The Head Maid, rigid at the murderous coldness in his voice, hastily bent low and hurried down the corridor.
Leaning against the doorframe as he watched her retreat, Varkas was seized by an inexplicable impulse and went after her. He did not even know what he intended to do.
Taking long strides, he overtook the Head Maid in moments, climbed the stairs, and reached the open doors of the Grand Duchess’s chambers.
At that exact moment, a sharp screech tore through the air.
“Get out of my way!”
Varkas turned his head and narrowed his eyes. In the middle of the bedchamber, surrounded by strewn belongings in total disarray, the Quarter Dwarf was wrestling with the maids.
The woman shoved off the young maids trying to restrain her with thick, heavy hands, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“I’m only taking the things my lady brought with her when she wed! Why are you stopping me?!”
“Don’t be ridiculous! What gives you the right to take Her Grace’s belongings without permission?”
“You lot will just drag in some new Grand Duchess anyway! When she arrives, are you planning to hand everything that belonged to my lady over to that woman?”
As she yelled in fury, thick tears spilled down her cheeks.
Snatching out a handkerchief, she blew her nose with a wet honk, then grabbed an armful of dresses from the bed and shoved them blindly into a chest on the floor.
“Do you think I’ll just stand by and let that happen? These were all gifts to my lady from Her Majesty the Empress! I’m taking every last one back to the Empress Palace, mark my words!”
“Since when did you ever care so much about Her Grace!”
One young maid, her face red with anger, caught the Quarter Dwarf by the arm. But she was no match for the dense strength of dwarven blood.
The woman flung the maid off like swatting a fly and resumed raking items together indiscriminately.
Varkas, who had watched the spectacle with a cold gaze, slowly stepped into the room. Only then did the maids realize he was there, hastily ducking their heads.
Passing them without a word, Varkas came to a stop before the Quarter Dwarf and looked down at the chests heaped on the floor. Silk gowns, all sorts of trinkets, metalwork that appeared to be of dwarven make, and gilded books lay tangled in a careless mess.
As his gaze wandered across the pile, it halted abruptly at the hem of a gown that had been crumpled beyond recognition. The woman, clutching an armful of cloth to her chest while watching his reaction, shifted back warily.
Varkas took her wrist in an iron grip, turned, and strode toward the door.
Startled, the woman dropped the clothes and thrashed against him, but her strength was nothing against his.
Dragged helplessly out into the corridor, she collapsed onto the stone floor and glared up with an aggrieved look. Ignoring it, he barked at the guards.
“Send this woman back to the capital at once.”
Then he looked down at her with dead eyes and added,
“You may take your own belongings. But do not even dream of taking anything else.”
“How can you be so heartless?!”
Her lips trembling, the woman could not hold back her rage and raised her voice.
“Do you not care how devastated Her Majesty must have been when she heard my lady had passed? Bringing her daughter’s keepsakes to her is only right!”
In that split second, something seemed to snap behind his temple.
With a hand trembling uncontrollably, he seized the woman by the collar. She choked, eyes widening in sheer terror.
Varkas stared down at her without an ounce of warmth, his voice dropping to a low murmur.
“Leave quietly. If you cause a scene again, you will never see the Empress you worship so dearly ever again.”
The woman’s face drained of all color.
He threw her aside like trash, then jerked his chin toward the maids gathered near the threshold.
“Everyone out.”
Hesitating only for a second, the maids filed out of the chamber like a receding tide.
Once their footsteps faded into silence, Varkas turned back toward the ransacked bedchamber.
The sight of the desolate room bathed in dim light caught in his throat, a suffocating pressure tightening his chest. He walked straight to the side of the bed and began gathering the items strewn across the floor.
He wiped the glass vials of skin water and rose oil she had used and arranged them neatly on the bedside shelf, then folded the gowns scattered over the rug and put them into her wardrobe one by one.
Next, he began returning the jewels piled inside the open chest to their rightful places.
He did not know why he was doing this himself—tasks the maids could have finished in moments.
He simply kept moving his hands without rest, possessed by a desperate compulsion to restore everything she had owned to where it belonged.
After a long while, he came across a curious object buried in a roughly made wooden chest.
His eyes narrowed. Tucked beneath tangled jewelry lay a crude trinket box, the kind a little girl might treasure.
He stared at the gaudy box that seemed so out of place, then dropped to his knees on the floor and carefully pulled it out.
The aged box, scratched all over as if kept for many years, was fitted with an intricate lock. He turned it over in his hands for a few moments, but seeing that it required a key, he began searching through the chest again.
This time, he found an old notebook bound in a worn, frayed cover. Varkas opened it absently and let his eyes scan the page, only for his spine to go cold and rigid.
The handwriting was scrawled and erratic, but he recognized it immediately. It was hers.
[Tiuran suggested I try keeping a journal. She said it might help ease my symptoms.
When I looked at her blankly and said I had no idea what to write, she told me to just write whatever words were circling in my heart. So I’m jotting something down, at least.
Still, no matter how much I think about it, it feels foolish. As if doing this could ever really heal me.]
As Varkas slowly read through the hurried script, his gaze fixed on the date marked at the very top. It had been written not long after he left on his first expedition.
With shaking hands, he turned the page.
For several entries, reluctant, halfhearted sentences trailed on in a monotonous rhythm.
Most were about the young wolf, though every now and then, a line or two mentioned the healer. Terse as the tone was, Varkas could tell she had been slowly opening up to the woman named Tiuran.
[Something Tiuran said today stayed with me all day long. She told me there are wounds in this world that never fade, no matter how many years pass… Why did hearing that bring me so much comfort?
Was it because it felt as though she was giving me permission to hurt for as long as I needed to?
Thanks to her, I think I might be able to forgive myself, just a little.]
Varkas read the lines over and over, his vision blurring, then turned to the next page with unsteady fingers.
Perhaps something had shifted in her heart from that day on, because the entries gradually grew fuller.
It was still less a diary than a monologue of wandering thoughts, but rich emotion had begun to bleed into words that were once utterly barren.
Hardly breathing, he traced the records she had left behind. Then his eyes caught on a line, and everything stopped.
[Khan is growing day by day. Just a few months ago he was like a tiny doll… Now he’s so large I can barely hold him in both arms.
I want to show Khan to you soon. Would you recognize him, too? Would you even believe me if I told you?
No. You’d probably just think I’ve lost my mind.]
Only then did it strike him: she had been writing to someone specific.
His heart hammered against his ribs as though it would break through bone, and cold sweat broke out across his skin.
Suffocated by the grip tightening around his throat, he turned his eyes to the following page.
[Today, you returned.
The moment I saw you from a distance, joy and terror struck me all at once. What horrible things will I spit at you this time? What cruel words will you drive into my chest in return?
I don’t think I’m ready to face you yet.]
He checked the date written at the bottom. It was the day he had returned to Raedgo Castle.
END