Chapter 162
Thalia roughly twisted her wrist to free her bound hand.
At that, the man’s face, which had been smooth as if wearing a mask, twisted cruelly.
“I asked where you were trying to go.”
Varkas pulled her close roughly and muttered through clenched teeth right in front of her face.
Thalia glared at him with hostile eyes.
Her cramped leg cried out with sharp pain, but she used every bit of strength she had to make a composed face.
“What does it matter where I go?”
At that moment, she realized she had completely exhausted his patience.
From his thick throat, where veins had stood out, came a sound like a broken wind instrument.
“Do you even know how dangerous what you did today was?”
His strong fingers dug into her skin.
With his other hand, he gripped her shoulder tightly and emphasized each word as if carving them into her mind.
“Have you even imagined what would have happened if some vile vagrant or criminal had found you first?”
Thalia struggled not to shrink back.
As if trampling that effort, he continued mercilessly.
“Rape, murder, plunder... The fact that none of those happened to you before I found you is nothing short of a miracle.”
“Don’t exaggerate. I only walked around for half a day...”
“Exaggerate?”
Sharp thorns rose in his eyes.
The silver flecks arranged irregularly along the texture of his irises looked like the teeth of a terrifying beast.
“Are you pretending not to know, or are you truly such an idiot that you do not even realize what kind of eyes people look at you with?”
He threatened her mercilessly, like someone determined to insult her.
“Do you think you could survive even a single day outside this castle unharmed?”
“Let go of me!”
“Let us say that, by heaven’s luck, you passed one night without anything happening. What exactly were you planning to do after that? When you are in such pain after walking for only a few hours...!”
“I said let go!”
With a sound like a whip being swung, her palm caught fire.
Only after feeling that stinging pain did she realize that she had slapped his face.
Thalia stared blankly up at the cheek where her handprint remained clear, then slowly distorted her face.
A breath rough as sandpaper pushed up through her throat.
“As you said, this body can’t even walk properly... What does it matter what happens to it?”
More strength entered his grip.
A sinister light also flickered in his cracked eyes.
It was the first time she had seen him look so furious.
Strangely, however, her fear gradually subsided.
She would rather he break her like this.
She spat out her words in broken pieces through her teeth.
“Even if I end up even more ruined than this, I don’t care. Whatever happens to me, it will be better than being by your side.”
For an instant, the light faded from his fiercely shining pupils.
Toward that blood-drained face, she poured out her words as if sick and tired of everything.
“So please, make it so I can’t see you.”
Those words seemed to strip every will to fight from him.
The hand that had been tightening as if to break her bones fell away weakly.
For a long while, only the sound of embers crackling in the fireplace echoed through the suffocating silence, then a dry voice flowed from his dazed, stiffened lips.
“Is that really what you want?”
Thalia opened her mouth to answer yes.
But as if someone were strangling her, she could not utter a single word.
Hot tears rose over her corneas.
As if hiding them, she lowered her eyes and nodded.
“Do you think you will be all right if you do not see me?”
At the low voice pouring down over her head, her heart twisted painfully.
Thalia forced open her tightly closed throat and barely squeezed out an answer.
“Yes.”
He gave no answer.
Thalia shot a resentful gaze at the man sitting still without moving.
Please stop now.
How much more horrible do I have to become before you abandon me?
Thalia stared at his gaunt face, deeply stained with fatigue, as if engraving it into her retina, then squeezed her eyes shut and spoke roughly.
“You said you would grant anything you could do for me, didn’t you?”
“......”
“You have never kept those words properly.”
Her throat choked up, and she had to stop speaking for a moment.
Unable to bring herself to face him directly, Thalia fixed her gaze on her pale knuckles and continued with difficulty.
“So this time, do as I want. I don’t want to face you anymore. Just seeing you makes me feel like I can’t breathe.”
Again, a heavy silence settled.
After sitting without a word for a long while, the man finally opened his mouth.
“...I understand what you mean.”
The man, his face empty as if only a shell remained, slowly rose.
Thalia twisted and clasped the hand that had unconsciously tried to reach out.
When he pulled the doorknob, cool air pushed in and clawed at her wet cheeks.
Soon after, the man disappeared into the darkness.
The click of the door closing sounded like the fall of a guillotine blade.
Thalia, who had been sitting frozen, jumped down from the bed like someone possessed.
She was about to chase after him, but the knees she had overworked gave out weakly.
Sprawled disgracefully on the carpet, Thalia looked down at her legs trembling faintly and let out a hollow laugh.
What exactly was she going to do now, chasing after him?
Clutching her ruined leg, Thalia laughed like leaking air, then soon collapsed onto the carpet as if crumbling.
***
After that day, Varkas no longer appeared before her.
That did not mean he seemed to be preparing to send her to a monastery or the Imperial Palace either.
He merely left her alone, practically imprisoning her inside the room.
Perhaps he had pushed matters concerning her to the back of his mind because he was handling the work that had piled up all this time.
Thalia sat on the windowsill and looked out at the castle courtyard where a sunshower was falling.
The Imperial Palace knights who had been staying at the grand ducal house for a while were mounting their horses one after another.
It seemed they had come to request military cooperation.
On one side of the wide training ground, baggage carts loaded with weapons and hundreds of eastern cavalry warriors were waiting.
After busily moving her eyes among them for a long while, she finally found Varkas.
Thalia pressed her forehead to the window and stared fixedly at the man standing in the rain.
He looked fine.
Watching him give orders to the knights with his usual cool composure, without a single flaw to be found, stirred together emotions she could not tell were relief or pain.
Thalia breathed white mist onto the window and erased his form.
The man who had once fallen apart so terribly before her was gone now.
She had no right to grieve over that fact.
Because she was the one who had pushed him away.
Thalia lowered the curtain over the long window.
Then she went to the shelf, lit the brazier, and placed a handful of dried herbs over the flame.
Feeling her mind gradually melt thickly, she lay on the bed and closed her eyes.
The faint sound of rain echoed through her mind as it crumbled under the drug.
She had no way of knowing how long she remained in that daze.
Thalia came to her senses at a rustling sound and blinked hazily when she saw a maid placing something beside the head of the bed.
A sharp scent of grass mixed into the murky air.
“...What is that?”
The young maid flinched and stared at her with wary eyes.
After Thalia had drugged them and fled, it seemed she had been completely branded as a dangerous person, and the maids’ attitude toward her had grown far more rigid than before.
The maid took one step back and answered hesitantly.
“I-It is marigold. They say it helps calm the mind and body...”
Thalia turned her gaze to the head of the bed.
Inside a transparent glass bottle was a handful of yellow flowers wet with rainwater.
As she stared blankly at them, the maid carefully added,
“His Grace the Grand Duke gave them to us before he left.”
Thalia turned to look at her with shocked eyes.
“...Left?”
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