Chapter 152
However, there were few mourners.
Since the Grand Duchess had not yet regained consciousness, there were few who paid attention to the blood clot that was far too small to be called a person.
Amid complicated emotions, he took another sip of wine.
After the chaos broke out, his brother had shut himself inside his bedchamber and only opened the door to come out after the Grand Duchess’s bleeding had stopped, in order to confirm the dead child.
Lucas, who had rushed over after hearing the news belatedly to check the situation, shuddered as he recalled Varkas’s face from that moment.
The man had looked for a long while at the small blood clot wrapped in swaddling cloth with empty eyes, as if every emotion had evaporated.
Only after a maid burst into tears with a terrified face did he order them to bury the child properly with due formality and turn away.
His demeanor had been calm enough to send chills down the spine, but Lucas felt a cold shiver run down his back.
It was because, in his brother’s face as he passed by, he had discovered a gloomy shadow one might see only on a decapitated corpse.
The man, his face lifeless as if he had poured out all the blood in his body, went straight back into the bedchamber and shut the door firmly.
And for the past three days, he had silently stayed beside his wife, who was in critical condition.
There was a mountain of work that needed the Grand Duke’s approval, but no one dared even think of knocking on that door.
There was no one who would thrust official documents at a man who had not only lost his first child in vain but was also on the verge of losing his wife.
However, at a time when the threat of war was approaching by the moment, they could not simply sit back and wait forever.
“If Brother does not come out of the room by tomorrow... I will have to force my way in somehow.”
Lucas, who had been saddled with that painful role, let out a heavy sigh and took another drink of strong liquor.
At that moment, a clear voice sounded from below the castle wall.
“What are you doing in a place like that?”
Lucas turned his head and frowned when he saw Raina entering through the castle gate while leading a chestnut stallion.
As if she had once again secretly slipped out of the castle and was now returning without even a guard, Raina had her hood pulled low.
She stopped in front of the stairs connected to the castle wall patrol path and looked up at him as if he were pathetic.
“Do you have nothing else to do but brood up there?”
“What about you?”
Lucas wet his lips with wine and replied indifferently.
“Where are you coming back from, even bringing a horse in this weather?”
“I came out on purpose because I hated being inside the castle. I was sick of seeing all the servants in the castle walking around with long faces, as if something terrible had happened.”
At his younger sister’s harsh tone, Lucas flinched and stiffened.
He knew Raina harbored hostility toward the Grand Duchess.
But he had not known she would show such a cruel attitude toward something so tragic.
Lucas spoke reproachfully.
“The Grand Duchess is lying sick in bed right now and has not even regained consciousness. Can’t you show at least a little sympathy?”
“Has that woman ever shown sympathy to our father or me? Then why should I?”
Perhaps hurt by his accusatory tone, faint moisture gathered in Raina’s large reddish-brown eyes.
As if hiding it, Raina widened her eyes and snapped sharply.
“Don’t act like a hypocrite, Lucas. Aren’t you the one who is secretly happiest that things turned out this way?”
Lucas looked bewildered.
“What on earth is that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. Right now, you are the only heir of the grand ducal house. Maybe you’ll remain the heir from now on too.”
A crooked smile hung on his younger sister’s lips.
“With that woman’s body, there was no chance of her giving birth to a healthy child in the first place. Unless Brother takes a new bride, you or your child will inherit House Siarkan someday, won’t you?”
He looked down at his sister as if looking at a stranger.
Though she had forceful and self-willed sides, she was not someone with such a heartless personality.
Had their father’s death shocked her that deeply?
He stared intently at his sister’s face with narrowed eyes.
After their father died and even he began full-fledged training, perhaps Raina had felt isolated, as if she had been left alone.
The sorrow of being pushed outside everyone’s attention had made her harbor malice.
For a moment, he fell into deep conflict.
He felt a desire to accept his younger sister’s childishness, but he was afraid she would stray even further.
They were no longer immature children who could be forgiven no matter what they said.
