Chapter 153
Thalia willingly let go of the thread of consciousness.
However, she did not wake in a world of rest.
Thalia woke from a light sleep, feeling a warm, heated wet towel gently wipe across her face and neck, and stared blankly up at the man who looked like a blurred shadow.
He carefully pulled her nightgown down below her waist and slowly wiped along her spine with the warm towel.
Suddenly, the thought occurred to her that this might not be the first time he had cleaned her body like this.
That was how practiced Varkas’s touch was.
Perhaps realizing that she had awakened, he stopped every movement and looked down at her face.
Then, when she showed no particular sign of refusal, he removed the linen tunic down past her legs and thoroughly wiped her sweat-soaked body clean.
Despite how desperately she had tried until now not to reveal her distorted body, Thalia felt nothing.
She only stared at him blankly, unable to understand why he was doing such a troublesome thing.
After dressing her in new clothes in place of the soiled nightgown, he carefully poured water infused with medicinal herbs into her mouth.
Thalia let him do as he wished.
She did find it somewhat bothersome, but refusing and pushing him away felt even more troublesome.
Perhaps knowing that she was tired, he demanded no reaction from her.
He simply held her quietly and fed her water and medicine from time to time.
And occasionally, he called a priest to cast recovery magic on her.
Thalia lay still, waiting for all those bothersome things to pass.
She did not know how much more time flowed by like that.
While she was drifting along the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness, someone came to the room and requested a conversation with Varkas.
Thalia thought the voice sounded somehow familiar, but she could not recall whose voice it was.
The man, barely rising from the bed, stood by the door and spoke with the visitor in a low voice.
She watched his broad back, standing against the light, for a short while, then soon lost all interest and closed her eyes.
“I will go out for a moment and come back.”
Just as she was about to sink back into sleep, Varkas returned to the bed, bent down beside her head, and spoke.
Thalia gave no reply.
The man looked down at her quietly for a while, then finally picked up his outer garment and left the room.
At the same time, three or four women entered the room.
It seemed he had called people to nurse her.
One of them approached the bedside and spoke to her in a gentle voice.
But Thalia could not understand a single word she said.
It felt as if a thick, hazy film surrounded her.
Beyond that pale, formless barrier, Thalia stared for a short while at the ghostlike, blurred figure, then soon turned away as if annoyed.
And she obsessively chased after sleep.
This time, however, she could not sleep for very long.
Thalia opened her eyes with a clearer mind and slowly looked around the room sunk in dark shadows.
Two young maids were dozing in front of the fireplace, and Marisen and her nanny were seated beside the bed.
“Are you finally coming to your senses?”
The healer, who had been decocting medicinal herbs, brightened when she saw Thalia open her eyes and spoke.
Thalia moved her parched lips with difficulty.
“...What happened to my baby?”
Only after asking that question did Thalia realize that she had been swallowing those words all along.
Even amid her haze, she had not been able to ask him that question, and as she silently looked up, waiting for the answer, deep traces of guilt appeared on the healer’s face.
When the woman lowered her eyes without being able to answer, the nanny, who had been sniffling beside the bed, spoke in a tearful voice.
“The stillborn child was buried properly in the backyard of the chapel.”
Thalia looked at her with empty eyes.
The nanny grasped her hand, which had fallen like a dead bird, and stammered on.
“They said it was a boy. If only he had been born safely, he would surely have been a very beautiful baby...”
The nanny, who had been sobbing with trembling shoulders, wiped away her tears with her other hand and gave a comforting smile.
“But do not be too heartbroken. You are still young, my lady, so you will surely be able to have another pretty baby again.”
At that moment, Thalia felt as if she had been stabbed with a blade.
She did not know why those words caused her such pain.
But she could clearly recognize the sharp pain that felt as if her heart were splitting apart.
If half her senses had not been dead, she would have screamed in agony.
Thalia trembled faintly, then pulled her hand out of the nanny’s grasp with difficulty.
“...I want to be alone. All of you, leave.”
“But His Grace the Grand Duke repeatedly told us not to take our eyes off you even for a moment...”
“Get up.”
Marisen coldly pulled the nanny to her feet.
The nanny, looking bewildered, slowly moved away from the bed.
The healer pushed her toward the door and signaled to the maids with her eyes as well.
The girls hesitated for a moment, then also faltered and went outside.
