Rain poured over those faded ruins.
The downpour soaked his pale, grey-brown eyelashes, streaming across his pallid cheekbones and down the cut of his jaw.
At a glance, it looked as though he were weeping. Yet nothing could be read from his frozen face—only a faint glimpse of the desolate, hollow shadows dwelling there.
As if unable to bear the weight of the rainwater, his arms dropped to his sides. A heavy sigh escaped him as he exhaled the ragged breath he had yet to steady.
“Let us go back.”
· · ·
Talia merely stared up at him with glazed eyes. At that, a crack finally appeared across his silent face, which had looked as though carved from hardened wax.
“You… you cannot stay like this. The blood…”
He spoke haltingly, as though the flow of his thoughts had jammed.
“You lost… so much blood. If you let yourself freeze…”
His voice grew faint against the swelling drum of the rain. Moving with agonizing care, as if approaching a skittish animal, he sank down onto one knee before her.
A pale hand with prominent knuckles closed around her mud-stained fingers. A faint warmth seeped into her deathly cold skin.
Cradling it in both hands, he rubbed it gently before pressing it to his warm neck. Talia remembered that he had once done the exact same for a wretched bird that had fallen into the mud.
The sobs that had begun to ebb surged up anew.
“It is time to go.”
He wrapped his arms around her thin back through the drenched, flimsy linen of her gown.
Talia twisted wildly to shove him away.
She was terrified of this man—terrified of how he could lift her toward the clouds with a single reach of his hand.
She hated him for making her harbor hope. If she had simply stayed in the gutter, there would have been no agony in falling.
Even knowing how unjust the accusation was, she wanted to scream at him.
Why didn’t you leave me to rot in the mud that day?
Why didn’t you leave me in the shadows of the Imperial Palace?
Why did you ever make me dream of happiness?
“I cannot bear it! Leave me be!”
As she writhed in a frantic fit, he locked her into his chest with both arms, pinning her until she could no longer struggle.
Crushed beneath her utter helplessness, Talia broke down into wretched wails. A hot palm delved beneath her wet hair, cupping the freezing nape of her neck.
A low voice, heavy and rough as iron, fell over the crown of her head.
“We must go.”
Realizing he would drag her away by force, Talia craned her neck desperately toward the grave.
The image of her baby, shivering in the cold earth, flickered before her eyes.
Once again, a faint cry seemed to mingle with the sound of the rain. She wanted to hold the child, to give him some shred of warmth, and the terrible knowledge that she could not made her want to die.
Gasping for breath as if her lungs might tear, Talia slowly let her body go slack.
The entire world was sinking beneath a tide of rain and tears.
She wanted only to drown in it.
As the dark edges of her vision closed in, she wept a silent prayer.
Please, let me sleep forever. Let me escape this agonizing reality…
Tiuran, carrying a canteen of cold water up the stairs, stopped short when she spotted Daren Dru Shearkan standing at the far end of the hallway.
Whether he had just come from some official duty, the man—broad-shouldered in a splendid doublet and an intricately engraved cuirass—was deep in conversation with a young aide. Noticing her frozen at the landing, he offered a curt nod.
“You have been working hard.”
Tiuran bowed her head, her jaw tightening.
“Did you require something, my lord?”
“Nothing of consequence. I merely came to inquire after the Grand Duchess’s condition.”
His eyes flicked toward the bedroom door farther down the corridor.
Setting the canteen on the floor, Tiuran wet her dry lips, choosing her words with extreme caution.
“Her fever broke only around noon. She is resting now, after taking her medicine.”
“Then has the danger passed entirely?”
Tiuran watched him with a wary eye.
She knew all too well that several retainers had already begun questioning the Grand Duchess’s ability to bear another child. Aside from her disgust at their callousness, Tiuran wanted to shield Talia from any further cruelty. Her answer was deliberately guarded.
“Fortunately, Her Grace is regaining her strength. With several months of rest, she should return to her former health.”
“It will take that long?”
His thick brows knitted together.
Tiuran bit down hard on her tongue to keep from scowling.
What did this man imagine childbirth to be?
Though premature, the dead child had been large for seven months, and the Grand Duchess had narrower hips than most women. It had been an ordeal scarcely different from a full-term labor.
Worse still, the hemorrhaging had almost claimed her life. Of course her recovery would take time.
Instead of laying bare the gruesome details, Tiuran offered a stiff, sharp reply.
“That is the ordinary pace of healing. A woman’s body is far more delicate than a man’s, is it not?”
“At any rate, you are saying she is out of immediate danger?”
His tone held a faint edge of impatience.
Tiuran hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod.
At that, the man breathed a quiet sigh of relief, his face smoothing into satisfaction.
“Then His Grace has no further reason to remain at her bedside.”
Only then did Tiuran realize why he had come—to pull the Grand Duke away from his vigil—and her expression froze.
“Forgive me, but flesh wounds closing does not mean the spirit has healed. Her Grace lost the child she carried and cherished. Right now, she needs her husband.”
At her forward rebuke, every trace of warmth drained from his face.
Tiuran braced herself. Daren Dru Shearkan was not an inherently cruel man, but high nobles could be merciless when commoners overstepped.
While she stood tense and watchful beneath his displeasure, the man composed himself and spoke in a calm, unyielding tone.
“It may be asking too much for someone of your station to grasp the burdens a ruler must carry. Even so, hear me out. Before he is anyone’s husband, Varkas Raedgo Shearkan is the lord answerable for millions of Easterners. At his word, the armies of the East march and hundreds of lords take up arms. If he abandons his post, the nobility will begin to ask themselves:”
· · ·
“‘If he will not act as our sovereign, why should we bend the knee?’”
Tiuran bowed her head, stripped of words.
Daren continued, measured and grave.
“I am striving to safeguard the Grand Duke’s authority. If you bear any loyalty to House Shearkan, then tell our lord there are no further complications with the Grand Duchess’s health, so he need not linger here.”
“…I understand, my lord. Please pardon my forwardness.”
When she dipped into a low bow, his irritation seemed to dissipate, and he stepped aside to clear her path.
Tiuran lifted the canteen from the floor. As she walked carefully down the hallway so as not to spill the water, the two men resumed their low conversation behind her.
Feeling Daren’s eyes at her back, Tiuran eased the latch open.
Slipping inside as quietly as possible to avoid disturbing the Grand Duchess, she found the Grand Duke sitting against the tall headboard.
Tiuran parted her lips to announce that she had brought fresh water, but the words died in her throat.
Resting at a slight tilt, dressed only in a loose tunic with his unkempt hair pushed roughly back from his face, he looked shockingly young.
Only then did it strike her that he was a man of barely twenty-four.
“Why are you standing there? Bring it over.”
His fingers, which had been resting gently against the forehead of the sleeping woman, curled back as he spoke in a low murmur.
Tiuran, rooted to the floorboards, shook herself and approached the bed.
He did not spare her so much as a glance; his gaze remained fixed entirely on his wife. His drawn profile looked just as hollowed and worn as the Grand Duchess’s.
Come to think of it, had she ever seen him sleep?
Though she had moved in and out of the bedchamber day and night for days on end, she could not recall a single moment when his eyes had been closed.
END