Caked in dust, Varkas burst through the castle gates. Leaving behind his courser, which had collapsed in convulsions, foaming at the mouth, he sprinted across the training grounds.
Having heard word of the Grand Duke’s arrival, hundreds of mounted men poured out from the barracks. Varkas did not spare a glance for the knights bowing in unison; he headed straight up the stone stairs and through the inner gates.
The garden, heavy with the chill of late autumn, opened before him.
He crossed the courtyard, where dead leaves lay drifted deep, in a few strides and pushed into the Great Hall, where dozens of servants stood lined up in two long rows.
“Y-Your Grace, you have returned.”
The head butler, waiting by the entrance, greeted him with a trembling voice.
“The journey must have been grueling. As you were likely informed by dispatch—”
“Lucas. How is he?”
Varkas threw back his travel-stained hood, cutting the man off cold.
The butler, his wrinkled face etched with grief, gave a stiff reply.
“Thanks to the High Priest’s efforts, he has narrowly passed the crisis… but the wound to his neck is deep, and they fear there may be lasting impairment…”
His voice hitched, and he pressed his lips into a tight line.
In his stead, the head maid, waiting to the left of the doors, stepped in with quiet caution.
“The High Priest says we will not know his true prognosis until the young master regains consciousness.”
“He hasn’t woken?”
“The blood loss was too severe. They say it will take time for him to regain his strength.”
Varkas stood motionless for a beat, his voice dropping low and heavy.
“I’ll see him myself. Where is he?”
“We had him moved to his original chambers on the second floor.”
He did not hesitate, striding across the stone floor.
As he climbed the carpeted stairs, the door to the bedchamber used by generations of Shearkan Grand Dukes came into view.
The head maid led him past it, heading along the two-story gallery.
“It is that room,” she said, pointing to the double doors set into the wing.
Varkas stepped forward and pulled the brass handle. With a heavy groan, the door gave way, revealing the dim interior of the bedroom.
Stepping inside, Varkas slowly surveyed the room.
Attending maids, the High Priest with a somber face, and Raina, her eyes bloodshot, all encircled the bed.
“G-Greetings, Your Grace.”
A maid noticed him late and dropped her head in a panic. Taking the cue, everyone in the chamber rose at once to bow.
Varkas moved past them to the side of the bed. Beyond the parted hangings, his brother lay like a corpse, his neck swathed in thick layers of linen.
Staring down at the bloodless face, Varkas addressed the priest standing at the headboard.
“Is there any improvement?”
The priest shook his head with a grim set to his mouth.
“We must watch him longer. We continue to weave restorative magic, but the trauma was so severe that…”
Varkas looked down at Lucas again.
The face that had brimmed with insolent vigor only months ago was now sunken and ashen. Having drifted between life and death for ten days, he looked scarcely better than a cadaver.
Varkas’s fists clenched tight. In that silence, a shrill voice cut through the room.
“Are you satisfied now?”
His gaze shifted to the other side of the bed. Raina, looking every bit as hollowed out as Lucas, glared at him with naked resentment.
“Every vassal told you that wolf had to be put down, but you ignored them and listened only to that woman! It’s your fault Lucas ended up like this. Because you spared that beast, Brother!”
“M-My Lady!” the head maid gasped in horror, reaching out to stop her, but Raina did not care.
“Get out! Get out right now! You have no right to be in this room!”
Her shriek scraped across the stone walls of the chamber.
Varkas met his sister’s heaving fury without a word or a flicker of emotion, then turned and walked out.
In the corridor, half a dozen vassals who had caught wind of his arrival were already gathered.
One of them stepped forward, grave and unyielding.
“Your Grace, we can no longer overlook the Grand Duchess’s conduct.”
Varkas gave him no answer.
The man flinched, unnerved by the frost in Varkas’s gaze, but pressed on with hardened resolve.
“The Grand Duchess secretly unleashed the beast that mauled Master Lucas. She cares nothing for the lives of our people! How much longer are we to hold our tongues while she runs rampant?”
Another joined in, his voice tight with agitation.
“That monster must be destroyed at once! And you must hand down proper punishment to the Grand Duchess as well!”
Varkas stared down the length of the hall where dusk was gathering, his face unreadable.
A heavy shadow hung over the doors to the bedchamber he and Talia had once shared.
At the thought that she might be listening to every accusation hurled against her, his nerves grew taut. Sinking under a wave of quiet revulsion, he closed his eyes and opened them.
“Gather a hunting party immediately. I will deal with the wolf myself.”
“And the Grand Duchess…?”
“She will answer for this as well.”
As another vassal moved to ask what form that reckoning would take, an elder quietly caught his arm, holding him back.
Varkas walked past them and took the stairs up to the third floor. Entering the room off his study, he found the bed freshly turned and the hearth already crackling with fire.
Varkas peeled off his travel cloak, which was little better than a tattered rag, and tossed it to the floor before unbuckling his breastplate and setting it onto the stand. He stripped off his tunic, grimed with sweat and road dust, and was splashing cold water over his face from the basin when a knock sounded at the door.
Only after a long silence did he answer.
“Enter.”
A pale, spectral figure slipped inside. Varkas stared at her, his eyes cold as glass.
Talia Roem Shearkan looked much as she had when he had first returned to his senses after hovering at death’s edge.
Her thick hair spilled loose down her back, and she looked up at him with terror clawing at her eyes.
Having studied the face he had not seen in months, Varkas lifted a towel and wiped the water from his skin without a word. Then, in a flat, chilling tone, he addressed the guard outside.
“Escort the Grand Duchess to the inner chambers on the third floor. Until further notice, she is strictly forbidden from stepping outside without my leave.”
The guards stepped forward to carry out the order. Darting past their reach, she rushed toward him, desperate.
“W-Wait, please. Just a moment. Speak to me, please.”
Varkas, pulling a clean linen shirt over his shoulders, turned slowly to face her. Wrapped in a crumpled dress, her frame was visibly hollowed out.
A sudden, nameless fury flared behind his eyes. Grinding it down, he flicked a hand toward the guards at the threshold.
“Wait outside.”
The men withdrew the moment the words left his mouth.
As the latch clicked shut, the tension seemed to drain from her shoulders, leaving her trembling.
Watching her, Varkas took a fresh doublet from the shelf, his voice hard.
“I have little time to give you. If you have words, speak them.”
“Is… is Lucas all right?”
A dry, humorless chuckle broke from his throat.
“How do you imagine he is?”
She bit her lip until it blanched and bowed her head.
Varkas watched her with eyes as cold as rime, then looked away with a tired breath. Pulling the woolen doublet over his shirt, he reached for his wyvern-leather brigandine on the armor stand.
As he began fastening the buckles one by one, a faint, weeping voice pierced the quiet.
“Please… spare Khan.”
Varkas stopped dead, his hands still on the leather, and turned his head slowly. She lunged forward, clutching his sleeve, frantic.
“I-I will do whatever you ask… anything. I won’t raise my voice to the vassals again… and I will treat the servants well. If you order me never to step out of my room for the rest of my days, I will obey… so please, I beg of you, don’t kill Khan.”
Something flared in his chest, hot and caustic as boiling lye.
He caught her chin in a bruising grip, pulling her face in until their eyes met, his voice venomous.
“My brother lies dying in the dark. And your only concern is the life of a mangy beast?”
Every trace of color bled from her skin.
Varkas glared into her chalk-white face as if he might tear her apart, then threw her hand aside. Turning away without pity, he spoke.
“I am done indulging your whims. It drew human blood. That beast will not live.”
END