Chapter 256
Her heart plummeting, she gripped the windowsill tightly.
Varkas slowly rode into the training ground and dismounted lightly from the saddle. Even beneath the fierce late-summer sunlight, his face looked as cold as frost as he slowly raised his head.
Instinctively, she hid herself behind the curtain. A strange sensation swept over her, as though all the blood in her body were boiling hot while her spine froze solid at the same time.
Leaning her back against the wall, she struggled to steady her ragged breathing, but in the end, she could not resist the urge to look at him and poked her head out by the window again.
Varkas had already crossed about half of the training ground.
When he passed through the inner gate and entered the garden, the features of his face, which had grown even more defined over the past few months, came clearly into view.
She stared at him, forgetting even to breathe. His hair had grown slightly longer than when he had left the castle, revealing delicate yet deep-set eyes between the pale strands. She was gazing as though entranced at his eyes, which looked almost silver beneath the sunlight, when a knock came from outside the door.
“Your Highness, His Grace the Grand Duke has returned. Will you go out to welcome him?”
It was the chief maid's voice.
Talia hunched her shoulders like someone who had just been caught in a surprise attack. When she gave no answer, another knock echoed through the room.
“Your Highness, are you all right? May I come in for a moment.......”
“Don't come in!”
Talia shouted sharply.
“I'm not feeling well, so I need to rest in my room. Tell His Grace the Grand Duke that as well!”
After a brief silence, the chief maid let out a quiet sigh.
“Understood. Then I shall take my leave.”
Before long, the sound of the chief maid's presence faded away.
Talia released a long sigh of relief, then noticed Khan staring silently up at her and gave a small, awkward cough. Even though she knew there was no way Khan could understand her situation, a peculiar sense of embarrassment washed over her at having let him see her so restless.
Pretending nothing was wrong, she picked Khan up and walked over to the window.
“Your father is back. See him over there?”
Leaning against the windowsill, Talia pointed at Varkas with the tip of her finger.
“That's him.”
Following the direction of her finger, the wolf turned his head and stared down at Varkas. Talia's lips naturally curved into a smile, pleased that Khan, who was indifferent to everything except her, seemed interested in him.
Talia kissed the wolf beside his sharply perked ear and whispered with laughter in her voice.
“Isn't he incredibly handsome? He's even more impressive up close.”
The wolf's ears twitched before he abruptly lifted his head and stared straight at her. He looked as though he were begging her to go outside with him right that instant, making an embarrassed laugh slip from her lips.
“But I can't go near him right now.”
The wolf's ears perked up even higher. Talia gazed into his large eyes, which seemed to be asking why, and murmured bitterly.
“I behaved terribly before he left. He probably...... doesn't want to see my face.”
* * *
Using her poor health as an excuse, Talia shut herself inside her room and refused to budge.
He watched her with complicated feelings as she sat with a book open across her lap, reading the same page over and over again for hours.
She looked terribly anxious and restless. The sight made one side of his chest feel as though it were being crushed.
At this point in time, he had firmly believed that his wife did not want to see him and had kept his distance from her. He had been afraid that approaching her carelessly might disturb her when she was only just beginning to regain some stability.
Talia, however, had taken his behavior as proof of his disgust.
What would have happened if he had approached her first?
He could not shake the thought that many things might have turned out differently if only he had tried a little harder to understand this absurdly timid woman who could never be honest about her feelings.
After staring at her with anguished eyes, he began pacing around the room. Perhaps, depending on what he did, he could change the relationship between ‘himself’ and her. But he did not know whether that was truly what he wanted.
Do I really want Talia to be with ‘him’?
𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢
He stopped in front of the mirror and looked at his reflection. The moment he faced the beast's countenance that he still could not get used to, an indescribable pain surged through him.
“Is it that stifling?”
Seeing his ears drooping, Talia closed her book and rose from the bed.
“Then do you want to go out and get some air for a while? Varkas should be attending a meeting around now anyway, so we probably won't run into him.”
Before he could even react, Talia scooped him up and left the room.
Perhaps because preparations for the evening banquet were in full swing to celebrate the return of the head of the house, the corridors were quieter than usual.
She dismissed the maids following her with a jerk of her chin, then descended the stairs and headed toward a secluded rear garden.
“There. Now you can run around as much as you like.”
Talia sat down on a bench and placed him on the ground.
Pretending not to understand her words, he sprang onto the bench and pressed himself tightly against her side. He did not want to leave Talia's side even for a moment. Someday, he would have to give her to ‘him,’ but for now, Talia was his alone.
“Do you like me that much?”
She giggled and wrapped her soft white arms snugly around him. As he burrowed into her embrace, feeling her intoxicating scent, enough to make his brain melt, fill his lungs, a long shadow caught the edge of his vision.
He tilted his head slightly and looked at the man standing at the end of the path.
Facing himself from a third person's perspective was an exceedingly strange experience. Feeling every fine hair beneath his skin rise at once, he stared at the face that was at once familiar and unfamiliar.
His past self looked chillingly devoid of humanity.
Cold eyes that seemed untouched even by the heat of late summer, expressionless lips that looked as though they had never once smiled, and eyes as hollow as some inorganic substance.......
He could not understand what there was about that cold-blooded man, devoid of even the slightest trace of emotion, that she could possibly admire. The man looked like a monochrome ghost that had intruded upon a landscape painting bursting with brilliant colors.
“What's wrong?”
Perhaps noticing his tension, Talia lifted him onto her shoulder.
He hesitated for a moment. If he drew her attention just a little, he could lead Talia to notice that man.
But would that truly help change her fate?
Even if a miracle occurred and the relationship between the two of them improved, that man would eventually leave for the North. And she would once again be left alone in this castle. Perhaps she might even suffer a deeper wound in the process.
In the end, he decided not to interfere and gently licked the tip of her chin. Apparently tickled by the rough texture of his tongue, a clear peal of laughter spilled from between her lips. He watched her giggling with satisfied eyes before turning his gaze back toward the man.
The man, who had been standing as motionless as a stone statue, finally turned away. His hair, breaking into silver beneath the sunlight, was tousled by the breeze.
The pale man's shadow, as though drained of all color, stretched long, dark, and damp across the ground.
Night deepened, and the castle, which had been bustling with the banquet, fell silent as the grave.
He carefully watched her as she slept soundly after taking a powerful sleeping draught, then quietly climbed down from the bed and approached the door.
When he stretched himself upright, his paw reached the doorknob. Having grown considerably larger over the little more than two months that had passed, he was able to push up the lock without much difficulty.
A rattling sound echoed through the room, and he glanced back over his shoulder. Fortunately, she showed no sign of waking.
He pushed the door open with his head and cautiously stepped out into the corridor.
There were not many soldiers standing guard. Keeping his head low as he surveyed his surroundings, he soon moved toward the stairs along a wall draped in deep shadow.
Because he knew the servants' working hours and the soldiers' patrol routes like the back of his hand, he managed to reach the study his past self had once used without being spotted by anyone.