Brisa gave a quiet nod, glancing toward the Grand Duchess, who lay limp as a corpse under the weight of the sleeping draught.
Varkas tore his coat from the wall peg and strode out. Only then did the suffocating air loosen around Brisa’s chest. But just as she drew a ragged breath, fabric rustled near the bed.
Her eyes darted up, and a sharp gasp caught in her throat. The Grand Duchess was slowly pushing herself upright.
Talia fixed her with an unblinking, lucid stare—making Brisa wonder in terror how long she had truly been awake—before swinging her bare legs over the edge of the mattress.
Startled out of her stupor, Brisa hurried to her side.
“Your Grace, you mustn’t get up. You have to stay in bed until the draught wears off—”
“Move.”
The command cut so cold and absolute that Brisa shrank back on instinct.
The Grand Duchess stepped straight onto the bare stone floor, not bothering with slippers.
At a loss, Brisa hovered anxiously, then dropped to her knees to fetch shoes from beneath the bed. When she looked up, she saw Talia’s back as she limped toward the hearth.
‘…She wasn’t trying to leave?’
Confused, Brisa scrambled after her. The Grand Duchess’s legs were so frail; one stumble could pitch her straight into the flames.
“Your Grace, if you’re cold, I’ll fetch a warming pan at once. Please, sit back down—”
“Out of my way.”
Shoving away the supporting hand, Talia stooped before the hearth. She seized the iron poker leaning against the mantel and dragged out the charred, smoking bundle of parchment from the coals.
Horrified, Brisa whipped off her apron and smothered the smoldering papers.
Once the sparks died, the Grand Duchess reached down and lifted the scorched sheets.
Brisa could only watch in mounting dread as Talia used both hands to smooth the blackened parchment and read every blackened line.
What was a maid supposed to do at a time like this?
She knew she ought to stop her, yet her throat seized; she had no words.
While Brisa hesitated, frozen, the Grand Duchess scanned the singed text with frigid eyes, then tossed the parchment back into the hearth.
The embers flared, casting a harsh crimson glare across her hollow face.
Brisa swallowed hard. For an instant, trapped in that firelight, the woman’s skin seemed to burn away to bone.
What could have been written there to carve such a look upon her face?
Brisa’s eyes darted between the pale, gaunt figure and the burning parchment, but Talia turned without a word and climbed back into bed.
Hesitant, Brisa stepped forward and pulled the coverlet over her fragile shoulders. Then she stopped cold. Tears were tracing silent lines down Talia’s cheeks.
Watching her weep without a sound, her face hollowed by pure surrender, made Brisa’s stomach drop.
She spoke quickly, desperate to fill the void.
“…P-Please, hold on, Your Grace. In time…”
She meant to say things would mend, but the words died in her mouth. Even to her, the comfort sounded sickeningly hollow.
The Grand Duchess did not react to the clumsy intrusion.
Looking upon her with a heavy, aching chest, Brisa found nothing more to say and quietly turned away.
“At this rate, war cannot be avoided.”
Kylias, an elite knight of the Roem Knights, leaned his weight over the conference table, his voice grim.
Varkas leaned back in his high-backed chair, skimming the dispatch the man had brought, and let out a dry, venomous sneer.
“Are you trying to claim this wasn’t engineered to provoke one?”
Catching the bite in the retort, Kylias flushed and rushed to the Emperor’s defense.
“His Majesty did everything in his power to mediate the matter.”
Varkas offered no reply.
Taking his silence as rejection, the knight pressed on, his tone sharpening.
“Does Lord Shearkan not understand how volatile the Imperial Assembly is right now? The conservatives refuse to let the existing order be shaken, while the hardliners scream themselves hoarse, demanding the dignity of the Imperial Family and the majesty of the Empire be enforced. His Majesty was attempting to balance both sides.”
“And the balance has backed him into a corner where he can do nothing.”
Kylias looked ready to flare up, but his shoulders sagged, and he raked a hand through his unkempt hair.
“Is that not what statecraft is? Men chase their grand causes and wounded pride while practical sense is fed to the dogs.”
Without agreeing or disagreeing, Varkas flipped to the final page.
