Chapter 257

“Do you truly intend to leave it like this?”

As he approached the door without making a sound, he heard muffled voices from within.

He pressed his head close to the crack in the door and peered inside. On a velvet chair at one side of the spacious study sat a man with faded flaxen hair, his body slouched back against it.

The middle-aged man standing before him spoke in a displeased voice.

“Your Grace knows better than anyone how dangerous magical beasts are. It may pose little threat now, but in just a few years, it will become too ferocious to handle. You should deal with it before that happens.”

“Dorian.”

The man leaning against the backrest, his eyes fixed on the parchment document in one hand, spoke quietly.

“Must I repeat myself twice before you understand?”

At the softly resonating voice, the shoulders of the man who had raised the objection stiffened.

Turning a page of the document, he added indifferently,

“I'll say this one last time. Let her do as she pleases.”

“B-but.......”

“She'll tire of it soon enough anyway. When that happens, I'll deal with it myself, so don't argue about this matter any further.”

After hesitating for a moment, the man finally bowed his head and slowly turned away.

He immediately moved away from the door and hid behind a pillar. At the same moment, the man stepped out into the corridor.

Suppressing his presence as much as possible, he watched the vassal's retreating back before creeping toward the door again. The man inside had rested his head against the backrest and was rubbing the space between his eyes with his fingers. He looked utterly exhausted.

He narrowed his eyes.

Had he really looked like that?

With his disheveled hair swept back, the man stared blankly into space with weary eyes. There was something hollow and desolate about his face.

Only upon seeing him like this did he clearly recognize the nature of the emotions he himself had felt back then. He had not been conscious of it at the time, but that man was suffering.

From the day he left her, he had not known a single day of peace. Yet she had finally regained her peace only after he disappeared. Just as she had insisted she would if she no longer had to see him.

The man's empty eyes, which had been staring blankly at the ceiling, slowly lowered toward the window.

He knew what the man was thinking as he gazed at the moon. He must be retracing his memories of the time he had held her in his arms.

The man leaned against the armrest of the chair and slowly rubbed his temple before finally rising to his feet.

He immediately concealed himself. After what seemed like an eternity in which only the sound of the wind rattling the window frame echoed through the room, the man's footsteps receded. It seemed he was heading to the bedroom connected to the study to get some rest.

After remaining motionless for a while, he carefully pushed the door open and entered the study. The dim outlines of the study, steeped in darkness, filled his wide field of vision.

Retracting his claws, he crossed the room without a sound and approached the desk.

True to the nature of its controlling and obsessive owner, the desk was kept in perfect order. After scanning the smooth wooden surface, on which not even a speck of dust could be found, he pushed his head deep beneath the desk and caught the handle of a hidden compartment installed underneath it between his teeth.

A faint rattling came from the tightly engaged lock. It was not beyond his ability to break, but leaving signs of damage would cause a major commotion.

Extending the tip of one claw, he carefully tried turning the clockwork mechanism on the metal plate attached to the drawer. Manipulating delicate mechanical parts with an animal's paw was even more difficult than he had expected.

After dozens of attempts, he finally managed to open the drawer and pulled out a bundle containing dozens of keys. Then he pushed the drawer shut again with his head. There was a click as the lock automatically engaged.

This drawer was where spare keys were kept in case the ones normally used went missing. Unless something unusual happened, no one would have any reason to check it, so their disappearance would probably go unnoticed for some time.

Holding the bundle of keys in his mouth, he quietly slipped out of the study.

By the time he returned to her bedchamber, quite a while had passed.

Taking care not to make any sound with his steps, he entered the room and studied her sleeping face before pushing the bundle of keys beneath the bed.

The keys were a kind of insurance. As long as he had these, he would be able to evacuate her from the castle before the Zram invaded. He could use one of the emergency passages built into the castle, but the more means of escape he had, the better.

Crawling beneath the bed, he pushed the keys as far in as he could, then backed out and placed his paws on the bed. Only then did he realize that he was covered in dust and turned toward the chair by the window instead.

He leapt onto the velvet cushion, and the full moon tinged with blue light came into view beyond the window. The memory of holding her in his arms beneath the moonlight resurfaced vividly in his mind. Had he ever been as happy in his entire life as he had been then?

[Perhaps all I ever wanted was to regain the happiest moment of my life.]

The words written in her diary suddenly flashed through his mind.

