Ch#194
He pressed his lead-heavy arm against the edge of the bed. Just as he attempted to push his upper body up, a sharp scream pierced through the silence, ringing in his ears.
“Y-Your Excellency! You’re awake!”
Turning his head toward the sound, he saw the head butler rushing into the room carrying a large kettle. The man practically threw the kettle onto a shelf and sprinted to the bedside.
“Thank the Heavens! I was so worried, wondering what we would do if you never woke up…!”
Muttering in a voice thick with emotion, the butler placed a pillow behind his back to support him.
Varkas leaned his head against the headboard, pressing firmly against his eyelids, which stung as if shards of broken glass had been poured over them. Seeing this, the butler hurriedly rang the bell on the nightstand to summon the other servants.
“His Excellency has awakened! Fetch the physician at once!”
Soon, the sound of frantic footsteps echoed, and three or four servants burst in along with the personal physician clad in priestly robes. While they bustled about, surrounding the bed, Varkas kept his eyes tightly shut, waiting for the crushing sense of lethargy to recede from his body.
How much time had passed? The priest, who had been injecting divine power into his body, let out a weary breath and spoke.
“Fortunately, it seems the crisis has completely passed. The flow of mana, which had been fluctuating wildly, has returned to its original state.”
Varkas opened his eyes and looked at the priest. Wiping the cold sweat from his brow, the priest added in a heavy, somber tone.
“There is no way to explain this other than divine intervention. Throughout history, there are only a handful of cases where someone survived after ingesting Agor’s Deadly Poison.”
Deadly poison.
Varkas repeated the word inwardly, quietly looking down at the back of his hand where the veins bulged. Countless questions flooded his mind, which felt as clouded as frosted glass. Pushing them to the back of his consciousness, Varkas forced out a raspy voice.
“……How long was I unconscious?”
“Your Excellency was…… no, today marks exactly eight days since you lost consciousness.”
Before the priest could answer, a heavy voice resonated from the doorway. Varkas turned his head. A haggard-looking Beirop was striding across the room.
Approaching the bedside, he added in a low, grim voice.
“For the first four days, your condition was so critical it wouldn’t have been strange for your heart to stop at any moment. It is truly a miracle that you have awakened.”
“……What happened to the subjugation?”
Varkas brushed aside his aide’s concern, throwing out a dry question instead. The aide, looking at him with a stiff expression, glanced at those surrounding the bed and made a cautious request.
“Would everyone please grant us the room for a moment?”
“Sir, His Excellency has only just regained consciousness after hovering between life and death. It would be better to wait until his strength is fully recovered before…….”
“That’s enough. Leave.”
Varkas gave a slight nod to the priest, who was trying to stop him out of worry. The priest looked back at him with a troubled gaze.
“If you overexert yourself and your condition worsens again…….”
“Don’t make me say it twice.”
Daunted by his chilling intensity, the priest quickly fell silent.
Before long, all the servants, including the priest and the head butler, filed out of the room.
Varkas sat upright, his body feeling as heavy as water-soaked cotton, and stared intently at his aide. At that silent urging, the man’s tightly set lips finally opened.
“The subjugation…… ended in failure. I am truly sorry.”
“Explain in detail.”
Varkas requested calmly, showing no particular agitation. After observing Varkas’s complexion with a stiff face, the man continued his report.
“Immediately after Your Excellency collapsed, intruders infiltrated the castle taking advantage of the confusion. They raided the dungeon to free the prisoners and attempted an uprising within the walls. Thanks to Young Master Lucas, who rushed in with his men upon hearing the news, the situation was suppressed, but……”
“The departure didn’t happen as scheduled, then.”
Varkas cut him off. The man nodded slowly.
“The intruders possessed surprisingly exceptional skills. They slipped through the perimeter with ease and vanished in an instant. Because of that, even the units waiting in the Armund Forest had to be redirected to search the Kalmor area.”
“So, did you capture the intruders?”
“……I apologize. we searched throughout the night, but they had already disappeared without a trace.”
The man confessed with a dejected face. Varkas twisted his lips into a cynical sneer.
