TFM 241

 Serves you twins right 🤭

Tears welled once more in her eyes, dazed with shock.

The woman stood there blankly, not even thinking to wipe away the streams running down her face, and moved her trembling lips.

“Why… why are you being so cruel to me?”

She shouted as though demanding an answer, sending him a resentful glare.

“We have known each other almost our entire lives. Through all those long years, you were always kind to me. So why have you changed like this?”

He frowned.

Had he ever been affectionate enough toward this woman for her to question him like this?

He searched through his hazy memories.

Although it had been nothing more than an imitation of Bernadette, it seemed he had tried, in his own way, to treat this woman well. Whatever else she was, she was the younger cousin he had watched over since she was three.

Politically, too, an alliance had been essential. His judgment that maintaining a smooth relationship was reasonable had been the main reason, but it was also true that he had tried to treat her with sincerity as his fiancée

When had he become unable to maintain such a warm attitude any longer?

For the first time, he felt doubt toward the state of his own emotions.

When, exactly, had Ayla Roem Guirta become this unbearable to me?

“At the very least, let us make sure that child’s body is properly recovered so she can be given a funeral.”

At the memory that flashed through his mind, his thoughts came to a halt.

He lowered his gaze to the leather pouch in his hand.

A strange humming rang through his fog-filled mind. Instinctively shutting out that wretched ringing, as though one side of his brain were being crushed, he turned his gaze back to the woman’s face.

A merciless voice slipped out of him on its own.

“If you are done whining, would you please leave now?”

The woman’s eyes went hollow with shock.

She staggered back one step, looking down at him as though she could not believe it. Then, rage entered her eyes.

“Is it because of that girl?”

“……”

“Truly… because of that girl… because of Thalia Roem Guirta, you are doing this to us?”

Something contained in that voice trampled mercilessly over what little remained of his reason.

He shot up from his seat. The princess, feeling instinctive fear, flinched and stepped back. Varkas slowly approached her and cast a dark shadow over her face, which was drenched with tears.

“I thought you were smarter than Gareth… but it seems that is not necessarily the case.”

The woman now looked almost as though her soul had left her body. He could see her bloodless lips stiffen rigidly.

She was a woman who had grown up being worshipped all her life. This was probably the first time she had ever suffered such humiliation.

Seeing her pale face, as though she could not possibly believe what she had just heard, made something inside him twist even more violently.

He added in a low voice, right to the woman’s face.

“How many times must I tell you to leave? Are you siblings so desperate to take turns being strangled by my hands?”

“V-Varkas…”

“I will say this one last time.”

His rough voice, mixed with a metallic rasp, rang out ominously.

“Get out.”

Her eyes, which had always shone with effortless confidence and gentle composure, clouded with fear, shame, and humiliation.

For a long while, the woman stood frozen in place, staring up at him as though petrified. At last, she forced out a cracked voice.

“I… I understand… what you mean.”

As though gathering the last of her self-control, she pulled the shawl around her shoulders tighter with trembling hands and turned sharply away. Then she walked toward the door with unsteady steps.

Even then, the way she wiped the tears from her wet face and hurriedly composed her disheveled expression, as though trying to preserve her dignity, seemed almost admirable.

The princess, desperately pretending to be her usual dignified self, finally left the room.

When the sound of the door closing rang out, Varkas walked to the side of the bed and picked up a wine bottle from the display cabinet.

After pulling out the cork, he poured the strong liquor into a silver goblet and downed it in one breath, into a throat that burned as though he had swallowed coal.

He wished something would take his consciousness away again.

In an instant, he emptied one bottle and took out another. Then, hearing a strange sound, he looked past the windowpane as it darkened into black.

The wind was howling as it struck the glass.

Was it only his imagination that a faint sobbing sound had mixed into it?

He walked toward the window.

A deep, dark night was settling in, so black he could not see even an inch ahead.

The imperial delegation hurriedly left Laedgo Castle the following day.

They put forward the excuse that they were hastening north to discuss postwar recovery after the end of the civil war, a peace treaty, and a marriage proposal, but in truth, their departure looked no different from being driven out.

At the openly poor treatment, the faces of the crown prince and princess, as well as their attendants, flushed red.

The grand duke did not even perform the bare minimum courtesy of showing his face on the day the crown prince left the castle.

As though enraged by such disrespect, the crown prince ground his teeth and issued a threat in a rough, arrogant voice.

“Tell the grand duke I will return soon. When that time comes, I will not overlook his insolent attitude as I have today.”

The vassals of House Siorkan, who had gathered in the training ground to send off the crown prince, bowed in unison. However, they showed no reaction whatsoever to the crown prince’s furious command.

Reading their strong defiance in that cold attitude, the crown prince shot them a burning glare before abruptly turning his horse around.

After the crown prince’s party departed, a heavy silence settled once more over Laedgo Castle.

Unable to withstand the insistence of his vassals, Varkas was pushed away from all official duties and confined himself inside his room.

Now that he had nothing to do, he spent long hours burning strong sedatives in an attempt to sleep, or pouring down liquor that was little different from poison.

Whether those efforts had borne fruit, or whether his insomnia had been a lie all along, he was able to spend most of each day inside dreams.

In his dreams, he was still serving as her royal guard.

Whenever the laughter of that mischievous girl, busy plotting some scheme to make a fool of him, tickled his ears, he wished he would never wake again.

But once the medicine wore off, cold reality swallowed him once more.

There was gradually a limit to clouding his mind with medicine and alcohol. As the days passed, the amount of medicine needed to put him to sleep only increased, while his worn-down mind, rather than growing dull, became sharper and sharper.

He sought stronger and more toxic drugs.

But at some point, no medicine would grant him the refuge called dreams anymore.

Now, all that remained to him was a bloodless, pallid face and nights like an abyss.

Unable to endure the strangely slow passage of time any longer, he finally raised himself from the bed.

If he did not do something, he felt as though he would go mad. No—perhaps he had already gone mad.

He shook off the servants trying to stop him and calmly began dressing himself.

Beyond the mirror, a man no different from a half-dead corpse stared back at him with gloomy eyes.

Ignoring the specter with eyes like ruins, he dressed as usual, neatly fastening his shirt before putting on his coat over it.

Just as he was about to leave the room, he sensed a cautious presence beyond the door.

“Your Grace, I came because there is something urgent I must tell you. May I have a moment?”

It was the head maid’s voice.

Varkas immediately pulled the door open. The woman standing outside flinched and stepped back. Looking down at her blankly, Varkas opened his mouth in a calm voice.

“What is it?”

“I apologize for disturbing your rest. However, I thought Your Grace should know…”

The woman, who had looked momentarily flustered, soon bent at the waist with composure and spoke.

“Her Grace the Grand Duchess’s nanny says she will now return to the imperial palace, and is packing her belongings.”

Varkas showed no particular reaction and only stared vacantly at the woman’s face.

The head maid added in an anxious tone,

“But that woman is even taking Her Grace the Grand Duchess’s keepsakes as she pleases…”

A faint anger was mixed into the woman’s voice.

“She would not even pretend to listen when I tried to stop her. I thought Your Grace should know, so I came to see you in haste.”

Keepsakes.

The moment he repeated that word inwardly, a sudden ringing shook his brain. It was as though every single brain cell were screaming.

He unconsciously clutched his forehead.

Perhaps his appearance seemed far from normal, because the head maid hurried over and supported him.

Instinctively shaking off her touch, he looked down at the head maid’s face with bloodshot eyes.

“Tell her that if she lays a hand on even one of her belongings, she will not return alive.”