Chapter 163
“I-I do not know the details either, but...”
The maid trailed off with a flustered expression, then continued awkwardly.
“I heard that because of the conflict, he must be stationed near the Balto border for the time being.”
“For the time being... Just how long...?”
Thalia, who had been stammering, stopped and bit her lip.
She was the one who had said she never wanted to face him again.
What right did she have to ask such a thing?
As she stared down at the flowers placed beside the head of the bed with a vacant face, the maid, watching her reaction, mumbled out an answer to the question she had not finished asking.
“I heard there was no exact promise of when, but... that he does not plan to leave the castle empty for long. They said he intends to travel between the castle and the garrison as the situation permits...”
Thalia unconsciously let out a sigh of relief, then realized it and gave a hollow laugh.
She was sick of herself.
As she looked down at the flower buds holding rainwater and let out dry little laughs, Thalia soon covered her stinging eyelids with the back of her hand.
The inside of her eyes prickled as if burning.
She could tell instinctively.
He had left because of her.
Instead of casting her away, he had chosen to leave himself.
Only one question circled endlessly inside her head.
Why are you going this far?
Even if he accepted the Emperor’s proposal and divorced her, no one would blame him.
It had been a marriage no different from a forced one from the beginning.
She knew it too.
Varkas had no reason at all to be blamed by her.
Her crippled leg and the loss of the child were both her own responsibility.
She also knew that she should have said that to Varkas.
You did nothing wrong.
The cause of every misfortune that befell me is myself.
So please, do not feel guilt or responsibility.
Just throw someone like me away.
Everyone does that.
Even the people who gave birth to me did that.
So why do you...
Her chest ached as if it were burning.
She felt that perhaps she was doing something terribly wrong.
But she did not know how to set it right.
She did not even know whether she wanted to set it right.
“Your Highness, are you all right?”
Perhaps her dazed appearance looked concerning, because the maid asked worriedly.
Thalia held her throbbing head and weakly shook it.
“I’m fine. I just...”
Looking at the maid’s face with misty, clouded eyes, Thalia turned her gaze to the window splattered with rainwater.
The rain that had been drizzling during the day was now beating mercilessly against the glass.
By now, he must be walking in that rain.
The thought occurred to her that perhaps he might not have gone very far yet.
Without knowing what she wanted to do, Thalia rose from the bed.
The maid approached with a flustered face.
“W-What is wrong?”
“Bring me my outerwear.”
When she gave the order in a dignified voice, as if telling the maid not to dare defy her, the girl who had been reaching out as if to stop her flinched and froze.
Thalia pressed in a sharp tone.
“Did you not hear me tell you to bring my clothes?”
The maid, looking as if she might cry, hesitantly brought a thick coat.
Thalia wore it over her loose linen dress and went outside, where the dim corridor came into view.
As she limped forward, a large shadow blocked her path.
“Where are you trying to go?”
A young man armed in armor looked down at her with a solemn face.
He was the guard who had begun keeping watch in front of the door like a jailer after the day she had secretly slipped out of the castle.
Thalia glared at him with sharp eyes and said sarcastically,
“Did His Grace the Grand Duke order you to confine me inside the bedroom?”
“His Grace ordered me not to take my eyes off Her Highness the Grand Duchess for even a moment and to protect you thoroughly.”
Thalia’s expression darkened for a moment, then she soon snapped arrogantly.
“Then you can follow that order and escort me. Not insolently block my path.”
Then she tried to head toward the stairs, but the man blocked her way again.
“What I do depends on where Your Highness plans to go.”
The man sent her a stubborn gaze.
“You may freely go anywhere within the castle, but if you intend to go outside, you must have His Grace the Grand Duke’s permission.”
Thalia glared at him with an angry expression.
But the young soldier did not budge.
“I will ask again. Where do you plan to go?”
“I...”
She was about to say she intended to go where Varkas was, but closed her mouth.
She was the very person who had pushed him into leaving.
And yet, what could she possibly say if she chased after him?
Was she going to throw such selfish tantrums, telling him to silently remain by her side even if he became more politically isolated than he already was?
Thalia felt every bit of her will drain out in an instant and spoke like leaking air.
“...I want to go up to the castle wall.”
