He carefully took the hand resting on his forehead, cupping it in his own before bringing it to his lips. In that instant, her form scattered like grains of sand.
Varkas watched the sight with a hollow expression, a stifled groan escaping his throat.
He gripped the bedsheets as if to tear them, his body trembling violently, before suddenly bolting upright as if seized by a fit. He dashed out of the room on staggering legs and raced down the stairs in one breath. Outside the wide-open doors, a storm of wind and rain raged.
Varkas began to run aimlessly along the muddy path.
The rain lashed his cheeks like blades. It felt as if the entire world had turned into a sharp weapon, flaying him alive.
How long did he run and run through the pain that felt like every nerve in his body was being set on fire? Amidst the dim darkness, he saw the figure of a small girl.
He stared vacantly at the young girl standing in the mud, soaked by the rain, and reached out a trembling hand. But once again, she turned into cold rainwater and flowed silently through his fingers.
Varkas stood frozen, unmoving, before continuing his precarious trek.
He no longer knew what he was searching for. Cold rain and hot tears mixed together, incessantly wetting his cheeks. His broken body continued to pour out pain of unknown origin, and screams he shouldn’t be able to hear echoed in his ears.
He couldn’t admit that this was sorrow. He didn’t want to admit it. Because the moment he accepted that fact, the reality that he had lost her would become final.
‘Varkas.’
At that moment, a wet voice echoed in his ear.
Varkas came to a dead stop and looked around the dark, wind-swept forest. A desolate voice mingled with the howling wind.
‘I want you to be in pain. Very, very much.’
His features contorted.
In truth, you have been hurting me for a very long time. Your words, your gaze—everything about you was a piercing agony to me. This was the result of his struggling to turn a blind eye to that truth.
He slowly closed and opened his eyes.
When he lifted his head, he saw the window of the room where she used to stay. Like a phantom, the shadow of her looking down at him flickered across his retina.
‘Varkas.’
Drawn by the auditory hallucination calling his name, he stepped toward the back door of the main castle.
As he climbed the dark stairs and reached the door to her bedroom, the air—as silent as a tomb—tightened around his chest.
He stood there for a long time as if nailed to the floor, catching his ragged breath, before staggering toward the windowsill where she often spent her time. Beyond the rain-spattered glass, he could see the main gate of Raedgo Castle and the hills stretching out beyond it.
‘I’m getting used to watching you leave.’
Varkas gripped the window frame violently.
His nails cracked and bled under the force. However, the pain in his chest was so extreme that the sensations transmitted through his flesh felt like mere faint noise.
Pressing his forehead against the glass, he stared vacantly at the storm-drenched hills before slowly collapsing to the floor. His eyelids, heavy as lead, fell shut, unable to withstand his physical exhaustion.
He didn’t want to care about anything anymore. Nothing at all…
He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious.
When he forced open his eyelids, which felt as stiff as untanned leather, the worried face of the High Priest and Daren’s rigid expression came into view one after the other.
The High Priest spoke first.
“Your Grace, if you continue to neglect your body like this, you will reach a state where even my recovery magic will be of no use.”
When he didn’t respond, the Priest added in a low tone.
“Your Grace is still young. It may be unbearable right now, but… no wound can withstand the passage of time.”
Suddenly, a harsh laugh escaped Varkas’s lips.
He felt he finally understood why she had found comfort in the words that there are wounds that never disappear, even after many years.
The Priest looked down at him with a troubled gaze as he chuckled and trembled like a madman, finally leaving the room with a heavy sigh.
Daren, who had been standing silently, finally spoke.
“I heard that Her Highness the Grand Duchess did her best to protect this territory until the very end.”
Varkas’s eerie laughter stopped abruptly.
The man avoided his gaze and continued heavily.
“…She wouldn’t want Your Grace to fall apart like this either.”
This was a man who had been consistently negative toward her. Perhaps he felt a pang of conscience mentioning her now as a form of comfort, for his jaw was set tight.
Varkas looked up at him with eyes that had turned cold and moved his dry lips.
“I’m tired. Leave me.”
His voice was so calm it sounded strange even to his own ears.
The man hesitated for a moment before leaving the room.
After dismissing all the servants who were hovering annoyingly, he pushed himself up from the bed. Whether the servants had cleared the empty crates while he was unconscious, the room was now much more neatly organized.
Scanning the room with hollow eyes, he spotted a chest placed in front of the desk and staggered toward it. It seemed they had gathered her remaining belongings that hadn’t been sorted yet.
He stared at it blankly until he noticed a stack of parchment on one side of the desk and paused.
For a fleeting moment, a spark of hope rose that the servants had found something she left behind. However, the papers he snatched up were filled with reports of political upheavals occurring across the continent while he had been out of his mind.
He scanned the documents with an expressionless face.
There was news that the engagement between the daughter of the Bluestone family and the Crown Prince had been successfully finalized, reports that Marquis Oristein was successfully fending off the political offensive of the radical faction centered around the Empress, and that post-war negotiations were entering their final stages.
What all those words pointed to was clear: the situation in the empire was finally stabilizing.
Unless another feudal lord raised a rebellion, Roem would remain steadfast for a long time.
The world without you will move toward a dazzling prosperity, as if nothing had ever happened.
Looking down at the papers with a distant gaze, Varkas couldn’t suppress the surge of emotion within him and tore the parchment to shreds.
Just then, amidst the fluttering fragments of paper, a jewelry box sitting alone on one side of the desk caught his eye.
He stared for a long time at the object she must have cherished for years. Remembering the key he had found in the annex, he staggered to the wall rack to find his still-damp coat.
Rummaging through the pockets, he produced a small key. When he inserted it into the lock of the jewelry box, it clicked, and the lid lifted slightly.
He flipped the latch and carefully opened the box. Inside, it was filled with dried flower petals.
Blinking vacantly, Varkas picked up a single, white-faded petal. The thin leaf crumbled and scattered like ash.
He followed it with his eyes before looking back down into the box.
Carefully brushing aside the petals with trembling hands, he found a neatly folded handkerchief, a small brooch, and a small stone that looked like a raw gem.
A memory flashed vividly, taking his breath away. Fearing the worst, he searched the bottom of the small box. He froze when he found a small button, about the size of a thumbnail, hidden among the dried petals.
As he picked it up with bloodless fingers and held it against the flickering light, the crest of the Roem Knights was faintly revealed.
He touched his lips with a trembling hand. A memory long buried unfolded vividly before his eyes.
A fifteen-year-old Talia, pouring out ridiculous threats that she wouldn’t let him be if he damaged even a single strand of her hair. And himself, patiently enduring her tantrums as he struggled to untangle her hair from his button…
“Ah…”
A harsh groan, like the growl of a beast, tore through his dry throat.
END