107
Watching her movements through the glass pane, Varkas stepped out into the corridor and took the stairs down. When he pushed through the rear doors, a dense tangle of shrubs crowded his view.
Hastening his steps, Varkas parted the thicket, only to freeze when he spotted Talia sitting beneath a barberry bush hung with red berries.
The sight of her perched on the bare dirt in nothing but a thin gown brought a sharp scrape to his throat, like swallowed shards of glass.
He forced down the harsh words surging to his tongue and strode toward her.
“What are you doing out in a place like this?”
The woman, who had been staring blankly at the flowerbed, lifted her head. Her unfocused eyes drifted through empty air. Varkas’s brow furrowed.
“Did you burn sleep-grass again?”
“…No. I’m just a little tired.”
Talia answered in a languid murmur, letting her gaze sink back to the bed of flowers.
Varkas followed her line of sight, his expression hardening when he caught sight of a dead bird lying limp among the long blades of grass.
Its belly had been torn open—perhaps mauled by a stray cat—exposing entrails that crawled with ants and maggots.
Once, she had thrown fits at the mere glimpse of an insect. A woman who had loathed dirt with an obsessive disgust, who had loved exquisite things so fiercely it brought accusations of extravagance, had somewhere along the way begun to fixate on the grotesque. That unsettling unraveling grated on his nerves.
He pulled her to her feet with a rough hand.
“If you’re weary, go rest in your chambers. Why are you behaving like this?”
“…It felt stifling. I only came out to get some air. The room was strangely hot.”
Talia offered the excuse in a low, trailing murmur.
Varkas frowned, pressing the back of his hand to her forehead.
There was no fever. If anything, her skin was cool to the touch, chilled by the raw wind against that flimsy gown.
Letting out a faint sigh, Varkas slipped off his coat and draped it around her shoulders.
“Let us go inside. Your skin is cold.”
“You know…”
He wrapped an arm around her, turning toward the back doors, when her thin, strained voice halted his stride.
He looked back down at her. Her shadowed blue eyes met his. She chewed on her lip in hesitation, then forced the words past them.
“A long time ago…”
“So this is where you were!”
A booming voice cut clean through her unfinished thought.
Varkas turned toward the shout. Daren Dru Shearkan, trailed by half a dozen men, was striding across the garden, trampling the wildflowers flanking the narrow path.
“I have an urgent report. I met with our informants from the capital at the tavern, and the stirrings in the Imperial Palace are far from ordinary. The Empress appears to have begun expanding her faction in earnest—”
The man, spilling words in a rush, suddenly noticed Talia and choked off his speech.
Varkas glanced down at Talia. Her face, which had looked as fragile as a lost child’s only moments ago, had frozen completely.
She took a step back, her voice hollow and dry.
“I will return to my room. Attend to your business.”
“I will see you to your bedchamber.”
“I can go on my own.”
“Have I not told you repeatedly never to wander without an escort?”
At his reprimand, a faint ripple of discontent crossed her delicate features.
She swept a look over the men behind Daren and pointed to the shortest among them.
“Then let that man escort me.”
The chosen soldier hunched his shoulders, flustered.
Ever since she had lunged at Lucas threatening to tear his tongue out, the house warriors had regarded her like an unexploded charge. The man hesitated, clearly reluctant, darting anxious glances at Varkas.
Varkas spoke coldly.
“What are you dawdling for? Escort her at once.”
The moment the order landed, the soldier hurried forward.
Reluctantly, Varkas took his arm from around her. Talia slipped away without a moment's hesitation.
After tracking her retreating back for a brief moment, Varkas turned his attention to Daren. As if he had been waiting for the cue, Daren pulled a bundle of parchment from his tunic and offered it.
“These are the records of everything that has transpired in the capital since Your Grace departed the Imperial Palace.”
Varkas read through the dispatches thoroughly. The report noted that fractures were opening among the conservative nobility, and that the Empress was openly gathering supporters behind the Second Prince.
Varkas narrowed his eyes.
‘This is unlike her.’
The Emperor remained robust and healthy. Barring some catastrophe, Virus Roem Guirta would reign for at least another decade. Why was the Empress not waiting until the Second Prince reached his majority?
Her inexplicable moves stoked his suspicion. Having used her daughter to provoke Gareth once, was she now pushing her young son forward to sow discord anew? If she was goading Gareth into losing his temper, then there might be a far graver snare hidden behind this northern marriage proposal.
Reading further that talks of an alliance between the heir of House Heimdal and the First Princess were proceeding in earnest, Varkas crumpled the parchment in his fist.
Strengthening ties with the North was not a mistake in itself. But staking Ayla’s safety on them was a reckless misjudgment.
The Northerners were fanatically obsessed with bloodlines. Were they not the very folk who had intermarried for generations to preserve the platinum hair and red eyes of the ancient giants? There was no chance they would docilely accept a black-haired princess as their mistress. They had an ulterior motive.
Pensively stroking his lower lip, Varkas turned away from the garden.
Led to the study by the head butler, a young page brought him ink and paper. Sitting at the desk, he drafted several directives. They were commands to thoroughly investigate the scale of the troops House Heimdal was mobilizing and trace the flow of their funds.
After sealing the letters and passing them to a messenger, he wrote two more dispatches to be relayed to the capital. One was addressed to Marquis Oristein, and the other to Gareth.
Warning them of the peril the North posed in the most diplomatic phrasing he could muster, Varkas signed his name and pressed his seal into the wax.
Daren, observing from the side, asked with awkward hesitation,
“Do you truly intend to block the First Princess’s marriage?”
Varkas fixed him with a searching look.
“Is there an issue?”
“Well… won’t it seem strange if Your Grace steps in to dissuade them?”
Daren scratched the back of his neck.
“The court will whisper that Duke Shearkan still harbors feelings for the First Princess.”
Varkas let out a dry, humorless breath.
“You fret over the most pointless trifles.”
The idle gossip of palace parasites held no sway in the East. He had already ensured that the new Duchess left an unmistakable impression on his vassals. For now, the far greater danger lay in letting the conservative nobles believe that his bond with the Crown Prince was irreparably broken.
He rolled the parchment tight and dripped sealing wax over the seam.
“Select the fastest rider and send him to the capital.”
With an uneasy look, Daren took the rolled letters and stepped out.
Varkas leaned back into his chair and turned his eyes toward the window.
Before he had realized it, a thin veil of rain had begun to fall.
Suddenly, the memory of Talia standing desolate in the garden flashed across his mind. What was it she had been trying to say?
Recalling those lifeless eyes fixed upon the dead bird stirred an uneasy coil in his chest. A prick of nameless dread drove Varkas to tap his fingers once against the desk before rising and leaving the study.
The hall was bustling, seemingly in preparation for a welcoming banquet. Bypassing the bowing servants, he climbed the stairs.
Opening the bedchamber door, he found a small figure huddled upon the broad bed.
He stepped closer. A faint blush tainted her porcelain cheeks, which curved in soft, aristocratic lines. Having wandered about like a sickly chick all day, she seemed to have finally caught a fever.
Releasing a slow sigh, Varkas took a clean cloth from the stand. Just as he leaned over to wipe her brow, a strange scent grazed his nose.
He froze. A dark crimson stain was creeping from the corner of her lips. Staring at it in disbelief, he gently shook her curled shoulder. Her head, damp at the nape with cold sweat, lolls powerlessly to the side.
Only then did the red bloom spreading across the linen pillow enter his view. Varkas blinked slowly, then slid a hand beneath her head to support it.
The metallic reek of blood struck his nostrils. The crimson pooling at her lips spilled over, tracing a slow line down her deathly white throat.
END