He braced a leaden arm against the mattress. Just as he tried to push his torso upright, a sharp cry shattered the silence, piercing his ears.
“Y-Your Grace! You are awake!”
Varkas turned toward the voice. The head butler was rushing in, carrying a large kettle. He practically flung it onto a nearby shelf and dashed straight to the bedside.
“Thank the heavens! We were sick with worry, wondering what would become of us if you never opened your eyes…!”
Choking back a wave of emotion, the butler slipped a pillow behind Varkas’s back to prop him up.
Varkas rested his head against the headboard and pressed hard against his eyelids, which burned as if someone had ground glass into them. Seeing this, the butler frantically seized the bell on the nightstand to summon the servants.
“His Grace is awake! Bring the physician this instant!”
Hurried footfalls soon echoed from the corridor, and three or four servants burst into the room alongside the family physician, dressed in priestly vestments. As they bustled around the bed, Varkas kept his eyes shut tight, waiting for the deadening lethargy to drain from his limbs.
How long had passed? The priest, who had been channeling divine power into his chest, let out a ragged breath and spoke.
“The worst of it has passed, thank the gods. The wild turbulence in your mana has finally settled.”
Varkas parted his eyelids and looked at the man. Wiping cold sweat from his brow, the priest added in a somber tone:
“There is no explaining this except as an act of god. In all recorded history, barely a handful have ever survived Agor’s Deadly Poison.”
Deadly poison.
Varkas repeated the words in silence, staring down at the back of his hand, where dark veins bulged against the pale skin. Questions flooded his mind, thick and hazy as frosted glass. Shoving them down, he forced a raspy voice past his dry lips.
“…How long was I out?”
“Your Grace was… well, today marks eight full days since you collapsed.”
Before the priest could finish, a heavy voice broke in from the doorway. Varkas turned his head. A gaunt, hollow-eyed Beirof was striding across the chamber.
Stopping by the bed, his aide added in a low, solemn murmur:
“For the first four days, your condition was so dire your heart could have given out at any moment. That you are awake now is nothing short of a miracle.”
“…What became of the subjugation?”
Brushing aside the man’s concern, Varkas threw out a blunt, dry question. Beirof’s expression tightened, and he cast a wary glance at the people crowding the bedside.
“Would you all leave us for a moment?”
“Sir Beirof, His Grace has only just pulled through after lingering between life and death. It would be best to wait until he regains his strength before—”
“Enough. Get out.”
Varkas gave a slight chin-lift toward the priest, whose face was etched with fretting concern. The priest looked back at him, torn.
“If you overtax yourself and your condition relapses…”
“Do not make me say it twice.”
Cowed by the chilling edge in his voice, the priest shut his mouth.
Before long, the servants, the priest, and the head butler had all filed out of the room.
Varkas sat propped up, his limbs feeling like waterlogged cotton, and fixed his gaze squarely on his aide. Under that heavy silence, Beirof finally parted his tight lips.
“The campaign… ended in failure. I have failed you, Your Grace.”
“Give me the details.”
Varkas remained detached, betraying not an ounce of agitation. Beirof studied his master’s sallow face before resuming his report.
“Right after Your Grace collapsed, intruders exploited the turmoil to breach the castle. They raided the dungeons to break out the prisoners and tried to spark an uprising within the inner walls. Young Master Lucas rode in with his detachment the moment word reached him and brought the situation under control, but…”
“Our departure missed its window.”
Varkas cut him short. Beirof dipped his head in acknowledgment.
“The intruders were extraordinarily capable. They slipped past our perimeter with ease and vanished without a trace. Because of that, even the forces waiting in Armund Forest had to be pulled back to sweep the Kalmor perimeter.”
“And? Did you catch them?”
“…My deepest apologies. We scoured the land through the night, but they were already gone.”
Beirof hung his head in defeat. Varkas’s lips twisted into a cynical sneer.
“So you lost the prisoners and let the raiders slip away.”
