Thalia, her face horribly twisted, struck his cheek fiercely.
“You sickening bastard! You won’t be satisfied unless you interfere with me every single time!”
In the darkness, his blue eyes faintly wavered.
But the face looking down at her was coldly composed, as always.
That unshakable composure was horrible.
Thalia raised her nails and scratched down his cheek.
Varkas, who showed not even a hint of flinching, gripped her wrist and looked around the disorderly campsite.
His ice-cold gaze swept in turn over the deathly pale faces of the maids, the flustered faces of the knights, and the woman who was sobbing while clutching her burned cheek.
A dry sigh flowed from his mouth.
“Take her to a healer.”
After indicating the woman with a light gesture of his chin, Varkas soon turned away.
Thalia twisted her arms and legs wildly and screamed.
“Who said you could! That woman is a criminal! Her head must be cut off at once!”
She glimpsed people who had come running after hearing the commotion whispering when they saw her.
But she had no strength left to preserve her dignity.
She shouted loudly enough for the entire campsite to hear.
“You damned bastard! What kind of knight are you!”
But Varkas did not even blink.
Varkas crossed between the tents in silence, went straight into a tent, and laid her down on a wide bed.
Thalia, not even recognizing that she had been brought to his bedroom, was absorbed only in venting her boiling anger.
“You have never properly protected me even once! Always! Always! You let me get beaten to a pulp! You had no intention of saving me this time either, did you? You must have wanted me to die. That’s why, that’s why you left me behind, isn’t it? That’s why you didn’t come to save me right away, isn’t it? I know everything!”
Ignoring her as she shouted at the top of her lungs, he pressed her wrist down onto the bed to hold it in place and forced her hand open.
Blood and pus flowed from her palm, which had been burned red.
Varkas looked down at it with narrowed eyes, then picked up a small glass bottle from the shelf.
When she saw him pour an unknown liquid over her hand, she screamed.
“No! Don’t! I said leave me alone!”
After silently applying medicine to her wound, he wrapped it round and round with a white bandage he had taken from somewhere.
During that time, Thalia had been wildly beating his shoulder with her other hand, but soon exhausted all her strength and let her limbs fall limp.
Varkas, who had been looking down at her with dry eyes, slowly rose.
“I will bring you a sedative.”
Thalia, who had half buried her face in the pillow and was breathing roughly, lifted her eyes and looked at him.
Varkas walked calmly to the shelf installed on one side of the tent and checked the medicine bottles.
Over his straight back, the sight of him running toward Ayla overlapped.
A pain like burning flames rushed over her.
Thalia spat out in a twisted voice.
“Does it disgust you to death that I’m alive and breathing like this?”
She saw the hand wandering over the shelf pause and stiffen.
After standing still for a while, he turned his head so slowly that the movement felt unnatural.
When she faced that refined face, as if every emotion had been distilled out of it, something inside her shattered and crumbled to pieces.
Thalia wore a chilling smile on her lips.
“How disappointing it must be. It was a chance for the woman who was like a thorn in your eye to disappear from this world.”
Tears that finally overflowed soaked her cheeks.
His cold face, too, sank beneath a thin surface of water and became distorted.
He strode over and bent down before her.
A cold glass bottle touched her lower lip.
“Drink. It will make you feel a little more at ease.”
“I don’t need it.”
“.......”
“I no longer need anything you give me.”
Varkas put the bottle down.
Just then, the light of the lamp dimmed, casting a black shadow over his face.
It did not matter.
Even without seeing it, she knew perfectly well what expression he would be wearing.
He would either have an indifferent face, as he always did, or his gaze would be mixed with a little fatigue and irritation.
She turned her back to him.
The man, who had been silently staring at her, eventually left the tent.
Thalia listened to his footsteps growing distant, then lowered her hand and felt her leg.
At the hard sensation like a block of wood, a chill ran down her spine.
Crippled.
She hurriedly drove the word that flashed into her mind away.
That could not be true.
It was only something people who hated her had babbled carelessly.
There were countless excellent healers in the Imperial Family.
If it were Mother, she would surely know many practitioners who used forbidden magic.
Surely, she would fix her by any means necessary.
At that time, she would flaunt her perfect body in front of those who had laughed at her, as if telling them to look.
Thalia clutched her throbbing knee and soon lowered her eyelids.
***
The solemn pilgrimage procession that had begun from the Imperial Family had transformed into a gloomy funeral procession.
The attendants of the Imperial Family wore black robes instead of red surcoats, and the knights, too, wore dull-colored banners over their armor.
The baggage wagons, which had been carrying valuable alcohol, silk, jewelry, and other treasures of gold and silver, were now loaded with thirty-four bodies carefully arranged, and the musicians played funeral songs in low notes at regular intervals.
Thalia, who had been listening blankly to that sound inside the carriage, felt the pain that had been quiet begin to grow severe again and groped for the incense burner.
Inside the brass jar, which had gone cold, only ash was piled up.
Thalia muttered a short curse and struggled to raise her body from where it had been stretched out over the cushions.
Then she opened the box installed beneath the seat and took out a fresh stick of incense.
It was made by thoroughly drying and tightly clumping together ice grass, evening primrose, mandragora leaves, and red fragment flowers.
When she placed it inside the jar and lit it using a mana stone, pale smoke billowed up thickly.
Thalia sprawled back onto the blanket, feeling her mind become covered in a damp, heavy fog.
Since the return procession began, Thalia had spent most of her time intoxicated by painkillers.
When she was submerged in acrid smoke, tomorrow became today, and today became yesterday.
In her half-asleep state, she vaguely recognized from time to time that the mage came to check her condition or that the guard knight came with food and bothered her, but their existence always merely brushed across the surface of her consciousness.
The only one who called her back to painful reality was Varkas.
Looking up at the shadow that appeared after opening the door of the carriage, which had stopped at some point, Thalia narrowed her hazily blurred eyes.
Her carriage, which had occupied the very rear of the procession, had for some reason moved to the upper section and had come under the intensive escort of the commander of the Imperial Knights.
Perhaps he had felt the need to personally monitor her so that she could no longer cause trouble.
Varkas entered the carriage and bent over her as she lay sprawled like seaweed.
She felt cold fingers brush several strands of hair away from her sweat-soaked forehead.
“Burn the incense in moderation. If you keep using it like this, you will develop a tolerance quickly.”
“.......”
She looked into his face as if staring at an old, long-neglected assignment.
The man, who had remained silent as if waiting for her reaction, let out a faint sigh.
“We plan to camp here today.”
The sun had gone down, and the carriage had stopped, so naturally, they were planning to spend the night here.
She had no way of knowing why he was explaining something that did not need to be explained.
Wasn’t he a man who kept silent even when he had to speak?
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