The man pinned to the carpet struggled desperately, limbs flailing.
Rough hands with bulging veins relentlessly clawed at the backs of his hands, and muscular legs repeatedly kicked against his frame, but Varkas did not budge. He tightened his grip instead. Blood-red veins surfaced in eyes wide with terror.
Gasping as if to suck in air by any means, the man reached out a long arm, fingers fumbling frantically across the floor.
A wine bottle that had rolled from the overturned table brushed his fingertips. Gareth snatched it and swung it mercilessly at Varkas’s head.
A heavy impact struck Varkas's temple, followed by sticky liquid and glass shards trickling down one side of his face. Yet he did not flinch. He only tightened his stranglehold on the man’s throat.
He did not know why he was strangling the very person he had spent nearly his entire life protecting.
Consumed by a fury that felt like his retinas were on fire, he choked the life from him—until the muscles in his own fingers suddenly began to twist violently.
The spasms spread across his entire arm in an instant. It felt as if every bundle of muscle were moving on its own accord, defying his will.
He forced strength into his trembling hands, pinning the man down harder. Then a crushing weight settled upon his chest.
The pressure suffocating his lungs soon climbed into his throat. It felt as if he were strangling himself.
Blood vessels burst in his eyes from the choking agony. Yet Varkas did not blink; he ruthlessly poured force into his convulsing fingers.
Just then, someone clung to his forearm with a horrified scream.
He held his ground, refusing to yield. Then four pairs of hands coiled around him like ropes, forcibly tearing him away from the Crown Prince.
“Your Grace! Please, stop!”
Finally, the fingers crushing Gareth’s throat lost their strength and fell away. Gareth scrambled back out from under him at once, clutching his neck in a fit of violent coughing.
A woman rushed to his side, wrapping her arms around the Crown Prince and staring at Varkas in sheer horror. Only after a long moment did he recognize her as Ayla Roem Guirta.
Why was this woman at Raedgo Castle?
As he narrowed his eyes, the man holding him suddenly stiffened.
“Yo—Your Grace. Blood…”
The man’s gaze was fixed on his mouth.
Varkas knit his brows. The wound was on his head; why look there?
When he raised a hand to touch his lips, he felt something slick. Only then did he realize that blood, surging up from his throat, was soaking his chin and neck.
That was not all. His palms were raw and red, as if burned by fire.
As he stared down at them blankly, a stifled laugh reached his ears. Varkas raised his head toward the man slumped opposite him.
Still clutching a neck mottled with dark, hand-shaped bruises, Gareth let out a twisted laugh through ragged gasps. His eyes—a chaotic swirl of wrath, betrayal, and perverse ecstasy—gleamed white in the gloom.
“Look at the state of you.”
A harsh chuckle rattled through the room.
“That’s what happens when you try to defy your destiny.”
“Ga—Gareth…”
Gareth violently tore his sleeve from his sister's grasp as she tried to quiet him, shouting in feverish agitation.
“Struggle all you want, it's no use! You belong to us! That woman died because you dared try to defy it!”
The air in the room froze instantly.
The Shearkan guards stared at the Crown Prince with stone faces. Even amid that murderous tension, Gareth did not stop.
“Am I wrong? If she hadn’t married you, she’d still be alive right now! Talia Roem Guirta died because you tried to stray from your path! Fate tore her away just to put you back where you belong!”
“Your Highness!”
Unable to stomach another word, Daren stepped between them.
Gareth brushed him aside and kept screaming.
“You can never escape! From the moment my mother dragged you from that stone coffin, your life belonged to us!”
“Gareth!”
A sharp crack cut through the room like a whip, snapping the Crown Prince’s head to the side.
Gareth stared at his twin sister in disbelief.
Her eyes freezing cold as she looked down at her brother, the Princess stood up and barked at the guards by the door.
“What are you standing there for? Escort His Highness at once! Take him to his quarters and treat his wounds immediately!”
Then, turning her gaze toward Varkas, she spoke in a low, measured voice.
“You require treatment as well, Grand Duke. As for today's unfortunate incident…”
Her voice, composed until now, quavered ever so slightly. She swallowed hard to steady herself before finishing.
“I will overlook it, out of regard for our long-standing ties.”
“How very generous of you,” Daren spat with cold sarcasm.
“However, do not expect House Shearkan to show the same mercy for the Crown Prince’s blasphemy.”
After glaring at him with bitter resentment, Ayla left the study, dragging Gareth with her.
Daren, who had watched them leave with a wary glare, bowed before Varkas.
“Are you all right, Your Grace?”
Varkas, who had been staring blankly down at his hands, slowly lifted his head.
Eyes heavy with worry, dread, and pity were watching him carefully. He could not understand why they looked at him that way. Why wouldn't he be all right?
He shook off the hands steadying him and stumbled to his feet. He opened his mouth to dismiss them all, but dark red blood surged from his throat.
“Your Grace!”
“Summon the healer at once!”
Someone caught his limp frame before it hit the floor.
He stared blankly at the dark crimson pool spattered across the stones. Over it, the afterimage of Talia’s lifeless body appeared, blood-soaked fabric clinging to her frail silhouette.
Gazing transfixed at that pale, frozen face, he reached out and brushed her waxen cheek. At his touch, the vision shattered, scattering jagged shards in every direction.
A thousand slivers tore into his eyes, flesh, bone, and heart like daggers. It felt as if he were being butchered alive.
Unable to bear the agony, his knees buckled beneath him.
His vision, drained to stark monochrome, slowly bled red. He could no longer tell whether it was an illusion or reality.
A tide of blood rose from nowhere, swallowing him from his feet up. Everything sank beneath the red current.
He knew the name of that river. It was Despair.
The despair he had shut away for so long forced its way down his throat, into his nose, and into his ears. Amid the smothering dark, he let go of his tether to consciousness.
She was sitting on the windowsill, watching the setting sun.
The breeze drifting from the woods gently ruffled her long hair and thin gown.
A faint smile touched her lips.
He watched her without blinking, then followed her gaze outside.
There was only the familiar landscape. He could not fathom what in it had brought a smile to this difficult woman's face.
“What are you looking at so intently?”
When he spoke, curiosity getting the better of him, her eyes—languid as though lost in a daydream—turned toward him.
“Just the sky.”
As he knit his brows at her indifferent reply, she added pertly,
“The sunset is exceptionally lovely today. I was admiring it.”
He turned back toward the window.
The sun, half-drowned past the horizon, bled crimson into the western sky. Yet he could find nothing special in the sight.
He looked back at her face, bathed in the amber glow. Her eyes shimmered with a strange, quiet brilliance against the burning dusk. Only then did he see the beauty she spoke of.
It was always this way when he was with her. He noticed things he had never seen before, and felt things he had never known.
The subtle shifting of sunlight, the weight of the air, the brush of wind against his skin, the gentle patter of rain, the fresh scent of crushed grass… At times, it felt as if his very senses were bound to hers.
His bleak, colorless world was taking on vibrant hues, all because of this capricious girl.
END