It took him longer than usual; his vision swam behind an exhausted, hazy blur. Still, the underlying reality was plain enough.
The core of the matter was simple: all the covert groundwork he had laid through the brutal winter had been brought to the brink of ruin.
Accepting the reality without a ripple of emotion, Varkas set the papers down on the table.
All winter, he had exhausted every connection of House Shearkan to peel away the lords of the Northern Federation one by one. The goal had been to sever House Heimdal, the heart of the rebellion, from the rest of the North.
Yet the moment the Imperial Family made their heavy-handed intervention, Balto began closing ranks once more. An uncalculated military threat had merely unified them under panic.
“As the report details, the northern lords Your Grace brought to our side have already begun stepping back. Even those who haven’t are lying low, terrified of being branded traitors by their own blood. If this continues, open rebellion is a certainty.”
“Then there is nothing left but to crush it.”
Varkas breathed a weary sigh and rose from his seat. “Inform His Majesty that the vanguard must march on Amasec before the North takes the initiative. The sooner the date is set, the better.”
His cold, offhand answer left both Kylias and the Shearkan retainers in the hall stunned.
Seeing Varkas dismiss the matter so abruptly, the knight scrambled to cut him off.
“I came here to urge you to treat with House Heimdal yourself, Sir. Some members of the Northern Federation are still fence-sitting. If we coordinate with them to apply leverage to the ducal house, there is still time to settle this peacefully—!”
“The line of retreat has already been cut,” Varkas said flatly.
“His Majesty ignored my counsel and drove the Imperial Army right up to Sevron. You know full well that region feeds the entire North. Did you expect starved beasts to sit quietly when you reach for their only bowl of grain?”
“Sir! Mind your tongue. Such insolent speech directed at His Majesty the Emperor is—”
“Your Excellency.”
The word was sharp enough to sever the sentence in Kylias’s throat.
“I am no longer one of the Roem Knights. I am the Grand Duke of Shearkan. It is you who ought to mind your manners.”
The knight blanched.
Varkas regarded him coldly, then added in an even voice, “Quarters will be provided for you. Rest properly before you ride back with the reply.”
“And what shall be written in that reply…?”
“That I intend to commit three thousand additional horsemen to the Berta Plains to aid in suppressing the rebels… Is there an issue with that?”
Kylias rose sharply, his composure cracking.
“If war breaks out, His Majesty… will expect Your Grace to assume command as Commander-in-Chief.”
“Then I shall include a line requesting that he withdraw that wish.”
Leaving the curt answer behind, Varkas moved toward the double doors.
Kylias stepped quickly into his path once more.
“And how do you intend to answer His Majesty’s missive?”
Varkas met his gaze with an icy glare.
Through his waterlogged, exhausted mind, the realization resurfaced: this man was a devoted creature of Ayla Roem Guirta. Now that he thought of it, Kylias had insolently questioned him the day he chose to take Talia to wife.
It seemed the knight had forgotten his station yet again. Kylias held his chin high, demanding an answer, and spoke without hesitation.
“His Majesty declared that should Your Grace desire it, he will issue a decree of divorce at any time. He acknowledged that forcing such an unnatural union in the first place was an error—”
“It seems His Majesty regards my marriage as a farce.”
The low voice sounded venomous even to Varkas’s own ears.
Sensing an immediate threat, the knight stepped back half a pace. Watching him, Varkas pressed forward deliberately.
“Since your curiosity burns so fiercely, I shall give you an answer. You may tell His Majesty this.”
Varkas reached past him and planted a hand against the stone pillar behind the knight, leaning down until his lips were inches from the man’s face.
“Unlike certain others, I have no intention of throwing my wife away like a worn pair of boots. Tell him to keep his hands out of his disloyal subject’s household.”
The color drained completely from Kylias’s face.
Varkas brought up his hand and patted the pale cheek twice with his palm, asking softly, “Is your curiosity satisfied now?”
The knight’s jaw tightened. He bit his lower lip hard and cast his eyes to the floor.
Looking down at him in cold silence, Varkas turned on his heel and strode out of the hall.
END