## Chapter 163
"I... I don't know the details either, but..." the maid spoke with confusion, concluding her sentence in a vague tone, and then continued her explanation in a forced manner, "I heard he will have to be stationed in the border region of Baltor for a while due to the conflict."
"For a while... until when exactly...?" Talia murmured with hesitation, then stopped and bit her lip.
She had been the one to tell him that she never wanted to see his face again. With what right was she asking something like that?
She looked with blank astonishment at the flowers placed next to the head of the bed, while the maid, watching her reactions, hurried to articulate an answer to her incomplete question:
"There was no fixed date for his return... but I heard he has no intention of leaving the castle empty for long. He plans to move back and forth between the castle and the stationing site whenever circumstances permit..."
Talia let out a sigh of relief unconsciously and, upon realizing her action, sketched a listless laugh. She felt disgusted with herself. She looked at the flower buds soaked by the rainwater and let out a few dry, intermittent laughs, then covered her congested eyes with the back of her hand. She felt a sting inside her eyes, as if they were burning.
She understood by instinct that he had departed because of her. He had chosen to leave himself instead of expelling her.
"Why is he doing all this...?"
A single question kept revolving in her head over and over again. Why go to such an extreme? Even if he had accepted the emperor's offer and divorced her, no one would blame him. It had been a marriage closer to coercion from the very beginning. She knew it too.
Varkas had no reason to endure her reproaches. Her limping leg and the loss of her child were her own responsibility. She also knew she should have told Varkas that:
"You have made no mistake. The cause of all the tragedies that have befallen me is myself. So please, do not carry the guilt or the responsibility."
"Get rid of someone like me and that's it. Everyone does it. Even those who gave me life did it. But why you...?"
Her chest ached as if it were burning. She felt that perhaps she was making a grave mistake. However, she did not know how to amend it. Furthermore, she did not even know if she wished to amend it.
"Your Highness, are you well?" the maid asked with concern, since Talia's absent countenance did not seem normal.
Talia held her head, which she felt was about to burst, and shook it weakly.
"I am fine. Just..."
Talia looked at the maid's face with clouded eyes, as if there were fog in them, and then averted her gaze toward the window where the squall of rain was pattering. The rain, which had fallen lightly during the day, now beat against the glass with cruelty.
He must be marching under that rain at this moment. The thought assailed her that perhaps he had not gone too far yet.
Talia stood up from the bed without knowing exactly what she intended to do. The maid approached with a bewildered face.
"W-why are you doing that?"
"Bring my coat."
She imparted the command with a commanding voice, as if warning her not to even think about disobeying, which stiffened the body of the girl, who had extended her hand in an attempt to dissuade her. Talia urged her with a sharp tone:
"Are you not listening to me? I said bring my coat."
The maid, paralyzed and with a sorrowful face, brought a thick coat hesitantly. Talia put it on over her loose linen dress and went out, the silhouette of the dark hallway revealing itself before her. As she took her steps, limping, a huge shadow blocked her path.
"Where do you intend to go?"
A young man equipped with armor contemplated her with a stern face. He was the guard who had begun to guard the door like a jailer since the day she escaped from the castle in secret.
Talia pinned him with a penetrating gaze and said sarcastically:
"Did His Highness the Grand Duke impart orders to confine me inside the bedroom?"
"His Highness ordered not to avert one's gaze from His Highness the Duchess even for an instant, and to protect her strictly."
Talia's face paled for a moment, then she replied with haughtiness:
"Then you must protect me based on those orders, instead of insolently standing in my way."
When she prepared to head toward the stairs, the man blocked her path once more.
"What I do will depend on the place you plan to go," the man threw her a firm look. "You may move freely anywhere inside the castle, but if you intend to go out, you must first obtain the authorization of His Highness the Grand Duke."
Talia contemplated him with her face flushed with anger. However, the young soldier did not move even an inch.
"I will ask once more. Where do you plan to go?"
"I..."
She wanted to say that she planned to go where Varkas was, but she fell silent. She herself had been the cause of driving him to march. With what right would she pursue him, and what would she say to him? Did she intend to selfishly ask him to remain by her side in silence, even if that entailed isolating him politically more than he already was?
Talia felt all her desire vanish in an instant, and said with a hollow tone:
"... I wish to go up to the castle wall."
