Chapter 155
Tiuran swallowed dryly.
Surely he had not gone without a single moment of sleep from the day the Grand Duchess lost consciousness until now?
As she poured water into the basin and stole sidelong glances at him, Tiuran soon denied her own thought.
If he were an ordinary human, there was no way he could remain so composed after staying awake that long. He had been tending to her in turns with Marisen, so their timing simply must not have overlapped.
"The towel."
While she was lost in thought for a moment, the Grand Duke held out his hand toward her.
Tiuran hurriedly took out a clean towel, soaked it thoroughly in the ice-cold water, and placed it on the man's sculpture-like hand.
Taking it in his grasp, the man immediately began cooling his wife's forehead with care. His touch was as delicate as though he were handling a glass ornament.
In truth, the woman lying limp as a corpse looked as though she might shatter into pieces at any moment. Perhaps it was because of that anxiety that the man could not take his eyes off the Grand Duchess even for an instant.
After hesitating briefly, Tiuran murmured in a voice that nearly crawled back down her throat.
"Her Highness is recovering little by little. She will no longer be placed in any dangerous situation, so from now on, you could leave the nursing to us..."
"It seems Daren has begun whining even to servants."
At the icy voice, Tiuran closed her mouth.
As he turned the towel over and carefully wiped the sweat-damp nape of the woman's neck with the cold side, the man added calmly.
"If that man asks, tell him the Grand Duke said this."
After a brief pause, the Grand Duke slowly finished his sentence.
"What are men so incompetent that they cannot even endure a mere few days of absence doing in my household, wasting grain?"
Though the words were not directed at her, Tiuran felt a chill run down her spine.
Without so much as glancing at her, the man gave a slight nod of his head.
"You are in the way. Leave now."
"...Then I will be waiting in the next room. Please call me at any time if you need me."
Tiuran carefully backed away from the bed.
Even during that, the man's gaze remained fixed on his sleeping wife's face.
The dim light of late afternoon flowing in through the window faintly illuminated his face. As if the frost-edged dignity he had shown only moments ago had never existed, he looked terribly solitary and lonely.
After quietly observing that face wrapped in deep exhaustion for a moment, Tiuran silently opened the door and stepped outside.
* * *
Time flowed on helplessly.
Talia felt the wounds of her body gradually healing.
The pain in her abdomen, which had throbbed as though threatening her not to forget what she had lost, faded as well. The blood that had occasionally trickled out stopped before long.
The pain in her waist and pelvis remained, but it could not compare to the suffering she had endured during pregnancy. The constant tingling in her legs had also improved from before, and because her heavy body had become lighter, moving around became easier too.
But for some reason, that fact tormented her even more.
She found it hard to accept a body that was trying to return to its former state, as though it had never carried a child at all.
Her mind was still fixed on that night, yet her body was pushing forward toward life on its own. That absurdity sometimes made a hollow laugh escape her.
She could not understand why the people around her were so anxious over her health. This was a body that clung stubbornly to life despite every ordeal. Even after her legs had been crushed, even after losing the child she had brought forth in pain that felt as though her insides were being ripped apart, life went on, dragging itself forward.
Even if it were abandoned carelessly, her body would surely persist in surviving a reality no better than hell.
So please, just leave me alone.
"Eat."
Talia glared at the man holding out a bowl of thin porridge with terrible hatred.
When he had first urged her to eat, she had simply remained unresponsive.
When the man still did not give up, she eventually overturned the bowl. Then he immediately ordered new food to be prepared and attempted to feed her using the old method that existed between them.
But there was no longer any of the heat from before in the act of forcing food into her mouth through his own.
All she could faintly sense was the obligatory sense of duty of a mother bird tirelessly carrying food and passing it into the mouth of its young.
Ridiculously, Talia felt a sharp pain at that fact.
His change seemed to tell her clearly of her own condition, that she had utterly failed as a woman, and it felt as though her heart were tearing apart.
That bitter pain drove her even further into madness.
She could not possibly accept that she still had a heart left to ache because of this man.
Talia scraped together what strength remained and pushed him away. Then she picked up the spoon with her own hand.
As though chewing and swallowing the desire to die and disappear, she ate the food and drank the medicine.
This time as well, Talia gave up her useless resistance and picked up the spoon. Then, to escape the gaze watching over her like a jailer, she diligently swallowed the food.
Once she finally finished the meal, he handed her medicine next. After forcing even that down her throat, she leaned her exhausted body against the cushions.
Then Varkas lay down beside her as though it were only natural. It was to hold her in place all night whenever she tried to crawl out of bed and head for the grave.
As Talia quietly endured the shackle-like touch winding tightly around her body, she abruptly demanded,
"...Burn some sleeping herb."
The man, who had been pulling the thick cotton blanket up over her shoulders, looked at her with an unreadable gaze.
When he did not move, Talia moistened her dry, parched lips and added,
"I can't sleep deeply. I need medicine."
After looking down at her in silence for a long while, the man with the still face finally rose.
She watched his slowly moving back for a moment, then turned her gaze toward the window where the sun was beginning to set.
The sky, which had been a vivid orange-red, gradually became stained with a deeper blood-red. Yet even that was soon swallowed little by little by thick darkness.
Talia breathed in the smell of the harsh smoke and lowered her eyelids. At some point, the man had returned to the bed and carefully drew her against his chest, cradling her head.
As her senses dulled, that touch no longer felt as painful as before.
Talia willingly sank herself into the mire of sleep.
But that peaceful moment did not last long.
Perhaps she had developed a tolerance to the medicine, because she opened her eyes when the windowpanes were dyed a deep navy blue. It was when the edge of the sun, not yet fully gone beyond the hill, was still heating the rim of the castle walls red.
Raising her upper body unsteadily, Talia looked out the window at the approaching end of the day.
How long had she been staring at that distant sky?
Suddenly, she realized what had awakened her consciousness.
A thin cry was mixed into the faint scream of the wind.
She let out an empty laugh.
It was the hallucination she had heard sickeningly often over the past several days. She should have grown used to it by now, so why did it feel as though her heart rotted away every single time?
Talia's shoulders trembled faintly.
Then she covered her ears.
But the crying ringing inside her head only grew louder.
It felt as though her dead baby were blaming her.
Was the child wailing like that every night because it resented her for not giving birth to it whole?
The thought made her feel as though she would go mad.
Talia rose to rush outside.
Then she noticed someone holding her by the waist and turned her head with a start.
She saw the man lying slack, one side of his face buried in the pillow.
She stared blankly down at that face, which appeared strangely clear even through her dizzy vision, as though her senses had broken.
The sight of him sleeping so deeply that she wondered if he might be dead felt unfamiliar.
Had he not always been the man who rose alertly at the slightest movement from her?
Although the strength of the arm binding her still remained, the man's consciousness seemed to have been completely severed.
'...Is it because of the sleeping herb?'
She blinked dazedly.
Even when sleeping herbs were sometimes burned in the bedroom, this man had never shown more of a reaction than becoming slightly sluggish.
Perhaps he was exhausted from keeping watch over her.
As Talia closely studied his defenseless yet somehow still sharp-edged appearance, she reached toward that gaunt face as though drawn by something.