Talia pushed aside the half-eaten bowl and rose from the bed.
Approaching the window, she saw roughly a dozen knights in gilded armor assembled in the castle courtyard. They were Roem Knights.
A full elite detachment had arrived rather than one or two messengers; they had not come merely to deliver a simple imperial missive.
Had they come to take her?
Talia stared down blankly before giving her head a slow shake.
Even the Emperor could not drag off the Grand Duchess of the East by force. More to the point, there was no reason to go so far. It was far more likely that conflict with the North had begun in earnest.
She, too, sensed that war was imminent. She also knew the suffocating pressure bearing down on Varkas from every side because of it.
If a Northern war of independence erupted, the East would inevitably suffer devastating blows, both militarily and economically. The Eastern lords would want the rebellion crushed early. In particular, the rulers bordering the Northern lands must be gripped by profound dread.
The conservative lords were surely scrutinizing Varkas’s every move with cold, unforgiving eyes. Had his political ground not already eroded on account of his marriage to her?
Every circumstance demanded he cast her aside. Why, then, did he refuse to let go?
Unbidden, the memory of him holding her quietly beneath the moonlight rose in her mind. The warmth of his hand caressing her belly as she rested on his lap; the quiet care with which he had peeled and offered her the rare fruit he had brought home.
Moments that had felt like love threatened to coax a flicker of flame from a heart reduced to ash.
‘No.’
Overcome by a sudden, sickening dread, Talia whispered the word to herself.
If time dragged on like this, she would inevitably cling to futile hope once more. And once more, she would plunge into the abyss of despair.
She could not bear it. She refused to endure that agony again.
“Your Grace, are you unwell? Shall I summon Lady Marisen?”
As Talia leaned her heavy, spinning head against the cold glass, one of the maids looked at her with concern. Talia shook her head.
“No, I am fine. I only…”
Her eyes fell upon the sedative sitting on the shelf. Impulsively, she added, “My throat is parched. Fetch me a bottle of wine.”
“Ah… Of course, Your Grace. I shall bring it at once.”
Flustered by the abrupt request, the maid checked the cupboards, but found only herbal teas and cold water. She hurried out into the corridor.
Talia instructed the remaining maid to stoke the hearth higher. The moment the girl turned her back, Talia snatched the vial of medicine and slipped it into her sleeve.
Before long, the first maid returned carrying a pitcher of wine.
Talia uncorked the vial beneath the bedcovers, then reached out with her other hand to take the pitcher.
The maid looked at her in surprise. Talia ignored her, lifted the lid, and leaned close. Pretending to test the vintage with a fingertip, she tilted her voluminous sleeve and emptied the dissolved sleep-grass draught straight into the vessel.
Her loose hair and draped sleeves hid the motion entirely. Concealing the empty vial beneath the blankets, she looked at the maids with feigned suspicion.
“You two taste it first.”
When the maids merely blinked in bewilderment, Talia pressed them with a venomous edge.
“What? Did you lace it with something vile?”
Frightened, the two girls quickly poured the wine and drank. They were so accustomed to her senseless fits of temper that neither suspected any hidden motive.
Talia accused them of merely wetting their lips and forced them to drink more. In the end, each maid had to drain a full, heavy glass of the drugged wine.
Watching them closely, Talia abruptly declared she had lost her appetite, shoved the pitcher away, and collapsed back into the bed.
She did not fully understand what she was doing. Driven purely by reckless impulse, she held her breath beneath the covers for an eternity. When she finally raised her head, both maids were slumped against the wall on the floor.
Her own recent tolerance to sleep-grass had prompted the healers to compound an exceptionally potent dose; the two girls were thoroughly unconscious.
Slipping out from under the covers, Talia inspected them, then drew a spare blanket over their shoulders in a rare impulse of mercy. She moved to the side door connecting the bedroom to the servants’ antechamber and peered inside.
Fortunately, it was deserted. Marisen was likely at the apothecary.
Stepping through without hesitation, Talia rummaged through the chest beside the narrow cot.
She soon unearthed a dun-colored woolen tunic and a pair of stiff leather shoes.
Shedding her nightclothes, she pulled on the loose tunic and jammed her feet into the rough shoes. She braided her hair tightly into a single plaited strand and caught up a frayed, faded cloak.
With a drab kerchief tied firmly over her head and the hood pulled low over her brow, she looked indistinguishable from a commoner.
After a brief check in the mirror, Talia slipped through the antechamber’s small service door and stepped into the passage.
The corridor was empty. Most of the servants had converged on the kitchens to handle the unexpected guests.
She took the narrow servant stairs toward her own bedchamber, which had sat empty for days. As she had hoped, the room was deserted.
Talia hurried to the bedside dresser, unlocked it, and searched for anything portable and of value. Her costliest pieces were secured in the vault; she found only a modest assortment in the vanity.
Stuffing a few gold rings and pearl hairpins into her pocket, she lifted the wooden jewelry box she had brought with her from the Imperial Palace.
Inside lay a moonstone that mirrored the gray of Varkas’s eyes, a handkerchief he had once bought her, and a gilded button bearing the crest of the Roem Knights.
Her fingers reached to sweep them into her pouch as second nature—then froze.
Why was she taking these things when she was running away from everything?
Talia stared down at the relics of her miserable, lingering attachments. Then, setting them back inside the box, she locked it, shoved it deep into the dresser, and turned from the room.
The light was slanting low.
She crept through the dim hallways. As she took the back stairs down toward the rear gate, servants hurried past bearing buckets of hot bathwater.
The entire household was consumed with scrambling to host the unannounced arrivals. Shielded by the chaos, she slipped out into the grounds entirely unnoticed.
‘…Where do I go now?’
Following a quiet, gravel path, she looked up at the overcast sky with a sinking hollow in her chest.
Sheltered though she had been, she knew enough to understand how ruthless the world beyond these walls could be.
Wandering alone without a single guard, she would scarcely survive a few days before falling prey to bandits or monsters.
Even if some miracle carried her to an inhabited town, she had no trades, no skills to earn her keep.
She would end up begging in an alley and starving in the gutter. It was absurdly easy to picture such a wretched end.
‘Still…’
At least he would not have to watch her rot.
Talia pressed forward, her gait dragging and uneven.
South of Kalmor stood Bellamen Monastery. A well-known sanctuary for the displaced, its gates would likely open for an nameless woman seeking shelter.
If the gods took pity on her and she reached it alive, she would endure a little longer.
And if she did not…
Talia cut the thought short. She could not stomach thinking anymore. Her legs moved on instinct until, at last, high stone walls and an iron gate rose through the barren trees. There were no sentries immediately in sight.
She approached the postern gate, steadying her pace to appear nonchalant. When she pulled the latch slightly open, she saw several wagons waiting by the outer road. It seemed merchant peddlers had been summoned in haste.
Glancing toward a merchant speaking with a sentry a short distance away, Talia began to slip through the gap.
A heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder.
Gasping, Talia turned, caught sight of a surcoat bearing the Shearkan crest, and hastily yanked her hood lower. She felt the soldier’s gaze raking over her with open suspicion.
“Who are you? You don’t look like one of the castle servants…”
END