Chapter 110
“Since this happened because of a healer of House Siarkan, this much is only proper.” Lucas’s complexion darkened. When he thought of Tiuran, who was under confinement in a solitary room, one corner of his heart grew complicated.
“What kind of punishment do you think Tiuran will receive?”
“Who knows? Since Her Highness woke safely, it will probably stop at imprisonment.”
Daren replied in an indifferent tone.
“That woman had heavenly luck. If the Grand Duchess’s condition had been more serious, she would have had to go to the gallows.” Lucas frowned in discomfort.
Tiuran was a vassal who had served House Siarkan loyally for more than ten years. A slight sense of resistance rose in him toward Daren, who spoke so casually of her death.
“It happened because that woman is excessively frail. Do they really have to punish her that harshly?”
“Young Master Lucas.”
A warning tone settled in Daren’s voice.
Daren tossed a leather pouch filled with silver coins to a peddler and dragged Lucas to one side of the hall.
“I know very well that you hold resentment toward the Grand Duchess. But stop openly showing hostility.”
“I don’t really......”
“Are you not worrying more about the circumstances of a mere healer than about the Grand Duchess’s health?”
He spoke as if scolding him.
“She is His Majesty the Emperor’s daughter and the mistress of this East. By principle, the mere fact that someone harmed her would be enough to warrant the severest punishment. Stopping at disciplinary confinement is a very generous measure.”
Lucas stared hard at Daren’s face.
“Do you acknowledge the Second Princess as the mistress?”
“What does it matter whether I acknowledge her or not? It has already happened.” Daren said, shrugging his broad shoulders.
“It is not as though we can now undo a marriage arranged by His Majesty the Emperor. Whether we like it or not, we have no choice but to accept it. Right now, strengthening the unity of the East is the more important matter.”
Lucas met Daren’s serious eyes heavily.
While following Varkas around various eastern regions, he too had felt something.
The influential figures of each region were absorbed only in solidifying their own power and were neglecting public security, and as a result, raiders were rampant all over the East.
There were competent administrators as well, but even they took a subtly cautious attitude rather than offering unconditional loyalty to the new Grand Duke.
Just as Tyrone had warned, the order of the East was silently collapsing. Perhaps they should be grateful that a powerful new leader named Varkas had appeared.
Having reached an unwelcome conclusion, Lucas lowered his eyes with difficulty, rebellion lingering in them.
“I know that too.”
Still, not wanting to be treated like an obedient child, he added sharply,
“I only have to behave while my brother is disciplining the eastern nobles, right?”
“Please, just do that.” Daren growled like a bear.
Lucas did not back down and showed a smile full of sarcasm.
“I’m already doing that. Didn’t you see me dodging around like a sewer rat to avoid running into that woman? I’m keeping my head down even in front of my brother.” As if he did not quite agree, Daren raised his thick eyebrows.
He crossed his arms in front of his chest, bent his back, and sent him a threatening look.
“That alone is not enough. Please show proper courtesy to the Grand Duke and Duchess even in official settings. If you keep making rude remarks like that, the discipline of the East will......”
“All right. I said all right. So stop nagging.” Lucas, fed up, hurried up the stairs.
Beyond the railing, he could see Daren glaring fiercely at him.
Lucas gave him an exaggerated snort, then ran down the corridor. Then, when he discovered a group of maids, he came to an abrupt stop.
The Grand Duchess’s attendants were carefully carrying trays filled with dozens of different dishes.
“She really is a queen in all but name.”
Lucas twisted his mouth cynically, then suddenly frowned.
He did not know why he felt this hostility toward that woman. Strictly speaking, had he not been the one who crossed the line first?
He irritably swept up his hair.
Lucas was also aware that he had been vile.
However, when he recalled the moment he had argued with that woman, irrational anger rose before guilt. Perhaps it was because of the way she had looked at him.
She looked at me exactly as if I were a bug.
The moment he met those eyes, as though she were looking at the most repulsive thing in the world, he was swept up in an ugly impulse he had never felt before in his life.
He wanted to break that arrogant woman.
He wanted to make her cry miserably.
Such low desire boiled up in his blood, and he could not control himself.
As Lucas traced back that intense impulse from that time, he felt nauseated and turned away. A terrible realization crossed his mind: perhaps the reason he avoided her was not only because of Varkas’s warning.
If he stayed close to that woman, he felt he would witness something filthy within himself that he absolutely did not want to face.
As if shaking off that unpleasant premonition, he hurried out of the dim corridor.
***
“One more bite.”
Thalia stared at the man holding out a spoon as if she were looking at a two-headed monster.
Could it be that some wicked nightmare demon had put on Varkas’s shell and was pretending to be him?
Whether he knew she was observing him with that suspicion or not, the man urged her in his usual indifferent tone.
“What are you doing instead of eating?”
“That’s enough. I don’t want to eat anymore.”
“Just one more spoonful.”
“I said I don’t want to.”
When she sharply turned her head to avoid the spoon hovering near her lips like an annoying fly, he cupped her chin with his other hand.
Thalia, whose head had been forcibly turned, glared at him with a flushed face.
But Varkas did not even blink.
“If you eat only this, I will let you have the fruit Your Highness likes for dessert.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! I don’t want to eat this or that......!” The spoon pushed between her lips, which had opened to protest.
Thalia’s eyes widened in disbelief.
He pressed down on the tip of her tongue with the spoon as if telling her to hurry and swallow.
In the end, she ended up gulping down the mushy thing. At the dreadful sensation of the slippery porridge sliding down her throat, her face naturally twisted into a grimace.
She shot him a venomous look.
Whether she did or not, Varkas rose from his seat with a relaxed face and removed the bowl.
At his overly natural behavior, another suspicion raised its head this time.
He was a man who had spent his entire life being served by others. A man who had never bowed his head to anyone except royalty. So why was he so skilled at serving a meal?
“Have you perhaps fed someone before?” Thalia suddenly interrogated him, narrowing her eyes.
Varkas, who had been arranging the bowls of food on the tray, cast an indifferent glance over his shoulder.
Soon, a calm reply came back.
“Until I was sick of it.”
Thalia stiffened in shock, and in the next moment, her eyes sharpened. It felt as if all the food she had shoved into her stomach might surge back up.
She forced a smile onto her twitching face.
“How unfortunate. To abandon the fiancée you devoted yourself to that much and end up playing nurse beside a woman like me......”
“Her Highness the First Princess was not someone who required this much care.” Varkas, who had placed the tray by the door, spoke indifferently.
“The one I fed was not a person, but a horse. Tork as a foal was even more troublesome than Your Highness.” Thalia looked utterly dumbfounded.
She could not tell whether she should feel relieved by his words or get angry.
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