Taking his coat, he moved past her toward the door, but the woman, who had been standing frozen in a daze, caught roughly at his sleeve.
“Khan did nothing wrong. It was me… I told Khan to attack Lucas. Khan was only following my orders! So if you must punish someone, punish me—!”
A sharp gasp of pain broke from her lips.
Only then did he realize he had seized her arm so fiercely the bone seemed ready to snap. He loosened his grip, yet his fingers lingered around her flesh for a long moment, rigid and unmoving.
He glared down at her, his eyes cold as ice.
The memories of the past summer surged through his mind—every desperate length he had gone to keeping this woman from the guillotine.
He had burned evidence that condemned her, forced the vassals into silence with threats, and bought off priests, all to keep her from standing trial.
A violent fury rose in his chest at her behavior, which seemed bent on undoing every sacrifice he had made.
“Even if that were true. Why in the world would you do such a thing?”
She looked up at him with terror in her eyes, bit her cracked, bloodstained lip, and cast her gaze downward.
Varkas pressed her harder, his voice unrelenting.
“Did Lucas wrong you so grievously that he deserved to be torn apart like that?”
The sound of her dry swallow was distinct in the quiet room.
She stared at the floorboards for a long time in hesitation, until finally a voice was wrung from the depths of her throat.
“…We argued, and I lost my temper. I said things I never meant. I had no idea Khan would truly attack him….”
Her faltering words dwindled into silence.
Varkas pressed two fingers to his throbbing temple and let out a dry, hollow laugh.
“You call that an excuse…?”
At his quiet, despairing murmur, her shoulders flinched.
Watching her with unfeeling eyes, Varkas went on in a flat, deadened tone.
“Even if that were true, it changes nothing. I warned you clearly before, didn’t I? If that beast ever harms a human being, even I cannot shield it.”
Her hauntingly beautiful face crumbled in utter ruin.
Looking down into that despairing countenance, he drove each word home with deliberate weight.
“A direct blood relative of the Grand Ducal house lies grievously wounded. This is not an affair that can be swept away as an unfortunate accident. Above all, I will not suffer a beast that has tasted human blood to run loose across my lands.”
A thin sob slipped from her lips.
He took a step backward.
He knew that if he remained facing her a moment longer, what little restraint he had left would shatter entirely.
Varkas turned on his heel, crossed to the door, and took hold of the handle.
A sudden weight struck his back as slender arms wrapped fiercely around his waist.
Varkas stiffened, his body freezing as though paralyzed.
Clinging to him with desperate strength, the woman tilted her tear-streaked face upward and cried out.
“No! Please, do not kill Khan. Khan is our child!”
His eyes fixed on her, stunned.
As if the last tether holding her mind together had snapped, wild, disjointed words poured from her mouth.
“Tiuran told me… she said a babe who dies before receiving baptism is reborn as a beast…. Khan is… Khan is our dead child returned to us. He was born again as a wolf and came back to me!”
Varkas’s face twisted in profound torment. A suffocating pressure rose within him, as if something deep in his chest was caving in, but she gave him no chance to breathe.
“It is true! Look into Khan’s eyes and you will see! Khan is our son! Our little boy, who never even drew his first breath, came back to life! So please… I beg you, do not harm our child….”
“Silence!”
At his thunderous shout, the woman flinched violently and her arms fell from his waist.
Varkas leaned against the doorframe as though his legs might give way beneath him, burying his face in one hand.
A convulsive shudder ran through his entire frame. Through his trembling fingers, he looked down at his wife, who had shattered past all mending.
Her deep blue eyes, drowning in tears, tore unsparingly through his heart. An unendurable weight of misery pressed against his lungs, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
He stood there in silence for a time, steadying his ragged breath.
When he had finally mastered himself, Varkas straightened his back and spoke coldly.
“I have heard enough of this madness.”
The light died from her eyes. Turning away from that vacant gaze, stripped of every lingering ember of hope, he gripped the latch once more.