The healer, gripping the doorknob, added in a gentle voice,
“I will be waiting in the room right next door. If you need anything, please ring the bell at any time.”
With those words, silence came.
Thalia buried her face in the cold blanket and closed her eyes.
But her mind only grew clearer and clearer.
Struggling to stop the tremor that felt like a spasm, Thalia suddenly remembered the sleeping herb prepared for emergencies and rose.
She staggered to the shelf and opened the cabinet, where she saw various medicines and bundles of dried herbs.
Among them, Thalia found incense made by grinding and clumping medicinal herbs, then stuck it into a fist-sized brazier.
Then she tilted a candlestick, lit the wick, and waited for smoke to rise.
Soon, a bitter scent spread thickly.
She sank onto the carpet and breathed it in deeply.
Before long, her sharply strained nerves softened dully, and her head gradually grew hazy.
She welcomed the blurring world.
The world was far too sharp.
I wish everything would become as faint as this smoke.
Leaning her back against the bed, she inhaled the acrid smoke even more deeply.
How long had she been like that?
When the whole world began to distort terribly, a strange sound came from somewhere.
Thalia slowly lifted her dizzy eyes.
Inside the room, only the light from the fireplace and the candlestick was blazing wildly.
But the sound that had only shimmered near her ears grew clearer and clearer.
She unsteadily rose and approached the rattling window frame.
The sight of the garden soaked in rain filled her vision.
From beyond the world dyed in inky black, someone was crying pitifully.
Thalia stood still and listened to that crying sound, then turned away as if drawn by something.
When she opened the door and went out, she saw the corridor wrapped in silence.
Beyond the darkness, shadows of those standing guard flickered faintly.
Not wanting to run into them, she set foot on the narrow staircase located on the opposite side.
She did not know how she managed to descend those steep stairs.
Swaying, walking and walking, at some point she found herself standing in the castle’s backyard, being drenched by the pouring rain.
Thalia frowned in confusion.
As her mind calmed, a faint question arose.
Why on earth did I sneak out of the room like a thief?
As she endlessly looked up at the black sky pouring down rain, she once again heard a thin crying sound.
Thalia continued her unsteady steps again, as if tied to an invisible thread.
Cold mud clung stickily to her bare feet.
Perhaps she had stepped on something sharp, because she felt a faint pain in the sole of her foot.
But her legs, having escaped her will, did not stop and continued forward.
How long had she wandered aimlessly through the world submerged in rainwater without knowing where she was going?
Suddenly, she realized she had arrived in front of the chapel.
She looked up at the deathly pale building with vacant eyes, then stepped into the dim entrance.
When she passed through the empty space and went out through the exit on the other side, she saw trees baring their skeletal branches, thornbushes, and a small grave that had not even received a gravestone.
She staggered toward it.
At last, the sound that had been buzzing in her ears stopped.
Thalia blinked her stinging eyes and looked down at the small mound of dirt with a few wilting flowers placed on it.
Only then did she realize the identity of the sound that had led her.
It was the cry of a baby.
Suddenly, a faint laugh slipped out.
She did not know why she was laughing.
Thalia clutched her belly and shook her shoulders, then soon collapsed as if crumbling and fumbled over the dirt mound, which was as cold as ice.
Hot rainwater poured endlessly over the backs of her hands stained with mud.
No.
It was not rainwater.
Only after noticing her vision submerged in tears did she realize that she had not been laughing, but crying.
Thick sobs clung to her throat like mucus.
Thalia clutched her throat as if someone were strangling her, then soon let out a grief-stricken cry as if vomiting muddy water.
The despair she had put on hold poured out all at once.
The world beyond the opaque film shattered into pieces and embedded itself in her frozen skin.
She bent her upper body over the grave as if collapsing.
At that moment, the sound of wet footsteps came.
A twilight-like shadow appeared in her tear-stained vision.
She lifted her empty eyes and looked at the man standing in the rain.
A vapor-like haze rose from the large body wrapped in a wet shirt.
His heaving chest slowly came closer.
Soon after, a pale hand reached toward her.
Thalia knew that hand.
It was the hand that had saved her and, at the same time, cast her into the abyss.
When she moved her body backward as if he had offered her a weapon, the man approaching her stopped moving.
Ice-cold rain completely covered his cold face, which had turned white.
Beyond the curtain of rain, she saw the two eyes that had once shone while holding a silver crown.
But now all she could see was a desolate ruin.
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