.

“Of course, I declined. It was the same with Perugia.”

Argon was a tribe that left a disgraceful past in the Great Plains for almost half a century. In order to reduce the power of the Great Plain and occupy its fertile land, they invaded the Great Plain by any means, including plunder and arson.

She didn’t know what they were thinking when they asked the Great Plain for help.

“It looks like Argon is completely cornered this time.”

Enya gazed at Tarhan’s severely stained face and fell silent together. He smiled with an expression that somehow felt cruel.

“They completely sharpened their knives. It was only recently that we learned that the seven tribes of the Argon Desert had been fully integrated and were raising an army. The purpose, of course, must be to abandon their base, which has been ruined by the hole viper and find a new hiding place. Like the fertile meadows of the Great Plains, for example.”

Perhaps she knew what they were thinking from the start. Enya swallowed dryly as she stared into Tarhan’s sharpened, gleaming eyes.

“We had to do something. Even if recently Aquilea’s power is getting stronger, it is not enough to handle the entire power of Argon alone. At that time, Perugia had asked for help from Aquilea under the pretext of food shortage.”

At his words, she looked up at Tarhan, caressing Tarhan’s sunken eyelids. Even when he came back, she found that he hadn’t slept well and was busily preparing something, going back and forth with the elders to the smithy and the food pantry.

Nonetheless, she couldn’t believe it was preparation for war…

Enya thought she knew everything about him, but suddenly she felt like a complete stranger in front of him.

“Then… If the war starts…”

The thought alone made Enya feel heartbroken again. It felt like a hot ball of fire was being pushed out of her just by worrying. Now that he was the deputy chieftain, he was left some of the risks down though there was a bigger trial ahead of him.

Seeing her expression mercilessly collapse, Tarhan hardened his mouth.

His eyes turned wild again.

Enya noticed that he was making more of an expression for her. He did it every time… He would throw himself into a steeper, more dangerous place without hesitation. Even when she was still, she could feel the emotional pain of someone choking her. Her body trembled as if something had paralyzed her.

Tarhan touched her forehead anxiously.

“Enya…? Does your stomach hurt?”

She shook her head. Enya moaned and buried her face in Tarhan’s chest, and he hugged her right into his warm body.

The insecurities, the worries, the strange sense of relief, and the inexplicable pain mingled and engulfed her.

One day she imagined herself not being with Tarhan. In fact, she always imagined that. When she opened her eyes in the morning, she imagined that Tarhan was not there. Every time that happened, the trembling fear that came over her body ran through her toes.

Without Tarhan, Enya was dead. Tarhan was already everything to her.

…From the moment he threw the fruit to the girl who was starving to death… no, from the moment she saw the boy who wandered with the eyes of a starving beast in that barren, abandoned field, Enya’s life was no longer hers.

So, if he was no more, she would die with him in the end, whether for a long time or a short time… that was her conclusion.

But…

“Don’t be afraid. Enya. You have nothing to fear. I’ll make sure to keep you safe from anything. Even if it’s Argon’s army.”

…Why was this man so fearless? As if someone had no idea that something could kill him. Enya rolled her body into a ball and pushed herself further into Tarhan’s arms. It was to escape the distant fear that engulfed her body and mind.

When her body came close to him first, he pulled back with a soft groan and looked at her slightly relieved expression.

“As long as I am here, no one can hurt you.”

Enya buried her head in his familiar arms and closed her eyes.

As Tarhan stroked her cheek gently and lifted her chin with the tips of his fingers, hot lips landed on her lips. She received his passionate kiss with a heart that only wanted to cry, and was sucked into the trance again.

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