TFM 242

Time for Thalia's diary 💔

Chapter 242

At that murderous voice, the head maid flinched and stiffened. Then she hurriedly bowed and set off down the corridor.

Leaning against the doorframe as he watched her go, Varkas was suddenly driven by an impulse he could not explain and followed after her.

He did not know what he himself intended to do.

With long strides, he overtook the head maid in an instant, climbed the stairs, and approached the wide-open entrance to the lady’s chamber.

At the same time, a sharp shout pierced his ears.

“Get out of my way!”

Varkas turned his head and narrowed his eyes when he found the quarter-dwarf in the middle of the bedroom, where all manner of belongings lay scattered in disorder, struggling with the maids.

The woman shoved aside the young maids trying to stop her with rough hands and shrieked.

“I’m only taking the things our young lady brought with her when she married! Why are you getting in my way?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Do you think it makes sense to take Her Grace the Grand Duchess’s belongings without permission?”

“You people are going to bring in a new grand duchess anyway! When that time comes, are you planning to hand over all of our young lady’s things to that woman?”

The woman, screaming with resentment, began dropping tears as large as beans.

She pulled out a handkerchief and noisily blew her nose, then grabbed the dresses piled on the bed at random and shoved them into the chest on the floor.

“Do you think I’ll just stand by and watch that happen? These are all things Her Majesty the Empress gave to our young lady! I’ll take every last one of them back to the empress’s palace, so know that!”

“Since when did you care about Her Grace so much?”

One young maid, her face flushed with anger, grabbed the quarter-dwarf’s arm. But she could not withstand the powerful strength unique to dwarf blood.

The woman shook the maid off as though swatting away a fly and began sweeping up her belongings at random.

Varkas, who had been watching the scene with an icy expression, slowly crossed the room.

Only then did the maids notice his presence and hurriedly bow their heads.

Passing by them without concern, Varkas stopped in front of the quarter-dwarf and quietly looked over the chests layered across the floor.

Silk garments, various ornaments, crafted goods that appeared to be dwarven-made, and fine books had all been carelessly mixed together in disarray.

His gaze moved over each of them one by one before stopping abruptly on the hem of a dress crushed into a mess.

The woman, who had been watching his reaction while hugging an armful of clothes to her chest, flinched and awkwardly stepped back.

Varkas roughly seized her wrist, then turned and strode across the room.

The startled woman threw aside the clothes in her arms and resisted, but she was no match for his strength.

Dragged helplessly into the corridor, she collapsed onto the floor and looked up at him with aggrieved eyes.

Ignoring that, Varkas coldly snapped at the guards standing in the corridor.

“Send this woman back to the capital at once.”

Then he lowered his gaze toward her and added,

“I will allow you to take your personal belongings. Do not even dream of taking anything else.”

“How can you be so heartless!”

The woman’s lips trembled, and unable to suppress her anger, she raised her voice.

“Do you not even care how heartbroken Her Majesty the Empress must have been when she heard that our young lady had passed away? It is only right to deliver her daughter’s keepsakes to her!”

In that instant, something seemed to rupture inside his temple.

With a hand seized by spasms, he grabbed the woman by the collar. The woman choked and looked up at him with eyes full of terror.

Varkas stared down at her without expression, then quietly opened his mouth.

“Leave quietly. If you make a scene one more time, you will never again be able to have an audience with that empress you worship so much.”

The woman’s face turned white in an instant.

He released her as though throwing her aside, then gestured with his chin to the maids lined up behind him.

“Everyone out.”

The maids, who had been hesitating and exchanging glances, soon flowed out of the room like the tide.

Once the sound of their footsteps faded, Varkas turned and faced the room that had been thrown into chaos.

The ruin-like scene, wrapped in dim light, entered his vision, and suddenly, a suffocating sensation rushed over him.

He immediately walked to the bedside and began putting away the items scattered across the floor.

He wiped clean the glass bottles containing the toner and rose oil she had used, arranged them neatly on the bedside shelf, then folded the clothes strewn messily across the floor and placed them one by one inside her wardrobe.

After that, he began returning the jewels piled inside the chest to their proper places, one by one.

He could not understand why he was doing this himself when it was something that would be finished in the blink of an eye if he ordered the maids to do it.

He had no idea how long he kept moving his hands without rest, seized only by the obsessive thought that her belongings had to be returned to their proper places.

Then, inside the roughly made chest, a strange object caught his eye.

His brow drew together.

Among the many ornaments tangled together in disorder, there lay a crude jewelry box of the sort a young girl might have adored.

He stared for a long while at that gaudy box, so out of place it was almost jarring, then knelt on the floor and carefully took it out.

The old jewelry box, scratched here and there as though it had been kept for a long time, had an intricate lock attached to it. He examined it from several angles, trying to open it, but it seemed to require a key, so he began searching through the chest again.

This time, he found an old book wrapped in a tattered cover.

Without thinking, Varkas picked it up and began leafing through it, only for his body to go rigid.

The handwriting was roughly scrawled, but he recognized it at a glance.

It was hers.

[Tiuran recommended that I try keeping a diary, saying it might help ease my symptoms.

When I asked, feeling completely lost, what I was supposed to write, she told me to freely put down the words lingering in my heart. So I’m trying to scribble something, at least.

But no matter how I think about it, this feels foolish. As if doing something like this could really make me all right.]

Varkas scanned the roughly scrawled words with blank eyes, then checked the date written at the top of the page.

It had been written not long after he first left for the campaign.

He soon turned the page.

For a while, dull, half-hearted sentences continued on monotonously, written reluctantly under the healer’s urging.

Most of it was about wolves, but every now and then, one or two lines about the healer appeared as well. Though the tone was exceedingly blunt, he could tell that she was slowly opening her heart to the woman named Tiuran.

[Today, something Tiuran said kept circling in my mind all day.

That there are wounds in this world that never disappear, no matter how many years pass… Why did those words comfort me so much?

Was it because it felt as though I had been given permission to hurt as much as I wanted?

Thanks to that, I feel as though I might be able to forgive myself, just a little.]

Varkas looked down at those words with blurred eyes, then turned the page with stiff fingers.

Perhaps something had changed in her heart from that day onward, because the contents of the diary gradually grew more varied.

It still felt less like a diary and more like a monologue of the thoughts circling inside her mind, but rich emotions had begun to take root within the sentences that had once been only bleak and barren.

Forgetting even to breathe, he obsessively read through the records of the past she had left behind.

Then, suddenly, his fingers stiffened as he turned a page.

[Khan is growing bigger by the day. Until only a few months ago, he was like a tiny doll… But now, he has grown so much that it is hard for me to even lift him in my arms.

I want to show Khan to you soon, too. Would you be able to recognize this child? Would you believe me if I told you?

No. You would probably think I had gone mad.]

Only then did he realize that her diary had been written to someone specific.

Suddenly, his heart began to pound so violently it felt as though it might break through his ribs, and cold sweat seeped from his entire body.

Caught in a sensation as if something were strangling him, he turned his eyes to the next page.

[Today, you came back.

The moment I saw you from afar, joy and fear swept over me at the same time.

What terrible things will I end up pouring out to you again? What words will you use to pierce my heart all over again?

I don’t think I’m ready to face you yet.]

He checked the date written at the bottom of the page.

It was when he had returned to Laedgo Castle.