Chapter 112
Thalia reflexively studied Varkas’s expression.
A dry wind was sweeping over his cold face, where not even a fragment of emotion could be found.
As if measuring the time, Varkas looked up at the sun wrapped in a thin veil of clouds, then cast a calm gaze at his adjutant.
“Tell the Wolfram Lancers to hurry and prepare to depart.”
“Understood.”
Once Daren withdrew, Varkas turned around without delay.
Thalia merely wet her lips, not knowing what she should say.
Should she comfort him?
But Varkas truly looked unbothered.
Perhaps it was only natural.
He had been sent to the capital when he was only five years old.
There was no way he had any affection for his father.
“It seems we must depart today, unavoidable as it is. How is your physical condition?”
As soon as Varkas stepped into the hall, he suddenly asked the question.
Thalia answered in a tense tone.
“I rested well for several days, so I’m fine now.”
“You have not fully recovered yet.”
His voice abruptly hardened.
“It will be burdensome to travel such a long way with your body still unwell. If your condition worsens, tell me at once.”
After watching his expression for a moment, Thalia weakly nodded.
He climbed the stairs at a pace that was neither slow nor fast.
Beyond the window in the corridor, a cloudy sky was visible.
She thought that perhaps rain might fall at the funeral.
***
The journey back was smooth.
After riding diligently across the open fields, they were able to arrive at Raedgo Castle two days earlier than scheduled.
When the gatekeeper spotted them from afar and loudly blew the horn, the drawbridge was lowered.
The Wolfram Lancers passed through the castle gate without delay.
“Welcome back!”
As they entered the open courtyard, the servants who had been waiting immediately surrounded Varkas.
Watching the scene through the carriage window, Thalia straightened her clothes and went outside.
The maids lined up at the entrance of the hall descended the stairs to greet her.
“You must be tired from the long journey.”
The head maid offered the greeting on their behalf.
Thalia responded only with a slight lift of her chin, then approached Varkas’s side.
Varkas, who had been receiving a report from the chief butler, slowly looked her over.
“It seems I must see my father immediately. Will Your Highness come with me?”
Thalia hesitated for a moment.
Honestly, she never wanted to face that eccentric old man again.
However, she did not want to leave Varkas alone either.
Even though she knew he did not feel sorrow, she still felt that way.
“…I’ll go with you.”
Perhaps it was an unexpected answer, because Varkas silently looked down at her for a moment before nodding toward his younger brother standing some distance away.
“You come too.”
Lucas, who had been standing there blankly with a dark expression, mechanically obeyed his brother’s instruction.
Thalia consciously ignored Lucas and followed Varkas.
As she moved her stiff legs and barely entered the main castle, the scent of myrrh, frankincense, and sandalwood struck her nose.
They were all incense burned for a patient on the verge of death.
“Lucas!”
Just as they were climbing the stairs, a slender girl came running out of the Grand Duke’s bedroom.
“Why are you only here now? I was all alone, and I—!”
The girl crossed the corridor in a breath and threw herself into Lucas’s arms.
The boy, who had been standing stiffly, wrapped his arms around his younger sister’s shoulders with tears in his eyes.
Watching the scene with an uncomfortable expression, Thalia briefly turned her gaze toward the bedroom, where the darkness hung thickly.
Inside the room, where hazy smoke had settled, high-ranking priests and vassals stood in rows.
Varkas strode inside and asked the priest a question.
“How is his condition?”
“…Regrettably, it seems difficult for him to last through the day.”
The old priest, whose gaunt face made it look as though he had stayed awake through the night, spoke in a mournful voice.
“Please prepare your heart.”
As if she had heard the old priest’s words, the girl’s sobbing grew even louder.
Standing awkwardly and shifting her eyes around, Thalia quietly pressed herself to Varkas’s side.
When she cast a cautious glance toward the bed draped with curtains, she caught a glimpse of a skeletal old man.
He looked so aged that it was hard to believe he was the same person who had so viciously lashed out with his tongue.
