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“Is that the truth?”
Talia nodded, a vacant look on her face, as though she were listening to a tongue she could not comprehend.
“…It is.”
A hollow laugh slipped from Varkas’s lips. Only upon hearing that answer did he realize that, deep down, he had been hoping she would deny it.
He would not have cared if it were a blatant lie. If she had only said she had not done it, he would have gladly let himself be deceived.
The moment he was forced to confront the wretched truth, something that had begun to sprout within him withered and died.
He looked at her, his eyes hollow of emotion.
“Did you want me dead?”
At his empty question, a faint ripple disturbed the surface of her eyes, murky as faded stained glass. Staring at him with a bloodless face, she suddenly began to tremble, her shoulders shaking.
“…No. I never thought that. Not even for a second.”
Varkas let out a dry, scornful laugh.
“Then what were you thinking when you fed me poison?”
“I didn’t know it was poison…”
A voice so faint it was barely audible slipped from her dry, cracked lips, stained with dried blood.
“I didn’t know it was poison. I only… I thought it was harmless… something that wouldn’t hurt you…”
Varkas’s expression went cold at the pathetic excuse.
“Then what kind of drug did you think you were slipping into it?”
Her shoulders flinched as though she had been struck with a whip. Varkas waited for her to offer some plausible lie. But all that followed was a chilling silence.
Her blue eyes, steeped in the violet twilight, slowly dropped toward the floor. When it became clear she had no intention of answering, he pressed harder, his voice turning harsh.
“I am told a pagan symbol was found in your chambers. The High Priest even raised suspicions that you attended a heretical gathering. So tell me the truth. Did you poison me to sabotage the campaign?”
Her head snapped up. She looked as though she could not understand a single word he had uttered, yet a desperate dread consumed her face.
Clutching his head, which throbbed as if an iron spike had been driven through it, he urged her impatiently.
“Say something. Anything.”
“…If I say no, would you even believe me?”
She spoke in a fragile voice.
“Believe whatever you wish. Whatever my reasons, the fact that I gave you poison doesn't change.”
Lowering her head, she added quietly, with the calm resignation of a martyr.
“…Whatever punishment you decree, I will accept it.”
In that instant, a violent urge seized him to grab her by the scruff of the neck and choke the breath out of her. He wanted to shatter that look of utter surrender and force her to beg for her life. His fingers shook as he fought down the brutal impulse.
Clutching the bedsheets, he ground out in a strangled voice,
“Do you even realize what you are saying right now?”
She offered no answer, staring fixatedly at the dark pool of her shadow on the floor.
At last, his patience broke. Varkas pushed himself up, stumbling as he rose from the bed.
His severely weakened muscles trembled with faint spasms. His joints felt rusted stiff, and his ravaged innards still churned like boiling magma. Shunting aside every alarm screaming through his body, he dragged himself over until he stood before her.
“Do you think this will end as lightly as when you trifled with Ayla’s wine?”
He grabbed her shoulders and spat the words into her face. Raw fear flared in her wide eyes. Looking straight down into them, he drove home each syllable.
“You stand accused not merely of attempted poisoning, but of heresy. Do you have any idea what that means?”
Lowering his voice, Varkas continued grimly.
“Rotting in a dungeon for the rest of your days would be a mercy. In the worst case, you will be condemned to death. If you are excommunicated by an ecclesiastical tribunal, the execution will be far more brutal. Stripped of every right as a human being, you will die worse than a beast.”
By now, her skin was an ashen white. Varkas tightened his grip on her shoulders, his voice low, as if branding the command into her flesh.
“So stop this idiocy about accepting punishment. From this moment on, you will say only one thing. You know nothing of it, it has nothing to do with you—you will deny it to the bitter end.”
She looked up at him in dazed despair. Seeing her like that, still half out of her senses, made his stomach turn.
He shook her shoulders once, driving the point in.
“Do you understand me? You have never set foot in a pagan gathering, and the poison was planted by someone else. You have no connection to any of this.”
“B-but…”
Her lips trembled in confusion.
“I… I put the drug in your wine. I… to you…”
A sharp wince of pain escaped her lips. Only then did Varkas realize he was digging into her shoulders hard enough to crush bone.
He tore his hands away. Clenching his fists, he spoke in a low, tight voice.
“You said it yourself, didn’t you? That you had no intent to harm me…”
She nodded numbly. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them.
“That is enough. I will bury this matter and move past it.”
“You… believe me?”
she asked, her voice shaking. Varkas looked down at her through a dim, weary gaze.
The memory of how she had changed after their reunion flashed before him. The tender words she had whispered echoed in his ears.
‘You are my husband. Why shouldn’t I care?’
‘To be honest… I was deeply worried about you.’
Had any of that been the truth? Could he truly believe a single word of it without doubt?
Varkas asked himself the question in silence, and soon a bitter smile touched his lips.
“Whether I believe you does not matter.”
Indeed.
Even if it had all been an act to make him let his guard down, what difference did it make? He could never allow this woman to be dragged off in chains and put on trial.
Even if she were truly a fanatic who had plotted his death, the outcome would not change.
Therefore, the truth was meaningless.
He spoke with mechanical indifference.
“For now, restoring order comes first. Remain confined to your chambers until this settles.”
He turned back toward the bed. Strength was already draining from his legs.
As he caught the bedpost to keep from collapsing in disgrace, ice-cold fingers grabbed his sleeve.
“I—I don’t understand. Why cover up my crimes when you don't even believe me? Why on earth…”
He shook her hand off on instinct. Talia stared up at him with hollow eyes. He froze, unsettled by his own harshness, but seeing that wounded face made something snap inside him.
A sudden, inexplicable cruelty surged over him.
“For a very long time, I believed I owed you a debt.”
His eyes drifted down to her legs. Then, in a flat, cold voice, he added,
“Now, I owe you nothing.”
Through his hazy, distorted vision, her corpse-pale face blurred into an indistinct shape. Turning his back on her, he pulled the bell cord beside the bed. In an instant, the doors parted and guards filed into the room.
Without looking back at her, he jerked his chin toward her.
“Take her to the inner chambers on the third floor. The Grand Duchess will remain under confinement there until further notice.”
END