As she raised her voice in a burst of temper, a flicker of disapproval crossed the faces of the maids waiting to either side. Varkas, however, did not even blink.
Running his fingers along her temple, he lightly touched her stinging earlobe. Talia looked up at him, flustered.
“What—what are you doing?”
“Even your ears are red.”
His slightly rough fingertips brushed gently over her ear. Talia felt a prickle run down the nape of her neck and hunched her shoulders. Looking steadily into her eyes, Varkas scolded her under his breath.
“Are you receiving proper treatment? Don’t tell me it’s that sleeping grass again….”
“Are you my nanny or something?”
Talia shoved him away with rough hands. Seeing him dressed so magnificently had momentarily unsettled her, but his attitude—treating her like an invalid on her deathbed—brought a fresh wave of misery crashing over her.
“I manage just fine on my own, so stay out of it. You’ve done a splendid job of that until now, anyway.”
When she brought up his absolute absence over the past few days, his eyes narrowed.
Just as he was about to speak, a grim voice drifted from deeper within the room.
“How long do you intend to keep me waiting, Varkas?”
Talia turned toward the massive bed set in the center of the chamber. A gaunt arm reached out from beneath thin canopies draping the wooden frame. He crooked an arrogant finger, issuing a command.
“Bring your wife here.”
Talia’s eyes narrowed. Grand Duke or not, one did not beckon an imperial princess with the flick of a finger.
Yet she knew well enough that picking a fight with the master of the East in a room packed with his vassals offered nothing to gain.
She scanned the men gathered around the bed before cautiously stepping into the room. Varkas casually curved an arm around her waist. Biting her lip, Talia realized he was holding her upright.
Did he truly see her as some fragile child needing shelter? He had never hesitated to touch her before, but since the wyvern attack, the habit seemed to have grown constant.
“This way.”
Practically leaning against him, Talia approached the great bed. A stern-faced man who appeared to be a legal magistrate and another robed in priestly vestments quietly parted for them.
With a tense expression, Talia studied the Grand Duke. The man bore little direct resemblance to Varkas, yet an unmistakable kinship lingered between them. Though the stench of death clung to his wasted frame, authority radiated from features that looked hewn by a blunt chisel, and his cold eyes, forged like molten steel, burned with pride.
He raked his sharp gaze over her from head to foot, then let out a low, gravelly rasp.
“…You look disgustingly like her. Did that woman craft a homunculus of herself?”
The remark was nothing less than an assault on her bloodline. Any thought Talia had of keeping the peace vanished instantly.
“If I lacked the blood of Daria, men like you would have dragged it to light long ago,” she snapped back, tilting her chin high.
“Or are you confessing your own sheer incompetence—that you cannot handle a single lady of House Taren?”
Shaken by her counterblow, sharp intakes of breath hissed through the chamber. The Grand Duke’s features hardened to stone. He glared at her, his needle-like stare feeling as if it were gouging straight into her flesh.
“You have no fear. Do you not know I command the greatest cavalry in this empire?”
Talia stiffened. For a fleeting instant, her knees trembled under the crushing weight of the Grand Duke’s presence. Still, she clung to her defiance.
“What of it? Are you going to trample me with that cavalry of yours?”
“You think I wouldn’t?” the man sneered.
“Do you honestly believe that authority of yours—laughable even in the Imperial Palace—carries any weight here in the East?”
A freezing hostility flared in the Grand Duke’s eyes. He pressed on without pause.
“If I chose to take your head here and now, who would stop me? Do you imagine the Emperor would risk tearing the empire apart for you? Rather than wage war on the East, he would simply shut his eyes and turn away. Your mother might make a nuisance of herself, but hardly enough to drag me into a courtroom. That is how worthless your title as princess truly is.”
A chill soaked the small of Talia’s back. Cold, bitter fury surged against the man who so ruthlessly exposed the truths she had spent years denying.
Cornered like a trapped animal, she still met the Grand Duke’s gaze with venom.
“Then go ahead and try! My mother won’t settle for being ‘a nuisance.’ She’ll seize my death as an excuse to crush every conservative noble—do you think she’d throw away an opening like that? Not a chance.”
Talia let out a mocking, theatrical sneer.
“Do you know what that means? It means whatever scrap of life you have left will be pure agony. And you think you’ll find peace when you die? Murdering a defenseless woman over a few words will cast you straight into the pits of hell.”
Faced with such unbridled malice, the Grand Duke’s skin blanched. Talia gave him no room to catch his breath.
“And you think your torment will end there? Hell will be especially miserable for you. Because I won’t leave you alone for a single second! Day and night, I will hound you in the grave. I have a genuine gift for holding a grudge. If you don’t believe me, ask Varkas!”
When she glared toward Varkas to force him to back her up, she found him staring down at her with a truly strange look.
When he did not immediately take her side, betrayal twisted her features. As expected, not a soul could be trusted. This place was nothing but a nest of enemies.
Talia shot a wary glance at the men with swords at their hips, then spun on her heel. Just as she moved to bolt, Varkas caught her arm. She recoiled.
“Let go!”
Terrified he was handing her over to the Grand Duke, she twisted in his grip, but Varkas merely exhaled a heavy sigh and pulled her flush against his chest.
Her breath caught. Holding her fast so she could not twist away, Varkas addressed the Grand Duke with an icy chill.
“Let me correct one thing. If Your Grace moves to harm Talia Roem Shearkan, I am the one who will stand in your way.”
Talia stared up at him, stunned. He concluded quietly,
“Are you prepared to lose your heir forever over a petty spat?”
The Grand Duke, his jaw slack in disbelief, contorted his face in raw fury. He looked ready to spew fire.
Yet what tore from his throat was not a bellow of rage, but a wracking fit of coughs. As his gaunt frame shuddered with each spasm, he finally dragged in a wheezing breath and let out a brittle laugh.
“Insolent dog.”
· · ·
“You dare cross me because you believe I have no other choice?”
“If you have another candidate, by all means put them forward,” Varkas said, his tone chillingly smooth.
“I will do everything in my power to claim what is mine. If you wish to see the East tear itself apart, so be it.”
The deep grooves around the Grand Duke’s mouth twitched. He glared at his eldest son with burning fury, then finally slumped his head back against the headboard in exhaustion. He held out an unsteady hand toward the magistrate.
“Give me the deed of succession.”
Frozen in place, the magistrate handed over the parchment with trembling fingers.
Gripping the quill, the Grand Duke scratched his signature across the page and wrenched the ring from his finger. The magistrate hurriedly dripped molten wax onto the foot of the document. After driving his seal into it, the Grand Duke nearly hurled the parchment at Varkas.
“With this, all my authority passes to Varkas Raedgo Shearkan.”
Varkas took the document without the slightest shift in his expression. Lowering his heavy lids as if the matter were entirely finished, the old man waved them away.
“Now get out.”
END