She had been silently looking down at the man, who had become such a wretched sight in just over a month, for only a short while when someone roughly tugged at her coat.
“Why is this woman here?”
Raina Raedgo Siarkan’s tear-stained eyes gleamed viciously.
“You cursed our father and told him to fall into hell, didn’t you? How dare you show your face here? Get out! I said get out right now!”
As the girl screamed, she violently tried to drag Thalia toward the door.
Varkas firmly pulled his younger sister away and wrapped one arm around Thalia’s shoulders.
Seeing that, the girl’s face grew even fiercer.
“You’re the same, elder brother! You’ve been bewitched by that witch—!”
“Stop it, Raina!”
Lucas hurriedly pulled his younger sister against his chest and covered her mouth.
Raina Raedgo Siarkan, panting with a tearful face, soon buried her face in her brother’s arms and began wailing aloud.
At that moment, a harsh voice like scraping metal rang out.
“What is this commotion?”
Thalia flinched and turned her head.
The man who had lifted his wrinkled eyelids was glaring at them with eyes that looked as though frost had formed over them.
The girl, who had been sobbing, rushed to the bed.
“Father! Are you awake?”
For a moment, the old man looked at his daughter’s face, then moved his eyes and slowly surveyed the room.
Then he found Thalia standing to one side of the room and narrowed his eyes.
She stepped back behind Varkas.
She thought the old man, too, would not want her in this place.
However, unexpectedly, the old man remained quiet.
After staring at her for a long while with dark eyes, the man finally turned his gaze toward his eldest son.
A strange light flashed across his gray, darkened face.
“…I have been waiting for you to come, Varkas.”
A lingering cough cut off the rest of his words.
The old man, breathing raggedly, lifted a hand as thin as a tree branch.
Following that silent demand, Varkas bent over the bed.
The old man’s clouded eyes touched Varkas’s cold face.
At that moment, the old man, who had not lost his harshness even on the threshold of death, crumbled.
“You… must resent me.”
Those words were closer to a certainty than a question.
Varkas neither agreed nor denied it, merely looking down quietly at his father.
A rough surge rose in the old man’s eyes.
He fiercely clenched Varkas’s clothes with his bony fingers.
“Answer me just one thing. In your eyes… what do you see?”
At the sudden question, everyone in the room held their breath at once.
He desperately continued speaking.
“Surely, in your eyes, something… something different must be visible, mustn’t it? Tell me. You must know. What lies after death…”
It seemed as though blood might burst from his phlegm-choked throat at any moment.
The faces of those gathered around the bed turned deathly pale.
The fear of the old man standing on the threshold of death seemed to overwhelm everyone present.
He dragged Varkas closer with desperate force and spat out in a metallic rasp.
“Tell me now! What in the world lies beyond this—”
Only then did Varkas’s tightly closed lips open.
“Nothing.”
Not only the Grand Duke, but everyone else who had been frozen while watching the confrontation between the two men stopped breathing.
Thalia, too, stared at him with bewilderment in her eyes.
Looking quietly down at his father’s pale face, Varkas added gently.
“I see nothing in my eyes. So please calm yourself.”
The corner of the old man’s mouth trembled.
The priest, belatedly coming to his senses, hurried to the bedside and soothed the Grand Duke.
“Your Grace, please cast away your fear. God’s messenger will guide you to the world of rest.”
The old man, who had been staring relentlessly at his heir, soon lost all his strength and went limp.
Varkas, who had been looking down at him with calm eyes, straightened up.
Thalia carefully grasped his sleeve.
Somehow, she felt she had to.
He looked down at her with glassy blue eyes, then turned his gaze back to the bed.
Soon after, the priest began reciting a prayer in a reverent voice.
However, the fear in the old man’s eyes did not easily fade.
The man, who occasionally muttered nonsense and gasped roughly, finally entered eternal rest as the sun began to set.
No comments yet. Be the first to leave a review!