“In the end, you lost both the intruders and the looters.”
“……I have no excuse. I should have realized sooner that they were using tricks to buy time……”
“Raise your head. I am in no position to reprimand anyone when I was pathetic enough to be poisoned.”
Varkas let out a self-deprecating laugh. Sensing the mood, Beirop cautiously changed the subject.
“……Do you remember how you came to be poisoned?”
Varkas stopped smiling and looked at him with an expressionless face. Gulping dryly, Beirop struggled to continue.
“It appears that Her Grace, the Grand Duchess, was in league with the heretics. With the intention of sabotaging the subjugation, she put a drug in Your Excellency’s wine……”
“Do you have definitive proof?”
Varkas cut him off in a flat, dry tone. After a brief moment of flustered confusion, Beirop’s face hardened coldly.
“There is no doubt that the Grand Duchess was the one who poisoned you.”
“I asked if you have concrete physical evidence.”
“Her Grace confessed personally.”
Varkas merely stared at the man with eyes as cold as ice. Feeling frustrated by his stubborn attitude, Beirop raised his voice.
“That is not all. Numerous items symbolizing the Great Spirit Faith were discovered in the Grand Duchess’s chambers. Her Grace intentionally tried to harm Your Excellency to save those heretics!”
In that moment, a dull rupture echoed in Varkas’s mind. It felt as if a part of his brain had burst under the intense pressure. Shaking off that eerie sensation, he gripped his forehead with one hand and managed to pull a calm voice from deep within his constricted throat.
“Where is she now?”
“She is being detained at the top of the castle tower.”
Beirop replied coldly.
“All the vassals of the Duchy are up in arms, screaming that she should be sent to the guillotine immediately. Young Master Lucas has barely managed to keep them calm. No matter how wicked the woman who tried to poison her own husband may be, we cannot put the Emperor’s daughter on the execution block without a proper trial.”
Varkas clenched his fist so hard his knuckles turned white. An inexplicable rage churned in his gut. Glaring at his aide with bloodshot eyes, Varkas gave an order in a voice like a frozen sheet of glass.
“Bring her before me this instant.”
After casting a cautious look as if trying to discern his intentions, Beirop bowed his head and left the room.
Not long after, armed soldiers entered the bedroom with Talia. Varkas, who had been staring up at the sky as it deepened into a dark indigo, slowly turned his gaze.
Despite it being midsummer, she looked chillingly cold. Seeing her appearing like a common prisoner, Varkas felt a rage so intense it felt like his brain fluid might evaporate, and he took a deep breath.
At a glance, it was clear she had been treated harshly. Her once brilliant blonde hair was a tangled mess, heavily covering her slender neck and spine, and her thin silk dress was stained with cobwebs and dust.
As Varkas scanned her form, his gaze caught her bare feet peeking out from beneath the hem of her skirt.
He held his breath instinctively. The fact that she was standing there without even shoes, like a vagrant, caused a surge of murderous intent to boil within him.
Suppressing that irrational emotion, he cast a frigid look at the soldiers surrounding her.
“All of you, leave.”
“Your Excellency, the Grand Duchess is a dangerous individual. We cannot leave her with you without supervision……”
“I suppose I must look quite pathetic to you now that I’ve ended up like this.”
A bleak smile suddenly spread across Varkas’s lips. Sensing the threat embedded within it, the soldiers’ bodies went stiff. He gave a sharp tilt of his chin, indicating he would not say it twice.
Finally, the soldiers bowed their heads and cautiously backed away.
“Then, we shall wait outside the door. Please call us if there is any trouble.”
Once they had all filed out and closed the door, Varkas leaned his head against the headboard and scrutinized her pale, bloodless face.
Because her head was bowed low, he couldn’t see every detail, but it was not difficult to see that she had grown noticeably thinner. Feeling a sense of self-loathing for even noticing such a thing, he murmured coldly.
“I heard you confessed to drugging my wine.”
Her shoulders flinched and trembled. Eventually, her eyes, which had been fixed on the floor, slowly lifted. Meeting those hollow eyes, devoid of any spark of life, Varkas’s mouth twisted into a grimace.