The soldier knitted his brow with suspicion and then stepped aside a little. Since he himself had declared that she had the freedom to go anywhere inside the castle, he found no justification to stop her.
Talia descended the stairs directly. She felt the maid and the soldier following her in silence, but she did not turn toward them and left the main castle. Throughout her entire journey crossing the extensive courtyard, the worried looks that the duchess might escape fell upon her.
She ignored that and climbed the stone steps upon which the rain was splashing; then, her view was filled with the gray plains covered by the curtain of water. It seemed that the retinue of soldiers had departed quite a while ago, as she did not descry any trace of them anywhere.
She approached the wall and remained contemplating for a long time the fields battered by the strong wind of the rain. How long did she continue that way? The maid, who remained waiting in silence, suggested cautiously:
"Your Highness, you will catch a cold this way. It is better that we go inside..."
Talia looked for an instant at the pale face of the girl, who had been exposed to the rain without any fault of her own because of her, and then turned toward the stairs. At that precise moment, she heard a sad wailing coming from somewhere.
She turned with a start. At first she thought she was hearing hallucinations again. However, she did not realize it was a real sound until she saw the surprised face of the maid.
"What is that sound, for the love of God?"
"It seems the hunters brought beast cubs from somewhere," the soldier replied coldly as he looked toward the back garden. "Pay no attention to it, Your Highness the Duchess, and let us leave here."
Talia ignored the soldier's urgency and headed toward the source of the sound. After walking for a while along the corridor upon the wall, the sound of the sharp wailing filled with fear gradually became clearer. For some reason, she felt an oppression in her chest. She descended the stairs leading to the back garden almost running.
Shortly after, she managed to find five or six armed soldiers gathered in the back garden, which was populated with trees and undergrowth. Those who were throwing something into a small pit interrupted their labor upon seeing her.
"Your Highness the Duchess, what brings you to a place like this..." one of the soldiers bowed his head quickly.
Talia passed him by and approached the pit. There were three or four black wild wolf cubs lying with their limp bodies in the mud. She contemplated them intently and then formulated a sharp question to the soldier:
"You, what are you doing?"
"We were getting rid of the Direwolf wolf cubs," the soldier with the thick beard replied with a coarse tone. "They are those damn creatures that killed more than ten horses of the duchy throughout this past winter. It seems they finally managed to reproduce, as we saw fat wolf cubs crawling in the forest. We thought about killing them directly, but we brought them just in case we could obtain magic stones from them, but..." the man let out a heavy sigh, lifted the body of a wolf lying on the ground, and threw it into the pit: "it seems they are still too small, as nothing came out of them even after cutting open their bellies. So we were simply burying them."
With a sound of impact, the body of the small animal sank into the muddy water.
Talia stepped back a pace unconsciously, but the sound of the wailing that had been interrupted for a while was heard again. Talia turned her head quickly and opened her eyes wide upon seeing a soldier extract a mass of gray fur from a large bag. The soldier pressed his knife against the animal's neck.
Upon seeing that scene, Talia threw her body forward without thinking. The soldier, whose shoulder was suddenly pushed, let out a cry and fell to the ground. Talia pushed aside the soldier, who was looking at her with surprised eyes, and lifted the gray animal fallen on the ground. Then, the sound of the sad wailing ceased as if it were a lie.
Talia examined with meticulous care the gray wolf, completely soaked by the rain. She saw, beneath eyelashes that resembled fluff and shone with whiteness, two light blue pupils. And when she found silver glints inside them, she held her breath unconsciously.
"Why are you doing that, Your Highness the Duchess?" asked the guard who had followed her with a tone tinged with annoyance.
Talia answered him without turning toward him:
"This little one, I will raise him."
She felt the stir among those surrounding her. Undoubtedly, everyone must think the duchess had lost her mind. Perhaps that was the case.
"Perhaps I have finally gone mad."
However, she did not care. She opened her coat and held the small animal close to her chest. The wolf did not avert its eyes from her even for a single instant. And when Talia found a deep longing in that transparent pupil moistened by tears, she drew an affectionate smile on her lips.
"From now on, your name is Khan."
The small ears covered in fur moved gently. Talia contemplated that scene with eyes overflowing with joy, buried her face in the soaked fur, and murmured:
"Let us remain together always from now on."
