Ch#88
As she raised her voice in a burst of anger, a look of disapproval flickered across the faces of the maids waiting on either side. Varkas, however, didn’t even blink.
Sliding his fingers along her temple, Varkas lightly caressed her stinging earlobe. Thalia looked up at him with a flustered expression.
“What—what are you doing?”
“Even your ears have turned red.”
His slightly rough fingertips brushed gently over her auricle. Thalia felt a prickling sensation run down the nape of her neck and hunched her shoulders. Looking steadily into her eyes, Varkas spoke as if to scold her.
“Are you receiving proper treatment? Don’t tell me it’s just sleeping grass again….”
“Are you my nanny or something?”
Thalia pushed him away somewhat roughly. Looking at him dressed so magnificently, she had briefly lost herself, but his attitude—treating her like a critically ill patient—brought a fresh wave of misery crashing over her.
“I’m doing just fine on my own, so stay out of my business. You’ve done a great job of that until now, anyway.”
When she pointed out his total absence over the past few days, his eyes narrowed.
Just as he was about to say something, a grim voice drifted from the inner part of the room.
“How long do you intend to keep me waiting, Varkas?”
Thalia turned her head toward the large bed positioned in the center of the room. A gaunt arm reached out from the wooden bed draped in thin canopies. He crooked a finger arrogantly, issuing a command.
“Bring your wife here.”
Thalia narrowed her eyes. Even if he was the Grand Duke, one did not simply beckon an Imperial Princess to come and go with a flick of a finger.
However, she knew well enough that there was nothing to be gained by picking a fight with the head of the Eastern power players in a room full of them.
She scanned the men surrounding the bed before cautiously stepping into the room. Varkas naturally wrapped an arm around her waist. Biting her lip, Thalia realized he was supporting her.
Did she look like a child in need of protection in this man’s eyes? He had always touched her without hesitation before, but since the wyvern attack, it seemed to have become exceptionally frequent.
“This way.”
Thalia approached the side of the large bed, practically leaning into him. A man with a solemn impression who appeared to be a legal representative and a man in priestly robes quietly stepped aside.
With a tense face, Thalia observed the Grand Duke. The man looked nothing like Varkas, yet there was a strange resemblance nonetheless. While the scent of death clung to his sickly body, authority overflowed from his face—which looked as if it had been hacked out with a rough chisel—and his cold eyes, seemingly forged from molten steel, were filled with arrogance.
He scanned her thoroughly with a sharp gaze before exhaling in a low, heavy voice.
“…You look disgustingly like her. Did that woman create a homunculus of herself?”
The remark was tantamount to questioning her lineage. Thalia threw any intention of being polite out the window.
“If I weren’t of the Darian bloodline, people like you would have exposed that fact long ago,” she snapped back, tilting her chin high.
“Or are you confessing your own incompetence—that you can’t even handle a single lady of the Taren family?”
As if shocked by her counterattack, the sound of sharp intakes of breath could be heard throughout the room. The Grand Duke’s face also went rigid. He glared at her, his needle-like gaze feeling as if it were gouging into her face.
“You are fearless. Do you not realize that I am the man who commands the most powerful cavalry in this Empire?”
Thalia’s face hardened. For a moment, her knees shook under the overwhelming pressure the Grand Duke emitted. However, she maintained her bravado.
“So what? Are you going to trample me with that cavalry or something?”
“Do you think I couldn’t?” the man spat out mockingly.
“Do you truly believe that your authority, which was insignificant even in the Imperial Palace, can be guaranteed here in the East?”
The Grand Duke’s eyes flashed with a chilling light of hostility. He pressed on with rapid-fire words.
“If I decided to take your head right here and now, who could stop me? Do you think the Emperor would risk the Empire fracturing for your sake? Rather than go to war with the East, he would simply close his eyes and pretend not to see. Your mother might make a bit of a nuisance of herself, but even so, it wouldn’t result in me standing in a courtroom. Your authority as a Princess is that trivial.”
Thalia felt her spine go damp with cold sweat. Intense hostility surged toward the man who so casually laid bare the facts she had spent so long trying to deny.
Retreating like a cornered beast, she nonetheless glared at the Grand Duke with venomous eyes.
“Then go ahead and try to kill me! My mother won’t stop at just being ‘a bit of a nuisance.’ She’ll use my death as an excuse to crush the conservative nobles—do you think she’d pass up an opportunity like that? Not a chance.”
Thalia let out a loud, mocking snort.
“Do you know what that means? It means the tiny bit of life you have left will become very, very exhausting. Do you think you’ll find peace after you die? Since you killed a powerless woman over a few words, you’ll be cast into the fires of hell.”
At the excessive curse, the Grand Duke’s face turned white and stiff. Thalia poured out more words without giving him a chance to breathe.
“Do you think your suffering will end there? You’ll spend an especially agonizing time even in hell. Because I won’t leave you alone for even a second! I’ll haunt you day and night to get my revenge, even in the afterlife. I have a very special talent for that sort of thing. If you don’t believe me, just ask Varkas!”
When she glared at Varkas, prompting him to chime in, he was looking down at her with a very strange expression.
When he didn’t immediately take her side, Thalia’s face contorted with a sense of betrayal. As expected, no one could be trusted. This place was nothing but a den of enemies.
After glancing warily at the men with swords at their waists, Thalia turned around. Just as she was about to bolt, Varkas snatched her arm. Thalia jumped.
“Let go!”
Fearing he might be handing her over to the Grand Duke, she struggled, but Varkas let out a heavy sigh and pulled her against his chest.
Thalia stopped breathing. Holding her so she couldn’t move, Varkas spoke coldly toward the Grand Duke.
“I must correct one thing. If Your Excellency attempts to harm Thalia Roem Sheikan, I will be the one to stand in your way.”
Thalia looked up at him with a stunned expression. He finished slowly.
“Are you willing to lose your heir forever over a trivial argument?”
The Grand Duke, who had been staring with his mouth agape in disbelief, contorted his face fiercely. He looked as if he were about to breathe fire at any moment.
However, what erupted from his mouth was not a roar of anger, but a violent fit of coughing. The man, whose gaunt body shook with each cough, eventually gasped for breath and let out a dry laugh.
“This is absurd.”
“…….”
“Do you dare act so insolently because you think I have no other alternative?”
“If you have another alternative, you are free to put them forward,” Varkas said in a chillingly smooth tone.
“I intend to do my utmost to assert my rights. If you wish for the East to split and fight itself, then so be it.”
The deep wrinkles around the Grand Duke’s mouth twitched. After glaring at his eldest son with burning eyes, the man eventually leaned his head back against the headboard as if exhausted. He then held out a hand toward the legal representative.
“Give me the power of attorney.”
The frozen representative handed over the parchment document with trembling hands.
Gripping the quill and signing with a rough hand, the Grand Duke pulled off the ring he was wearing. The legal representative immediately poured sealing wax at the end of the document. After stamping it with his seal, the Grand Duke practically threw the parchment to Varkas.
“With this, all my rights are transferred to Varkas Raedgo Sheikan.”
Varkas accepted the power of attorney with an expressionless face. Lowering his eyelids as if the business were concluded, the man waved his hand dismissively.
“Now, get out.”
