Tiuran swallowed against her dry throat.
Could he truly have stayed awake, without a single wink of sleep, from the moment the Grand Duchess collapsed until now?
As she poured water into the basin, Tiuran stole another glance at him, quickly banishing the thought.
No ordinary man could look so composed after going without rest for so long. She and Marisen took turns attending the Grand Duchess, so it was far more likely mere coincidence that she only ever saw him awake.
“The towel.”
While she stood lost in thought, the Grand Duke held out a hand.
Tiuran hurried to draw a clean cloth, soaked it thoroughly in the ice-cold water, and placed it into his sculpted palm.
Taking the cloth, he began to cool his wife’s forehead with measured, careful strokes. His touch was so gentle that he might have been handling fragile glassware.
In truth, the woman lying limp as a corpse looked as if she might shatter at any moment. Tiuran wondered if it was that very dread that kept him from taking his eyes off her for even a second.
After a brief hesitation, Tiuran spoke in a small, timid voice.
“Her Grace is regaining her strength, little by little. The danger has passed, so perhaps you might leave the nursing to us now and…”
“It seems Daren has taken to whining to the servants as well.”
Tiuran fell silent at the icy tone.
Carefully wiping the sweat from the woman’s throat with the cool side of the turned towel, he added quietly:
“If he asks, tell him this comes from the Grand Duke.”
After a short pause, he spoke with deliberate slowness.
“‘Why are men so incompetent that they cannot endure even a few days of my absence eating up the provisions of my house?’”
Though the words were not directed at her, a chill ran down Tiuran’s spine.
Without looking at her, the man gave a curt nod.
“You are in the way. Leave.”
“…Then I shall wait in the adjoining room. Call for me whenever you need anything.”
Tiuran backed carefully away from the bed. Through it all, his gaze never left his sleeping wife’s face.
The dim late-afternoon light filtering through the window faintly illuminated his features. He looked utterly desolate and solitary, as though the frost-like authority he had displayed a moment ago had never existed.
Stealing one last look at a face shrouded in deep exhaustion, Tiuran quietly eased the door open and slipped outside.
Time flowed on relentlessly.
Talia felt the wounds in her body mending little by little. The throbbing pain in her lower abdomen, which had felt like a threat never to let her forget what she had lost, slowly receded, and the intermittent bleeding ceased before long.
The ache in her back and pelvis lingered, but it was nothing compared to the agony she had endured during pregnancy. The persistent numbness in her legs eased, and as her body grew lighter, moving became easier.
Yet somehow, that recovery only made her more wretched. It was unbearable to accept a body that insisted on returning to what it had been, as though it had never carried a child at all.
Her mind remained anchored to that night, yet her flesh marched toward life of its own accord. The absurdity of it drew a hollow laugh from her from time to time.
She could not fathom why everyone around her fretted so over her health. Her body was a stubborn thing, clinging to life through any torment. Even after her legs had been crushed, even after she lost a precious child born of pain that felt as though her entrails were being ripped away, life trudged on.
Even if left to rot, she knew her body would doggedly endure a reality that was no better than hell.
So, please, just leave me alone.
“Eat.”
Talia glared with bitter hatred at the man offering her a bowl of thin porridge.
When he had first urged her to eat, she simply refused to respond.
When he did not relent, she had eventually knocked the bowl from his hands. At that, he had immediately ordered fresh food and moved to feed her the way he once had.
Yet there was none of the old heat in the way he forced food past her lips. She felt only a hollow, dutiful purpose, like a mother bird tirelessly bringing grain to its chick.
Absurdly, that realization tore at Talia with a sharp pang. His cold detachment felt like a reminder of her complete failure as a woman, rending her heart to pieces.
The sting drove her half-mad. She could not bear the knowledge that she still possessed a heart capable of aching over this man.
Gathering what little strength remained, Talia pushed him away. She picked up the spoon herself. She forced down the food and drank the medicine as if swallowing her longing to simply die and disappear.
Once again, Talia surrendered her futile resistance and took up the spoon. She swallowed each mouthful diligently, eager only to escape the eyes watching her like a jailer.
As soon as she emptied the bowl, he handed her the medicine. Forcing that down her throat as well, she leaned her exhausted frame back into the pillows. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Varkas lay down beside her. It was to pin her down through the night, preventing her from crawling out of bed to wander toward the grave.
Talia, who had been quietly enduring the shackle-like hold around her body, spoke abruptly.
“…Burn some Sleep-grass.”
The man, pulling the heavy duvet up over her shoulders, looked down at her with unreadable eyes.
When he did not move, Talia wet her dry, parched lips and added:
“I cannot sleep deeply. I need the herb.”
After looking down at her in silence for a long while with a calm expression, he finally rose.
She watched his slow back retreat, then turned toward the window where the sun was beginning to sink.
The sky, once a vivid orange, gradually stained the color of deep blood. Soon enough, even that was swallowed by the thickening dusk.
Talia closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of the acrid smoke. The man, who had returned to the bed before she noticed, pulled her against his chest and carefully cradled her head.
As her senses dulled, his touch no longer felt quite so unbearable.
Talia let herself sink willingly into the mire of sleep. But that moment of peace did not last.
Perhaps she had built up a tolerance to the drug, for her eyes snapped open just as the window turned deep indigo. It was that hour when the sun, still hidden behind the hill, began scorching the rim of the castle walls red.
Talia pushed herself up shakily, staring at the dawn breaking beyond the glass.
How long had she sat gazing out at the distant sky?
All at once, she realized what had ripped her from sleep. Faint within the howling wind came the thin sound of crying.
A hollow laugh slipped from her. It was the same hallucination she had heard until she was sick of it over the past few days. She ought to be used to it by now, yet why did her heart feel crushed anew every single time?
Her shoulders trembling faintly, Talia clamped both hands over her ears. But the weeping echoing inside her head only grew louder. It was as if her dead baby were calling her to account. Did it wail like this every night out of resentment, because she had failed to bring it into the world whole? The thought felt as though it would drive her mad.
Talia rose to bolt outside. Then, feeling an arm wrapped around her waist, she started and turned her head.
There lay the man, sprawled with half his face buried in the pillow.
Even with her sight spinning as though her senses were broken, she stared down blankly at that face, strangely vivid before her.
The sight of him sleeping so soundly that he might have been dead was unfamiliar. Was this not the man who always woke alert at the slightest stir from her?
Though the arm binding her held its usual weight, his consciousness seemed entirely severed.
…Was it because of the Sleep-grass?
She blinked uncomprehendingly. He was a man who showed nothing more than slight drowsiness even when the herb burned thick in the chamber.
Perhaps he was simply worn to exhaustion from keeping vigil over her.
Talia looked closely at his features, which retained a sharp edge even in defenseless sleep, and then, as if drawn by something beyond herself, she reached out toward that haggard face.
END