Perhaps those moments he had spent with her had also been the brightest time of his entire life. The realization that he had only come to understand that after everything had already passed made his anguish all the more unbearable.

He gazed up at the moon through the piercing ache, then turned his head toward her once more.

He would never be able to grasp the happiness of that day again, but she still had a chance.

She would be happy again.

She had to be.

* * *

“I heard the Grand Duke will be leaving for the northern border again sometime next week.”

Tiuran cautiously broached the subject as she rubbed peppermint oil into Talia's legs.

Lying on the bed and repeatedly stroking Khan's soft fur, Talia abruptly stiffened. Pretending not to notice, Tiuran continued calmly.

“It seems the conflict in the North is growing more intense. I heard he probably won't be able to return until the end of the Wind Season.”

“......Who asked?”

Talia snapped irritably and yanked her leg out of Tiuran's grasp.

Tiuran silently studied her face, wiped her hands on a clean damp cloth, and added with deliberate nonchalance,

“I heard there will be a small farewell banquet this evening. I only mentioned it because I thought Your Highness might consider making an appearance as well. I apologize if I overstepped.”

Without answering, Talia sat up on the bed. Khan, who had been lying pressed tightly against her side, immediately sprang to his feet as well.

Talia gathered the wolf, who seemed to grow heavier by the day, into her arms and slipped her feet into her slippers.

“It's stifling in here. I'm going out for some air.”

“I'll accompany you.”

Pretending not to hear her, Talia headed toward the door. But when she realized Tiuran was making no move to follow, she looked back over her shoulder and shouted irritably,

“What are you doing? Aren't you coming?”

Smiling, the woman picked up a summer robe and draped it over Talia's shoulders.

“Why don't you go out toward the outer castle today? I hear the warriors are holding their promotion matches. They should be quite a sight.”

“Why would I go out of my way to watch something so noisy?”

“His Grace the Grand Duke will be observing them as well.”

Talia glared at her irritably. At some point, she had begun to find the healer's habit of seeing straight through her thoughts exceedingly annoying.

She muttered with a sullen expression,

“I'm only going to show my face from a distance.”

Tiuran smiled and carefully fastened the robe around her shoulders.

Holding Khan tightly against her chest, Talia left the room. She descended the stairs and stepped out of the main castle, where the blazing sunlight immediately stabbed painfully at her eyes.

Breathing in the muggy air laden with the mingled scents of grass and flowers, she crossed the lush green garden.

After following the long, straight path for some distance, a thunderous roar of cheering struck her ears. Talia flinched in surprise, then passed through the castle gate and stopped before the stone steps overlooking the vast training ground. Hundreds of men were gathered around a circular fence erected on one side of the open field.

Talia's eyes widened at the sight of them, their bare chests fully exposed beneath nothing but thin tunka loosely draped over their deeply tanned upper bodies.

At the Roem Imperial Castle, promotion matches were solemn affairs conducted according to the proper conventions of knighthood. The knights entered their bouts heavily armed in plate armor, while the spectators likewise attended in formal attire.

The warriors of the East, however, apparently underwent their trials in an entirely different manner. Without even carrying weapons, the men leapt boldly into the sparring ring and immediately began throwing punches at each other.

Talia recoiled a step.

“W-what in the world are they doing?”

“Hand-to-hand combat. It is the oldest way for Eastern warriors to test their martial skill against one another.”

Talia stared with her mouth hanging open at the unimaginably barbaric spectacle.

Just then, a burly man struck his opponent's jaw with a bandage-wrapped fist. As the man staggered from the devastating blow, his opponent seized the opening, drove a knee into his abdomen, caught one of his arms, and mercilessly wrenched it behind his back. Thunderous cheers erupted from every direction at the gruesome sight.

Talia hurriedly covered Khan's eyes.

“That's horrible! How can they engage in something so barbaric and ignorant......!”

Talia, who had been mercilessly condemning the spectacle, abruptly fell silent.

She had spotted Varkas among the dense crowd of men gathered around the fence.

He, too, wore nothing but a single black silk tunka loosely draped over his bare shoulders. As she stared at him with her mouth hanging open, Varkas pulled off his upper garment, handed it to a squire, and vaulted over the fence.

Talia involuntarily sucked in a sharp breath.

Under the fierce summer sunlight, Varkas strode forward with °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° his marble-sculpted upper body completely bare, approaching a man with a build far more massive and rugged than his own.