Varkas came to a dead stop at the threshold and looked back.
Lucas, his face flushed with agitation, stepped toward him and continued his reckless tirade.
“Brother, if you truly cannot forgive Sister-in-law for betraying you, then yield to the vassals and proceed with a divorce. There is no reason to maintain a hollow marriage if you mean to leave her neglected like this.”
When Varkas offered no response, Lucas took another step closer, his voice rising.
“Even if you covered up every charge against her, distrust toward her has already taken deep root in the hearts of the Easterners. They may hold their tongues out of fear of your wrath, but the vassals will never accept her as Grand Duchess. It would be better for her as well to be sent back to the Imperial Palace—”
A choked groan cut the boy short.
Varkas clamped a hand onto his jaw with brutal force, speaking as calmly as if he were discussing the weather.
“What would you know about what is better for her, to run your mouth like that?”
Lucas let out a muffled whimper under the crushing pressure on his jaw.
Looking down at him with frigid eyes, Varkas kept his voice even.
“Do not overstep. My wife’s place is my concern alone. It is not yours to meddle with.”
“…Then do you intend to keep her locked away like this forever?”
Lucas snapped, violently wrenching his head from his brother’s grip.
Varkas’s mouth twisted into a grimace.
“Why do you care so much about her circumstances?”
“I only—!”
Lucas started to shout, then choked on his words. Varkas looked down at his brother, who bit his lip without a reply, and gave a flat warning.
“I will overlook this once, taking it as well-meant counsel. There will not be a second time. It would be wise not to test my patience.”
With those final words, he turned and stepped out of the office.
An easterly wind swept across the battlements, scouring his face.
Drawn by an idle thought, he turned his head toward the inner citadel that rose high above the walls.
With cold eyes, he stared at the window of the bedchamber where she stayed. Beyond the shadowed glass, he thought he caught her faint silhouette.
For an instant, the word his brother had flung at him—locked away—hung unpleasantly in his mind. He looked away to shake it off.
Even if life here was miserable for her, he could not send her back to the Imperial Palace.
It was obvious how an illegitimate princess, stripped of her title as Grand Duchess in disgrace, would be received.
The hyenas clawing for favor with the Crown Prince would give her no peace, and Gareth, venomous as ever, would corner her as though he had waited his whole life for the chance. The Emperor, as always, would merely watch.
Nor would the Empress care if her daughter’s life hung by a thread. That woman would only calculate how best to use her again.
He clenched his fists, remembering the girl crushed beneath falling stone, lying limp as a corpse.
The Empress had pushed her into that pilgrimage without blinking, fully aware of the danger awaiting her daughter.
He would never leave her in the clutches of that viper again.
In the end, there was only one conclusion.
Remaining here was her best hope. Kalmor was the only corner of the Robiden continent that the Empress and the Crown Prince could not touch.
His hesitation gone, Varkas set off toward the training grounds.
A familiar voice called out behind him.
“Your Grace.”
Varkas turned to see his subordinate Rgen hurrying toward him, and paused.
“The investigation you ordered is complete. This way…”
Speaking in hushed tones, the man led the way along the inner wall.
Varkas followed in silence. Only after they slipped through the castle’s rear postern into the back garden did Rgen speak again.
“As you suspected, a secret passage was found in the basement storage of the main keep. Our detection artifacts suggest it runs all the way to the edge of Armund Forest.”
Varkas listened as he stepped into the storehouse adjoining the keep.
Down the stone stairs, through an iron door, lay the dim basement, crowded with crates and casks.
Varkas strode into the inner vault where valuables were kept, found the wide breach in the wall, and examined it closely.
A straight tunnel, tall and broad enough for a great direwolf to pass with ease, stretched into the dark.
“A clever mechanism was concealed within the masonry. The passage only opens when this sconce is turned in a particular direction.”
Rgen pointed to a iron torch bracket set into the wall.
Varkas pulled it sideways. With a dry clatter of stone, the masonry slid shut, wiping away every trace of the tunnel.
He wrenched the bracket back to where it had been. With the muffled grind of counterweights, the opening reappeared.