“…There is no excuse. I should have realized sooner that their skirmishes were merely meant to buy time—”
“Lift your head. I am hardly in a position to fault anyone when I was pathetic enough to take poison.”
Varkas let out a hollow, self-mocking chuckle. Reading the air, Beirof cautiously steered the subject.
“…Do you recall how the poison was administered?”
The humor vanished from Varkas’s face, leaving it entirely blank. Beirof swallowed hard and pushed through the silence.
“It seems Her Grace the Grand Duchess was conspiring with the heretics. To sabotage the campaign, she laced Your Grace’s wine with—”
“Do you have definitive proof?”
Varkas cut him down in a flat, cold tone. Flustered for a heartbeat, Beirof hardened his features.
“There is no doubt that the Grand Duchess was the one who poisoned you.”
“I asked if you had concrete physical evidence.”
“Her Grace confessed to it herself.”
Varkas only stared at him, his gaze like black ice. Frustrated by the stubborn detachment, Beirof raised his voice.
“That is not all. Numerous artifacts of the Great Spirit Faith were uncovered in the Grand Duchess’s chambers. Her Grace deliberately attempted to murder Your Grace to protect those heretics!”
A dull crack seemed to shudder through Varkas’s mind, as if some fragile vessel inside his skull had burst under unbearable pressure. Shaking off the sickening sensation, he pressed a hand to his brow and dragged a steady voice from his tight throat.
“Where is she now?”
“Confined to the spire of the tower.”
Beirof’s voice was unyielding.
“The vassals are in an uproar, demanding she be sent to the block at once. Young Master Lucas has barely managed to keep them at bay. No matter how monstrous a woman who attempts to murder her own husband may be, we cannot execute the Emperor’s daughter without formal judgment.”
Varkas clenched his fists until his knuckles turned bone-white. An irrational, violent fury tore through his chest. Fixing bloodshot eyes on his aide, Varkas gave his order in a tone as brittle as frozen glass.
“Bring her here. Now.”
Beirof looked at him warily, trying to read his intentions, before bowing his head and retreating from the room.
A short while later, armed guards escorted Talia into the bedchamber. Varkas, who had been staring out into the dusk as it darkened into deep indigo, slowly shifted his eyes.
Though it was the height of midsummer, she seemed to radiate an icy chill. Seeing her dragged before him like a common felon, Varkas felt a heat flare behind his temples so intense it threatened to scorch his senses, and he drew a sharp, deep breath.
Even at a glance, it was obvious she had been roughly handled. Her once radiant golden hair hung in matted tangles over her narrow neck and back, and her thin silk gown was coated in grime and cobwebs.
As his gaze traveled down her figure, it caught on her bare feet peeking from beneath the hem of her skirts.
His breath hitched. The sight of her standing on the cold floor without even shoes, like a beggar, sent an ugly surge of murderous fury tearing through him.
Wrenching down that senseless impulse, he cast a frigid glare at the guards flank around her.
“Leave us. All of you.”
“Your Grace, the Grand Duchess is dangerous. We cannot leave her unattended in your presence—”
“Do I appear so utterly helpless to you now that I have ended up in this state?”
A grim, bitter smile flickered across Varkas’s lips. Sensing the lethal edge behind it, the soldiers stiffened in unison. He jerked his chin toward the door, signaling there would not be another warning.
Subdued, the guards lowered their heads and backed away.
“We shall wait just outside the door, Your Grace. Call for us if you have need.”
Once they had filed out and pulled the door shut, Varkas leaned his head against the headboard, his eyes tracing every hollow of her bloodless face.
With her head hung low, he could not see every detail, but it was painfully obvious how much weight she had lost. Swallowing the bitter self-loathing that came with even noticing such a thing, he spoke with cold detachment.
“I am told you confessed to poisoning my wine.”
Her shoulders twitched with a shudder. At last, her eyes, which had been fixed on the floor, slowly lifted. Meeting that vacant stare, hollowed of every scrap of life, Varkas’s face twisted into a scowl.
END