The soldier, who frowned suspiciously, slowly stepped aside.
Since he had declared with his own mouth that she could go anywhere within the castle, he seemed to have no justification to stop her.
Thalia immediately went down the stairs.
She felt the maid and the soldier quietly following behind her, but without giving them a glance, she left the main castle.
Throughout the time she crossed the wide courtyard, anxious gazes poured onto her, worried that the Grand Duchess might run outside the castle.
Ignoring them, she climbed the stone stairs splattered with rainwater, and the gray meadow covered by a curtain of rain filled her vision.
Perhaps quite some time had already passed since they departed, because the soldiers’ procession was nowhere to be seen.
She approached the battlements and stared endlessly at the field where fierce rain and wind whirled.
Unable to keep watching, the maid carefully suggested,
“Your Highness, you might catch a cold like this. It would be best to go back inside now...”
Thalia looked for a while at the pale face of the girl who was getting rained on for no reason because of her, then slowly turned toward the stairs.
At that moment, a sorrowful cry came from somewhere.
She flinched and stiffened.
At first, she thought she was hearing another hallucination.
Only after seeing the maid’s startled face did she realize that it was a real sound.
“What on earth is that sound?”
“The hunters must have caught some beast’s cubs somewhere.”
At the maid’s question, the soldier looked toward the rear garden and replied indifferently.
“Do not concern yourself with it. Let us go now.”
Thalia pretended not to hear the soldier’s urging and turned toward where the sound had come from.
After moving along the passage on top of the castle wall for a while, the sharp cry, as if filled with fear, gradually became clearer.
For some reason, her heart grew urgent.
She nearly ran down the stairs connected to the rear garden.
A short while later, she found five or six armed soldiers gathered in the castle’s backyard, where bushes and trees grew thickly.
The men who had been throwing something into a small pit stopped what they were doing when they saw her.
“What brings Her Highness the Grand Duchess to a place like this...?”
One soldier hurriedly bowed his head.
Thalia ignored his question and approached the pit.
Three or four blackish wild dogs were lying limp in the mud.
After staring down at them, she threw a sharp question at the soldier.
“What exactly are you doing?”
“We were disposing of direwolf cubs.”
A bearded soldier replied in a sullen tone.
“They are the filthy things that bit to death more than a dozen horses of the grand ducal house all throughout last winter. It seems they finally succeeded in breeding, because plump young wolves were crawling around in the forest. We thought of just killing them, but figured we might at least get a mana stone, so we caught them...”
The man let out a heavy sigh and lifted the limp corpse of a wolf from the ground, then threw it into the pit.
“Maybe because they are still too young, nothing came out even after we cut their bellies open. So we were roughly burying them.”
With a wet splat, the young beast’s corpse sank into the muddy water.
Thalia unconsciously flinched and stepped backward.
Then the cry that had briefly subsided rang out once more.
Thalia whipped her head around and widened her eyes when she saw a soldier taking out a gray bundle of fur from inside a large sack.
The soldier pressed a knife to the beast’s neck.
At the sight, Thalia threw herself forward without time to think.
The soldier who was suddenly shoved let out a short scream and fell to the ground.
Passing by the soldier who looked up at her with startled eyes, she picked up the gray beast that had fallen to the ground.
Then the sound of its grief-stricken howling subsided as if it had been a lie.
Thalia carefully examined the gray wolf, drenched with rain.
Beneath white, shining, downy eyelashes, she could see pale blue eyes.
When Thalia discovered silver fragments within them, she stopped breathing.
“What on earth are you doing?”
The guard who had followed her asked in an irritated tone.
Without even looking at him, Thalia replied,
“I will raise this child.”
It did not matter.
She felt the people around her stir.
They were probably all staring at her as if she were insane.
Perhaps she truly was mad.
She opened her coat and wrapped the small beast in her arms.
The wolf could not take its eyes off her for even a moment.
Finding desperate longing in those transparent pupils soaked with tears, Thalia formed an affectionate smile on her lips.
“From now on, your name is Khan.”
The small ears covered in down perked up adorably.
Thalia looked at that sight with eyes full of joy, then buried her face in the damp fur and murmured,
“Stay with me forever from now on.”
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