Chapter 143
Long, elegant fingers skillfully picked out the red fruit that shone like jewels.
As she kept accepting and eating them, she carefully studied his face reflected in the firelight.
Even while caring for her attentively, as if tending to a baby bird, Varkas still wore that mask-like face that made it difficult to know what was inside him.
Before, she had been dying of curiosity about what lay beyond it.
But now, she no longer cared either way.
Thalia placed a hand on her lower abdomen and pressed it lightly.
Beneath the thin layer of skin, she could feel her uterus beginning to swell tautly.
When she first learned of the pregnancy, she had not been able to relax for even a single moment, afraid that something might go wrong with the child.
After learning that she had difficulty conceiving, she had been even more anxious.
If her lower abdomen so much as pulled a little, fear would surge up that something might have happened to the child, and every tiny change in her body felt like an ominous sign.
Unexpectedly, the one who reassured her was a healer of House Siarkan.
Perhaps because she had experienced losing a child in the past, Tiuran knew better than anyone what needed to be avoided.
At first, Thalia had been somewhat uneasy about her, but gradually, she came to take the woman’s advice seriously.
After all, if something went wrong with the child, Tiuran’s own life might be at stake, so surely she would not make the same mistake again.
In any case, the knowledge of the eastern healer proved quite useful, and thanks to it, Thalia slowly regained her stability.
And once she had room in her heart, she was finally able to focus fully on the child’s existence.
“At this size... would it be about the size of a fist?”
As she nibbled on the pomegranate seeds he handed her, Thalia carefully traced the outline of her slightly firm lower abdomen.
It was only a child she had conceived out of necessity.
If she gave birth to an heir for the Siarkan grand ducal house, even the East would not dare cast her aside, and she had calculated that even if Gareth ascended the throne one day, the child would serve as her shield.
She had never imagined that a being she carried solely for her own protection would become this fascinating to her.
Thalia pictured the tiny life growing inside her belly.
Would it be small and cute like a child of the fairy race?
Perhaps by now, it might even have hair or eyes.
If so, what color would they be?
Perhaps it would have dark blond hair and deep blue eyes like hers.
Or perhaps it might have pale blond hair like Varkas, with blue-gray eyes scattered with silver fragments.
Whichever it was, it would surely be the most beautiful being in the world.
Her curiosity swelled day by day.
Thalia was curious about the baby’s appearance, voice, personality... everything.
To the point that she could think of nothing else.
Even Varkas, who had always occupied most of her thoughts, had been pushed to the back.
“Hey. What will you do if a girl is born?”
Thalia, sunk in a languid daydream as she chewed the pomegranate seeds he gave her, suddenly asked.
Varkas, who had already fed her an entire pomegranate and was picking up a new one, glanced at her.
His brow narrowed gravely.
It was the face of someone who had never once thought about the child’s gender.
Suddenly, anxiety rushed over her.
Was Varkas not as curious about this child as she was?
Now that she thought about it, although he often placed her on his lap and stroked her belly, he had never said anything about the child.
Perhaps his interest was directed solely at the heir who would succeed him.
As if driving a nail into that fear, Varkas murmured in a low voice.
“...I do not even want to think about it.”
Thalia froze in shock.
Varkas looked down silently at the knife he had been using to peel the pomegranate and quietly added,
“If she takes after you, all sorts of vermin will swarm around her. Just dealing with them alone will be no ordinary task.”
Thalia unconsciously hunched her shoulders.
Rather than anger at his troubled murmur, worry rose first.
If a girl who resembled her was born, then as he said, she really might become the target of every kind of beast.
A kind of fear she had never experienced before surged in at that thought.
Thalia abruptly sat up and spoke urgently.
“Then you have to protect her thoroughly. It’s your role to stay by her side and protect her all the time so no one can harm her.”
Varkas turned to look at her, lines forming at the corners of his eyes.
He seemed puzzled as to why she was demanding something so obvious.
He nodded calmly.
“Of course, I intend to do that. Until I find a trustworthy husband for her, it is the duty of the head of the family to protect and care for his daughter safely.”
“Don’t say ridiculous things. I’m never letting her marry.”
Suddenly, there was an edge in her voice.
Thalia raised the corners of her eyes and glared at him, then wrapped both arms around her belly as if someone might steal the child away and cried out sharply.
“I’m going to keep her with me for the rest of my life. I will never, ever send her anywhere.”
Varkas’s eyes widened slightly.
Only after seeing that did she realize that tears had mixed into her voice.
She did not know why her eyes had suddenly grown hot.
Biting down hard on her trembling lips, Thalia soon began to spill out the thing caught in her throat.
“I will never leave my baby alone in an unfamiliar place. I won’t let her tremble in fear among people she doesn’t know, and I won’t make her swallow loneliness alone. Always, always, I’ll stay by her side. I’ll hold her every night and keep her safe.”
The words that flowed out like a lament became almost sobs by the end.
Before she could even feel ashamed of that, something like a fireball kept surging up inside her.
Frantically pulling at Varkas’s sleeve, Thalia pressed him.
“You have to do the same.”
Beyond her overflowing tears, she could faintly see his stiffened face.
Thalia shook his arm and urged him to answer.
“Hurry and say you will.”
The man, who had not moved as if flustered by her sudden tears, set down what he had been holding almost as if throwing it aside and climbed onto the bed.
Thalia sat on his lap as if it were only natural.
Long, firm arms immediately wrapped around her back.
“I will do so.”
His heavy, sunken voice fell over the crown of her head.
Thalia clutched his clothes as if she would tear them and stared straight into his pale blue eyes.
“Can you swear it?”
“I swear.”
“You promised me. No matter what happens, you’ll protect our baby.”
A calloused thumb wiped the tears from the corner of her eye.
A slightly roughened voice poured down over her forehead.
“Yes. I will do everything as you say, so stop crying.”
Thalia moved her lips.
She wanted to press him even harder.
You must always put our child first.
Even before Gareth, even before Ayla.
She swallowed the words that had risen to her throat.
If, by any chance, he hesitated in answering, she felt she would not be able to bear it.
Thalia swallowed her sobs tightly, then wrapped her arms around his neck and poured the rest of her old, lingering sobs onto his shoulder, which was as hard as rock.
“Even if it’s a boy... I’m going to keep him with me. I won’t send him to the Imperial Family or to the Great Temple.”
She felt the hand wrapped around her back tighten sharply.
Varkas murmured in a heavy, sunken voice.
“Yes. Whether it is a daughter or a son, let us keep the child with us for life.”
For some reason, those words made her sorrow surge even more.
Thalia rubbed her wet cheek against the tautly swollen side of his neck.
Varkas gently patted her back.
It was a touch that seemed to promise that everything would get better, that there would be no more painful things or sorrowful things.
Thalia desperately wanted to believe that promise.
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