The Forgotten Ground
“Do you truly intend to leave matters as they are?”
As he drew near the door, holding his breath, a low murmur seeped through the wood.
Pressing his head to the seam, he peered inside. Across the sprawling study, a man with faded flaxen hair sat slouched in a velvet armchair.
The middle-aged vassal standing before him spoke with unmistakable discontent.
“Your Grace knows as well as I what beasts are. It may pose little danger now, but in a few years it will be too vicious to control. You must see to it before it comes to that.”
“Dorian.”
The man resting his head against the high back of the chair, parchment in one hand, answered without looking up.
“Must I say it again for you to understand?”
At the quiet, measured voice, the vassal’s shoulders locked rigid.
Turning a page of the document, the Grand Duke added indifferently:
“I will not say this twice. Leave her to do as she pleases.”
“B-but…”
“She will tire of it soon enough. When the time comes, I will deal with it myself. Speak of this no further.”
After a tense hesitation, Dorian bowed his head and slowly turned away.
He drew back from the door at once, slipping behind a stone pillar just as the man stepped into the corridor.
Holding his breath, he watched the vassal’s retreating back until it disappeared, then crept back to the crack in the door. Inside, the man sat with his head tilted back, rubbing the bridge of his nose with tired fingers. He seemed worn to the bone.
He narrowed his eyes.
‘Did I once wear a face like that?’
Brushing back his disheveled hair, the man stared blankly into the empty air, his expression hollow and desolate.
Only seeing it from without did he finally comprehend the truth of what he had felt in those days. Unaware though he had been, that man was suffering.
From the moment he parted from her, not a single day had brought him peace. Yet only after he was gone did she find hers again—just as she had promised she would be whole if only she never laid eyes on him.
The man’s vacant eyes drifted from the ceiling toward the window.
He knew precisely what thoughts occupied that gaze fixed on the moon. He was remembering what it felt like to hold her in his arms.
Leaning heavily on the armrest and pressing his temples, the man at last rose to his feet.
He ducked out of sight at once. For a while, only the draft rattling the casement broke the stillness, followed by retreating footfalls. It seemed the man was retiring to the bedchamber connected to the study.
He waited, hardly breathing, until the silence settled, then nudged the heavy door open and slipped inside. The dark, sprawling contours of the room spread before his sharp eyes.
Sheathing his claws, he crossed the stone floor without a sound and drew up to the desk.
True to a nature that brooked no disorder, everything sat in exacting alignment. Scanning the polished wood, which bore not a speck of dust, he ducked his head beneath the desk and felt out the hidden latch nestled deep inside the recess.
A faint click sounded from the snug lock. He could have wrenched it open by force, but splintered wood would raise an outcry.
Using the tip of a claw, he carefully nudged the fine gears set into the metal plate of the inner drawer. Working delicate clockwork with a beast’s paw proved far more difficult than he had anticipated.
After dozens of painstaking attempts, the shallow drawer finally gave way, revealing a large iron ring strung with keys. He pulled it free, then nudged the drawer back into place with his snout until the latch clicked shut.
This hidden compartment held the spares, kept only for when the active keys went missing. Unless some extraordinary disaster occurred, no one would look here for a long time.
Clamping the iron ring firmly between his jaws, he padded out of the study.
Considerable time had slipped away before he made his way back to her bedchamber.
Stepping past the threshold without making a sound, he lingered on her sleeping face, then slid the ring of keys deep beneath the bedframe.
These keys were a safeguard. With them, he could spirit her out of the castle before the Zramins ever broke through the gates. The hidden escape passage remained an option, but the more paths open to them, the better.
Crawling under the wooden frame, he shoved the ring as far back as it would go. When he emerged, he moved to rest a paw on the coverlet, but caught the smell of dust clinging to his coat and turned toward the window seat instead.
Leaping onto the velvet cushion, he looked out at the full moon casting its pale blue light through the glass. In his mind, the memory of holding her beneath that same sky flared with unbearable clarity. Had he ever known such happiness in all his life?
‘Perhaps all I ever wanted was to reclaim the single happiest moment of my life.’
