THE FORGOTTEN FIELDS (NOVEL) - Chapter 125
The dry leaves fell to the ground.
The bare trees, of which only the skeleton remained, twisted violently, pushed by the gale-force winds, while a rain as cold as ice poured down on the pale, brownish-gray hills.
Talia was sitting on the windowsill, contemplating the gray-tinted landscape, when she spotted some knights entering the castle courtyard. Immediately, she pressed her face against the cold glass.
Behind the dense curtain blurred by raindrops, Varkas appeared riding a huge gray steed. Talia watched him as he dismounted with an elegant movement.
Varkas handed the reins to the servant and, after removing his rain-soaked cloak, revealed his face as white as marble.
His serene bearing made him look like a completely different person from that savage who possessed her without mercy almost every night.
Talia wiped the glass that had fogged up with her breath and stared at him intently. The moment Varkas turned his head in her direction, she hurriedly drew the curtains.
Her body temperature spiked suddenly and her heart began to beat irregularly. Talia bit her lips anxiously, climbed down from the sill, and hugged herself in front of the fireplace. However, the trembling did not subside even before the tongues of burning fire.
She curled her legs and buried her face in her knees.
She could not figure out how she should behave with Varkas.
For, after spending the nights with him, everything she thought she was clear about had become tangled in absolute chaos.
Sometimes she felt that the man of the day and the one who appeared in the dim light were two completely different people.
During the day, Varkas showed himself as indifferent as if he had never felt desire in his life, treating her with his usual coldness.
But in the darkness, it was different.
The man who materialized in the gloom was wild and primitive, like a pagan king of the East who sowed terror in the ancient kingdoms. He was as burning hot as steel forged in fire.
Was he not an ascetic man like a priest?
Considering that those encounters had begun at her insistence, his vehement response was highly baffling.
Especially when remembering all the women of the imperial court who had used all kinds of ruses to seduce him and had only drunk the chalice of rejection.
"...Did he do this with Ayla too?"
She immersed herself in thoughts of self-pity in an almost habitual manner.
Before, she firmly believed that he was a man incapable of desiring anyone, so she assumed that with Ayla he confined himself to fulfilling his duty as a fiancé.
But perhaps their relationship went beyond that.
Was he not the same man who unleashed all his desire upon her fiercely and the next day presented himself with such calmness, as if nothing had happened?
Perhaps he committed all kinds of explicit acts with Ayla too, only to pretend to be the respectable fiancé during the day.
No, surely he did.
She could not be someone special to anyone. That was a truth she had assimilated a long time ago.
If he could feel desire for her, he might as well feel it for any other. It was evident that he would have reacted the same way if he had married another woman.
"So stop looking for a special meaning in his actions."
"For Heaven's sake, holy virgin! Stop biting your lips!"
Talia raised her head abruptly, interrupting her thoughts. Her nanny, who had entered the room at some point carrying a large basket under her arm, was staring at her.
"If you wound yourself, the carmine won't set well."
"It doesn't matter. Anyway..."
Talia wanted to yell at her that Varkas would not be able to see her clearly, so she should spare herself those useless lectures, but she fell silent immediately.
It was the nanny who took it upon herself to make a fuss about getting her ready every afternoon. If she discovered that all her effort was useless, it was obvious she would become even more annoying.
She hid her blood-stained nails between the folds of her skirt and rested her forehead on her knees. Seeing this, the nanny sighed with annoyance and placed the basket on the table.
"Don't act so miserable and take this. The healer prepared a new medicine sent by the Empress."
Talia looked coldly at the bowl inside the basket.
Since her visit to the East, Guinevere had begun to regularly receive news about Talia through the nanny. It was to monitor whether her daughter was complying with her instructions. And the nanny performed the role of the Empress's faithful servant to perfection.
The old woman pushed the bowl containing the thick black liquid in front of her face, complaining:
"Come on, take it quickly. The Empress emphasized over and over again that you must take it daily without interruption."
Talia frowned coldly, reluctantly took the container, and drank the contents in a single gulp.
She felt as if she had swallowed boiling mud. She firmly contained the nausea that threatened to rise and rushed to drink water to rinse her mouth.
Suddenly, Varkas's mockery echoed in her mind when he told her that he didn't care if she was treated like a breeding mare. She pressed her lips, from which a thread of blood spilled, and swallowed the humiliation.
"I am only choosing what suits me. There is no need to feel shame."
While repeating this to herself and roughly wiping the corner of her wet lips with the back of her hand, the nanny's enthusiastic voice pierced her ears.
"You're going to start getting ready now, right?"
Talia turned her head over her shoulder and frowned as she saw the nanny taking the clothes out of the chest to spread them out. She seemed to take it for granted that Talia would go to his bedroom that night as well.
She returned her gaze to the window. No doubt he must be bathing now that he had returned in the rain. And after that, he would take care of the matters he had not been able to conclude. It was still early, so he would not have retired to bed yet.
However, she could not shake off the certainty that he was waiting for her.
She moistened her dry lips, moving with the nervousness of someone who has a crucial appointment.
How had an act that she believed would be repeated as a mere routine formality become something so natural?
At first, she knocked on his door once every three or four days. Then, at some point, she found herself sleeping in his bed once every two days, and recently, she visited him almost every night.
She tried to justify herself by saying that she simply could not stand the nanny's lectures, and that she only wanted to get pregnant so she could rest, but a part of her heart knew that was a lie. Every day it became harder for her to pull away from his arms.
A deep sense of emptiness invaded her when she walked away from him and slept alone in the spacious bed, and she felt a strange regret when she washed away the vestiges of his presence.
She hated herself for harboring such feelings, but it was impossible for her to control them. That annoying fever that had tormented her since she was nine years old was about to attack her again.
"No. It's not like that. I am only using him."
She denied her own thoughts in a hurry. She could not allow herself to fall into the abyss once more.
Talia gathered her determination and took off her loungewear with a firm face. Then, she dressed in a blue velvet outfit she had brought from the palace and spent hours grooming herself.
She knew Varkas would not be able to see her with total clarity, but she refused to confront him looking disheveled.
Talia contemplated her reflection in the mirror, which resembled Guinevere to a chilling degree, and stood up.
Opening the door and stepping out, the candlelit corridor appeared before her. She walked on the carpet glowing under the light of the tapers and then averted her gaze to the window lashed by raindrops. In that instant, a golden flash rent the ink-colored sky.
Talia contemplated the thundering firmament for a moment and then resumed her pace.
She finally reached the door of his quarters, and the servant who waited, apparently expecting her, made way for her.
Talia scanned the room engulfed in a dense gloom with tense eyes, and then took a step inside cautiously.
At that precise moment, a blinding flash of lightning illuminated in white the silhouette of the man who stood by the window.