“I have no desire to become Grand Duke, nor do I possess the ability for it.”
Hoping his sister would come to her senses, he deliberately added coldly,
“I’m truly disappointed, Raina. I don’t like that woman either... but I still think she is pitiful. Isn’t that basic human decency? I truly didn’t know you were such a heartless person.”
“I’m the one who’s disappointed, Lucas. I didn’t know you were such an idiot.”
Raina shot back with a venomous face.
“Do you think I’m the only one thinking this right now? The vassals are whispering behind the scenes too. If that woman ultimately cannot produce an heir, then there will be no choice but to bring in a new lady of the house or place expectations on you.”
Lucas lost his words and closed his mouth.
Raina glared at him as if mocking him, then tugged on the horse’s reins and turned sharply.
“Come to think of it, Daren was looking for you at the training ground.”
Then, as if the thought had suddenly occurred to her, she shouted over her shoulder.
“The Noble Alliance council will be held soon, and he said he wants you to attend in Brother’s place as the representative of House Siarkan.”
“......”
“Go quickly. There’s no harm in making your face known to the Noble Alliance members in advance.”
After throwing out those barbed words, Raina leisurely walked toward the stable.
Lucas watched her back with a dazed face, then felt the rain that had been gradually subsiding grow heavy again and pulled at his hood.
When he lowered his gaze between the battlements, the cemetery in the rain came into view.
The maids who had been offering condolences had already left.
He silently looked down at the bundle of pale lilies placed beside the small grave, then turned away with a bitter sigh.
His mouth tasted bitter, as if he had swallowed ashes.
***
A faint pain pierced through her hazy consciousness.
Thalia barely opened her eyelids, which clung together as if coated with glue and refused to separate.
In her pale, blurred vision, as if she were submerged underwater, the scenery of the room soaked in bluish light came faintly into view.
For a brief moment, she thought she had had a long and painful dream.
Then, only when she felt her sunken belly beneath the palm she had casually lowered did she realize she was inside a nightmare called reality.
“Thalia.”
As she blankly stroked her throbbing belly, someone gently wrapped a large hand around her head.
Only after a long while did she realize that someone was quietly holding her from behind.
Unconsciously turning her head, Thalia found the man she had longed and longed for during half of her life and slowly blinked.
She saw those beautiful eyes that had always made her heart ache just by looking at them.
But Thalia could feel no emotion.
It was as if she had died while still alive.
Perhaps I really have become a corpse.
“Thalia.”
As if denying that thought, a clear voice rang out beside her head.
It was a strange, strange voice.
As if a child who had just learned to speak was blindly repeating the same word.
“...Do you recognize me?”
When she showed no reaction, the man tilted his head and looked into her eyes.
His gray hair, which had grown noticeably longer over the past few months, tickled the corner of her eye.
Thalia stared blankly at that sharp face shadowed by a bleak darkness, then slowly lowered her eyelids.
“It’s cold...”
The man did not miss the voice that slipped out like leaking air and wrapped her body tightly in a thick blanket.
But she could not feel any warmth at all.
It felt exactly as if she were buried beneath a cold mound of dirt.
Thalia wondered why she knew how that felt.
Then, suddenly, she remembered that she had once been buried under stones and dirt.
A strange thought came to her that perhaps she had been there all along since then.
Was that not so?
There was no way that her marrying Varkas, becoming his wife, carrying a child, and then losing that child so pointlessly had truly happened in reality.
She had only been trapped under a mound of dirt, rotting away while lost in vain fantasies.
Thalia could feel a single tear flowing down her cheek.
Yet her heart itself was strangely still.
It felt as though her mind and body had been completely separated.
Reality and dreams, past and present, tangled together chaotically until she could no longer think clearly about anything.
Feeling dizziness slowly sweep over her, she quietly closed her eyes.
She thought that if she fell asleep this time, perhaps next time she would open her eyes beneath the cold mound of dirt.
Perhaps that would be better.
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