“The dwarven builders left behind quite an ingenious trick.”
Rgen nodded readily.
“Even the late Duke knew nothing of this tunnel. It was almost certainly dug in secret by thralls brought here during the Era of Division.”
“Were there any other hidden passages?”
“We swept the area thoroughly with detection artifacts, but found nothing else.”
Having given his report with customary brevity, Rgen watched Varkas’s face, seeking direction.
“What are your orders?”
Varkas did not answer at once, staring into the dark tunnel with brooding eyes.
A secret passage hidden inside a vault to which only the mistress of the castle held the key would instantly shatter the alibi he had painstakingly built for her.
Varkas looked at him with chilling composure.
“How many know of this passage?”
“Only myself and Radomir.”
“Well done.”
Varkas gave quiet praise, then added coldly, “Seal this passage immediately, and see that not a word of it leaks.”
As if expecting the order, Rgen bowed his head.
Leaving his subordinate behind, Varkas climbed out of the cellar. A stiffer gust caught his hair the moment he cleared the doorway.
He raked a hand through it, glanced up by habit toward her chambers, and finally turned away.
At dawn the next morning, Varkas mounted his horse for the march.
Hundreds of vassals had gathered before the main gates to see him off.
Scanning the ranks of mounted knights drawn up in clean lines, Varkas let his gaze rest on his kin.
At their head stood Lucas, with whom he had clashed the day before, and Raina, who had been kept under confinement in the annex.
As he rode near, his sister kept her eyes lowered in discomfort. Lucas, however, gave a composed greeting, as if nothing had passed between them.
“May fortune favor your arms, Brother. Return safely.”
Varkas offered a curt nod, his gaze sweeping the courtyard once more.
She was nowhere to be seen. Swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth, he reined his mount around.
Presently, the gatekeeper sounded a long blast on the horn.
The knights rode out through the opened gates in strict formation.
Leading the column across the plains, Varkas looked back when they reached the shoulder of the hill.
The pale, blue light of dawn was washing over the keep’s highest tower.
A single season.
A few short months that had stirred hope in his chest, and the bitter despair waiting at the end of them, flickered before his eyes like dying embers.
He spurred his horse forward to drive the thought away. Mocking himself for ever imagining this empty life held anything more, he severed the last lingering threads of regret.
“I have already dispatched messages to the northeastern lords. Should the rebels take up arms, we can levy what forces they have to put them down at once.”
When they had crossed the lowlands and neared a stand of birch trees whose trunks showed bone-white against the hills, Beirof rode up beside him to speak.
Varkas, who had been washing the dust from his throat with a waterskin, wiped his mouth and let out a quiet breath.
“Force of arms is the last resort. We must avoid civil war in the East at all costs.”
“Do you intend to treat with them?”
“We cannot afford to waste our strength when we must keep the North in check.”
Varkas gave a flat reply, stoppered the skin, and stowed it in his saddlebag.
“If I offer to overlook their treason in exchange for their lands and titles, they will yield quietly. Unless they are utter fools.”
“These are men who betrayed their liege for a handful of gold. Reason may not reach them.”
“Then blood will answer.”
With that quiet answer, Varkas spurred his mount forward once more.
Their progress was swift. Perhaps because order had been restored across the East over the summer, they encountered neither bandit bands nor the feral beasts and wyverns that usually roamed the autumn hills. It was a monotonous march.
Thanks to that, they cleared the vast woods in less than ten days and emerged onto a broad plateau.
“We rest here.”
When Varkas pulled up his horse near a grazing pasture and gave the word, a squire blew his horn to relay the order.
The knights dismounted in unison. Varkas slid down from Toruk’s back and unrolled a map across his saddle to review the land ahead.
Just then, a horn sounded from below the low ridge.
Varkas lifted his head, eyes narrowing as thousands of horsemen surged through the thinning mist.
Even at this distance, the banners of the Roem Knights were unmistakable.
“Why is the Imperial Army in the East…?”
Beirof muttered, his voice thick with dismay.
END