The line from her diary suddenly flashed through his thoughts.
Perhaps for him as well, that brief season had been the brightest his life would ever see. A truth he could understand only now, when everything was already gone.
Gazing up at the cold moon with an ache in his chest, he looked back toward the bed.
He could never return to that happiness, but she still had time.
She had to find it again.
She had to.
“I hear the Grand Duke leaves for the Northern Border Region again sometime next week.”
Tiuran, gently smoothing mint oil into her legs, let the words fall softly into the quiet room.
Talia, lying back against the pillows with her fingers buried in Khan’s soft coat, went rigid. Pretending not to notice, Tiuran went on casually.
“They say the fighting in the north grows worse. It may be the end of the Season of Wind before he returns.”
“…Did I ask?”
Snapping sharply, Talia pulled her leg from the healer’s hands.
Watching her quietly, Tiuran wiped her fingers with a damp cloth and added with deliberate ease,
“There is to be a small farewell banquet this evening. I only thought it might be good for Your Highness to attend. Forgive me if I spoke out of turn.”
Talia offered no answer and pushed herself upright. Khan, curled tight beside her, scrambled up at the same instant.
Gathering the wolf—heavier with each passing day—into her arms, she stepped into her slippers and muttered sourly,
“It’s stifling in here. I want fresh air.”
“I will accompany you.”
Talia moved toward the door as though she had not heard, but when no footfalls followed, she twisted around and snapped,
“Well? Are you coming or not?”
With a faint smile, the healer lifted a light summer shawl and draped it over Talia’s shoulders.
“Shall we walk toward the Outer Castle today? The warriors are holding promotion matches. It should make quite a sight.”
“Why would I waste my time watching something so crude and noisy?”
“The Grand Duke is expected to be present.”
Talia glared at her. Lately, the healer’s habit of seeing straight through her thoughts had begun to grate on her nerves.
Setting her jaw, she muttered,
“I am only going to glance from afar, then come right back.”
Tiuran’s smile deepened as she smoothed the fabric over Talia’s shoulders.
Holding Khan close against her chest, Talia walked out. As she descended the stairs and stepped outside the Main Castle, the harsh afternoon sun bit into her eyes.
She breathed in the heavy air, thick with green growth and summer bloom, as she crossed the grounds.
After following the paved walk for a while, a thunderous roar broke across the air. Startled, Talia cleared the gate and came to a stop at the top of the stone stairs overlooking the sprawling training grounds. Hundreds of men were gathered in a dense circle around an enclosure on the far side of the field.
Her eyes went wide at the sight of them: bare-chested, their skin burnt dark by the sun, clad only in loose tunka trousers.
In the imperial palace of Roem, matches of rank were conducted with solemn ritual and the full courtesy of chivalry. Knights met clad head to foot in polished plate, and the onlookers observed in their finest dress.
Yet the warriors of the East carried out their trials in an entirely different manner. Stripped of all arms, men strode into the ring and immediately began battering one another with their bare fists.
Talia stepped back in revulsion.
“What… what are they doing?”
“Bare-handed combat. It is the oldest trial of strength among Eastern warriors.”
Talia stared, her mouth parting in sheer disbelief at the barbaric sight.
Just then, a burly man drove a heavily bandaged fist straight into his opponent’s jaw. As the struck warrior stumbled, his senses reeling, the other lunged forward, driving a knee into his belly before twisting his arm violently behind his back. The crowd let out a deafening, bloodthirsty roar.
Talia quickly pressed her hand over Khan’s eyes.
“How hideous… To call such savage brawling a promotion match…”
The sharp complaint died on her lips. In the thick of the men gathered near the fence, she had caught sight of Varkas.
He, too, wore only a black silk tunka draped loosely over his bare shoulders. As she watched, frozen, Varkas shed the garment into the hands of an attendant and vaulted lightly over the rail into the ring.
Talia’s breath caught in her throat. Under the blazing summer glare, his chiseled, pale torso fully exposed to the light, Varkas strode forward to face a man far broader than himself.
END