“You will remain confined to this room until Lucas regains consciousness. What is to be done with you will be decided once this hunt is finished.”
He threw the door wide and tipped his chin toward the guards standing watch in the corridor.
“Take her to her chambers.”
The guards stepped forward at once, surrounding her.
Talia did not resist. She merely stared blankly at the floorboards, all color gone from her skin.
Leaving behind that hollow face, now dry even of tears, he stepped out into the hallway where the evening shadows were lengthening.
The sound of his own boots on the stone echoed with a strange, biting chill.
He quickened his stride, as if to outrun the thick, suffocating dread that settled over his heart. His shadow lengthened across the stone stairs, swallowed by the creeping twilight.
The subjugation party was assembled without delay.
As though they had spent the ten days of Lucas’s brush with death sharpening their steel, the riders gathered before the castle gate, their fury palpable.
Selecting thirty horsemen, he led them out through the northern gate.
The sun had already dipped beneath the horizon. He glanced at the sky as it bled from violet into dark indigo, then turned his gaze toward the birch forest where the last embers of daylight still lingered.
The wolf was possessed of an intelligence far beyond that of ordinary beasts. It would not linger in open country or across the rolling hills.
Yet he doubted it had fled far from Kalmor. Given its fierce devotion to its mistress, it was bound to be circling somewhere near the stronghold.
Taking the lead, he spurred his mount across the open fields toward the Armund Forest.
Before long, they arrived at the wood’s edge, where the deep blue shadows were swallowing the trees.
“We split up here. Move in groups of three. Signal the moment you spot it.”
The command was barely given before the horsemen raised their torches and plunged into the darkened woods.
He motioned to Beirof and Rgen.
“I will ride alone. The two of you take the northern quarter.”
“My Lord, but….”
Beirof began to object, his expression troubled, but he caught himself and fell silent.
Having shared countless battlefields with his master, the man knew better than anyone that the Grand Duke had no need of an escort. With a low sigh, he reined his horse around.
“Send up a flare if there is trouble.”
Varkas drove his heels into his mount’s flanks without a word.
The torches carried by his men scattered through the thick timber, dancing in all directions.
Leaving behind the whinnying of horses and the dry rustle of underbrush, he rode into the gloom where the winter wind whistled sharp and cold. After some time, the sour stench of blood drifted toward him on the draft.
It took him little effort to discover the source. The carcass of a beast, torn to ribbons, lay half-buried among the dead leaves, thick with the stench of decay.
‘A boar?’
No. Judging by the monstrous size of the cranium, it had been a Dire Boar.
Studying the shattered bones that looked as though they had been crushed under tremendous jaws, he lifted his head and searched the gloom.
The blood still smelled fresh; the kill had been made not long ago.
He slid from the saddle and swept his eyes over the ground.
As if the tracks had been carefully brushed away, not a single print remained in the damp earth. Yet Varkas caught a distinct, peculiar scent hanging in the still air.
His senses pulled taut, razor-sharp. Drawn by a dark, unyielding instinct, he walked swiftly into the heavy shadows beneath the boughs.
Then, a dry branch snapped nearby.
In an instant, he unslung the bow from his back. He drew an arrow from the quiver at his hip and hauled the string taut.
At that very second, the massive silhouette of a beast broke through the dense brush.
Varkas loosed without hesitation. The shape vanished behind the tree trunks in a breath, but the arrow, cutting the wind, had already driven deep into its hind leg.
A low, guttural snarl ripped through the frozen air. The great body stumbled, reeling from the blow, but it righted itself instantly and tore through the trees.
Varkas vaulted into his saddle, sending his horse into a breakneck gallop through the timber with terrifying precision.
Though branches whipped past his face and blocked his view, a beast the size of a calf was an easier mark than any hare or bird.
He loosed shaft after shaft at the dark shape fleeing for its life.
Several arrows sank into its flanks and rib cage. Striking close to the vitals, each hit should have brought it down, yet the wolf’s strides through the dark woods only turned more savage.
END