## THE FORGOTTEN FIELDS (NOVEL) - Chapter 159
### Chapter 159
He swallowed something boiling in his entrails and forced himself to steady the tone of his voice.
"I will consider that I did not hear what you just said."
He uttered it with a deliberately harsh voice and turned around, but he heard the sound of movement behind his back. He turned around once more and saw the woman raising her torso with obvious fatigue.
As she lowered her legs over the edge of the bed, the quilt slid slowly from her slender shoulder, which seemed on the verge of collapsing. She looked smaller and younger because of the nightgown, the dimensions of which had been enlarged to adapt to her body when she was pregnant.
She approached him, staggering her slender body, which resembled a glass figure, and cast a look of a disturbing paleness at him.
"Why?"
Varkas clenched his fist in the air while extending his arm toward her shoulder, which was trembling slightly. He feared breaking her if he dared to touch her.
"Why must I be here?" she uttered, as if she were testing his patience. "I don't want to stay here anymore. I don't want to be with you. I am on the verge of going crazy just by seeing your face."
Her voice vibrated unsteadily, like the melody of a violin tightened to the limit. Her slender fingers clung to the edges of his clothes, as if she were clinging to a burning nail.
"So send me anywhere! It doesn't matter if it's to the imperial palace or to a convent!"
He was not aware that he was gripping her slender shoulders and pushing her back onto the bed without realizing it. The rough breath escaping from her cracked lips clashed warmly against his neck. Her dark blue eyes, whose pupils were dilated, disappeared in front of him, covered by a mist. He pronounced word by word with force, as if burying his words in that damp, submerged hole in the water:
"Speak all you want. Nothing is going to change."
The woman distorted her face as if she were unable to understand. For some reason, that expression stirred his entrails even more. He knew he had to be patient, but he could not control himself. The dark impulse that he did not know existed inside him erupted outward, piercing the veil of his mind, which had become thinner than paper.
"You must spend your life within my domains. That is the destiny that was decided the moment you swore to be my wife."
He felt a chill run through her cold skin that he was touching. A faint light filled with confusion, resentment, and fear spread through her eyes.
He contemplated that in silence, pulled away from her forcefully, and sat on the edge of the bed. Then, he brought his hand to his forehead, which was burning like sparks, and tried with effort to recover his scattered mind; however, the woman insisted on driving a knife into the deepest part of his exhausted being:
"How… how can you be so fine despite everything?"
Varkas tensed his back rigidly and turned toward her slowly. The woman, who was casting continuous looks of reproach at him, began to let out increasingly intense sobs.
"Our child has died, how can you be so ruthless? I… I am dying of pain…"
Then, she clutched her chest as if experiencing real physical pain. He contemplated her figure with a lost gaze and asked himself:
"Am I perhaps fine now?"
Perhaps it was so. He could not empathize with the pain this woman felt. Even when their first child was unable to breathe, he could only see his wife bleeding. He refused even her request to hold their baby; he could not allow it for fear that she would abandon everything if she saw the child who had lost its life.
He sincerely thought that it did not matter losing the child as long as she was safe. And even now, he only wished that this woman would forget her dead child and overcome her pain as soon as possible.
The instant he was about to admit that, no matter how dreadful her gaze toward him was at that moment, a small face covered by a cloth appeared on his retina like a burn mark. It was a face smaller than the palm of his hand. And perhaps it resembled him and this woman equally…
His tongue froze and he could not move when he remembered that small being who was buried without being held even once by his mother. His arms loosened, surrendering to helplessness.
She was no longer looking at him. He silently contemplated the woman who was trembling slightly while covering her face with both hands, and then he stood up slowly. He felt that if he stayed there, he would have no choice but to agree to whatever she asked of him.
Varkas left the bedroom as if fleeing, closed the door behind him, and leaned his body, heavy as lead. He saw the window pouring the sunset into his vision, which always lost focus. He felt the inside of his head gradually staining red, so he tightly closed his eyelids, which felt rough like sandpaper. It was the end of a particularly long and tedious day.
From that day on, Talia began to behave toward him with an even greater cruelty than before. She wished for Varkas to grow tired of her and abandon her without any remorse.
After all, she had already been completely abandoned by everyone else. The emperor's offer to sign the divorce permission meant that Senvir had also abandoned her. It was evident that her mother had given up the last shred of hope she had in her due to the loss of the baby.
She felt a slight pain when she found out about that reality for the first time, but the impact was not as great as she expected. She no longer cared about her mother now. Talia no longer thought about living; she did not care much if she died directly at the hands of Garis. She only wanted to get away from this man now.
She looked at Varkas with pained eyes. He was changing his clothes, which had been stained with the dirt from the bowl of oatmeal she had thrown at him. She felt suffocated by his calmness, which suggested that nothing had happened. His patience was terrible. And she, who became an out-of-control monster before him, was even more terrifying.
She murmured with a tired voice:
"Hasn't the time come for you to get bored of this?"
Varkas turned his head toward her while taking off his dark blue jacket. No emotion could be read on his face, covered by a slight fatigue. The man stared at her with eyes that seemed covered by an opaque layer, then rolled up his sleeves and let out his characteristic voice, devoid of modulations:
"You too, hasn't the time come for you to get bored of your childish tantrums?"
Talia let out a hollow laugh. She felt a deep resignation seeing that her actions, which she herself loathed, were nothing more than a tantrum to him.
"Anyway, most of the servants do not accept me as a duchess. Everyone would be happy if I disappeared."
"Since when do you care about the happiness of others?" Varkas let out a pale laugh and placed the food that the servants had prepared back on the bed.
Talia looked at him with weak eyes. She had caused destruction three times today, so she no longer had the strength to overturn the bowl again.
"Must I perhaps feed you with my own hands?"
Prompted by his voice, which resonated softly at the head of the bed, she finally took the spoon. When she brought some food to her mouth, she saw a slight relief on his face. She deliberately turned her gaze away from that, but she felt the presence of someone outside the door.
"Lord Duke, guests from the capital have arrived. You must go out to receive them," it was the butler's voice.
Talia gripped the spoon and looked at him. Varkas frowned, looked out the window, and finally took his coat.
"I will go immediately."
Right after, the bell rang; he called the servants and asked them not to take their eyes off her even for an instant, and then left the room.
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