Yet he had always stood with the other side.
For now, he played the role of a devoted husband, but she never knew when he might turn his back on her again.
She pressed on, an eager edge sharpening her voice.
“Once this child is born, you must teach them to ride. Don’t you Easterners learn how to sit in a saddle before you even take your first steps? This baby is half-Eastern, after all….”
Talia, chattering away in an effort to stir Varkas’s attachment, was suddenly struck by the fear that he might actually hoist an infant who couldn’t even walk onto one of those foul-smelling, savage beasts. She hurried to add to her words.
“Only after they’ve grown enough, though. And… if they’re frightened, I hope you won’t force it. If this child takes after me….”
She almost confessed the child might be a bit of a coward, but caught herself in time.
“They might simply dislike horses.”
“…That would pose a problem.”
A faint crease settled between Varkas’s brows as he stared down at her rounded belly.
“To rule the East after me, horsemanship is indispensable. The heir to the Grand Duchy must command sixty thousand cavalry.”
Talia knitted her brows.
She had not the slightest intention of sending the little fairy growing inside her onto any battlefield.
‘Leave that kind of danger to Varkas or the knights who trail after him. My baby will stay safe and happy by my side.’
She choked back the urge to say it aloud.
What mattered was that Varkas unequivocally viewed this child as the heir to the Grand Duchy.
“Then teach them slowly. Take your time so the child learns to love horses.”
He lifted his head, fixing his gaze on her. His face remained difficult to read, yet Talia could now pick out the faint flicker of worry and anticipation dwelling in his eyes.
He spoke softly.
“Do not fret. Once the child is born, I will raise them with all the patience required. More importantly… is it not difficult for you when the baby stirs like this?”
“Of course it is!”
In truth, it was the first time the movements had ever been this fierce, but Talia deliberately exaggerated her distress.
Varkas’s expression hardened at once.
“Have you spoken with the healing sorceress? There must be some means to ease the pain….”
“She suggested sleep-grass, but I refused. It might harm the child.”
Eager for him to see how fiercely she guarded the babe, Talia laid bare every little detail.
Varkas stroked his chin for a moment before finally speaking.
“You may heed her counsel. You must be well, Your Grace, if you are to safely carry through with the birth.”
“I am managing well enough as I am.”
Talia snapped back, flaring up.
“Every woman in the world endures this. Why should I be the one who cannot?”
A shadow of doubt crossed his features. When she caught his gaze naturally drifting down toward her legs, hot humiliation flooded her cheeks.
‘What? Do you think I can’t even bear a child because I’m a cripple?’ She barely swallowed the venom rising in her throat.
Yet if her broken body could burden him with an even heavier weight of guilt and duty—if it would drive him to place her and the child above all else—she would swallow any amount of shame.
Concealing her bitterness, she coaxed a coy smile onto her face.
“Why must you take everything so seriously, you fool? I was merely complaining a little.”
· · ·
“You have always been this way—far too stiff-necked. You never make a jest, and you take mere teases entirely to heart.”
“How am I to treat it lightly when my pregnant wife tells me she is hurting?”
Varkas let out a dry, baffled sigh. Softened by his words, Talia allowed his palm to linger over her belly a little longer.
A short while later, the maids entered bearing a meal.
Varkas watched her eat before changing his clothes and departing.
Talia waited late into the night for his return, but exhaustion eventually pulled her under. Her strength had run dry after several broken, sleepless nights.
Plunging into an oblivion so deep it felt like losing consciousness before the ache could even find her, she did not open her eyes until the sun stood high in the sky the following day.
Rubbing at eyelids that felt rough and gritty with sand, Talia first brought a hand to her lower abdomen to check on the baby.
After tossing and thrashing so restlessly yesterday, the child was entirely still. ‘Perhaps they’re finally sleeping soundly, too.’ Nursing the idle thought, she looked around the room.
Varkas was nowhere to be seen, yet the quiet traces of his presence throughout the night were scattered all about. It seemed he had slipped out softly, careful not to wake her from that rare, deep slumber.
She climbed out of bed at once and began dressing. Perhaps one of Varkas’s valets, the butler, or one of the guards had overheard the news Edric Ruben brought. She meant to drag the truth out of them.
“Not that cloak. Bring me something that draws as little attention as possible.”
The maids, holding a mantle of shimmering silver fur, traded uneasy glances.
Talia narrowed her eyes.
“What is it?”
“It is only that… no matter what you wear, Your Grace, you are bound to catch the eye.”
A maid murmured the words in a tiny voice, her cheeks flushing red. In no mood for empty flattery, Talia merely let out a dry, irritated breath.
“Then just bring any cloak.”
The maid promptly returned with a thick woollen robe. Wrapping it securely around her shoulders, Talia made her way out into the corridor. Fortunately, the dull ache in her lower back had eased slightly, making each step far more bearable.
“Do you know what word was brought by the knight who arrived last night?”
Catching sight of Varkas’s valet passing through the hallway, Talia threw the question at him without preamble.
The boy, barely twenty by the looks of him, flinched and stammered like a horse recoiling under the whip.
“I—I… that is….”
Talia frowned. She was well accustomed to people treating her like a festering boil best left untouched, but lately their skittishness had grown unbearable.
She pressed him harder. “Why can’t you give a straight answer? Did you hear anything, or did you not?!”
“F-forgive me, Your Grace! I know nothing. I retired early yesterday evening….”
“Then who attended Varkas through the night?”
“T-that, too, I couldn’t rightly say….”
‘Why does Varkas keep such a dullard at his heels?’
She glared down at the stammering youth with undisguised irritation, only for a sighing voice to drift in from behind her.
“If you are curious, ask me directly. Why badger an innocent boy?”
Startled, Talia spun around, freezing as she saw Edric Ruben standing there, lazily scratching the back of his neck.
He blew out a heavy breath and strode toward her.
“I’ll tell you whatever I can. First, let us move somewhere else….”
Talia’s eyes darted instinctively to the hilt resting at his hip.
A sudden, cold thought struck her—could this man have come under orders from Ayla or Gareth to do her harm? Gripped by an irrational spike of panic, she recoiled, stepping backward. Her foot caught, and her balance slipped from under her.
In a flash, the man lunged forward, seized her by the wrist, and hauled her back roughly. Her nose collided against his hard breastplate before she gasped, recoiling in a hurry. Then, a rough, gravelly voice thundered above her head.
“Stand still! You were nearly killed!”
Blinking, Talia glanced over her shoulder.
Right behind the heel of her slipper sat the top step of the long stone staircase descending toward the ground floor.
Realizing how close she had come to tumbling down, Talia clamped a hand over her stomach and drew in her shoulders.
Pulling her further into the safety of the corridor, the man let out an exasperated shout.
“Damn it all, Your Grace, why do you always walk on the edge of a blade? How many more nightmares do you intend to give a man…?”
“I understand, so let go.”
Talia wrenched her wrist free of his grip, studying the knight’s pale face. Watching him draw deep, ragged breaths with a hand pressed over his chest, as if his own heart were hammering out of his ribcage, her tension melted away.
She felt ridiculous for ever suspecting this man could be an assassin sent by her siblings.
This was the simple fool who had once stood against the Crown Prince himself solely out of blind loyalty to his duty in the Imperial Guard. If he possessed the cunning needed for an assassination, he never would have pulled such an idiotic stunt in the first place.
Letting her shoulders sag, Talia muttered in a flat, sullen tone.
“It is because you surprised me. This is all your fault.”
END