* * *
A withered leaf drifted down onto the earth.
The skeletal trees, stripped down to bare branches, writhed violently under the relentless wind, while icy rain poured over the hills fading into dull gray-brown.
Sitting on the windowsill, gazing out at the ash-colored landscape, Talia spotted a group of mounted warriors entering the castle courtyard and pressed her face against the cold windowpane.
Beyond the hazy curtain of splashing rain, she saw Varkas seated atop a massive gray warhorse.
She watched him dismount with effortless grace.
After handing the reins to a servant, Varkas swept aside his rain-soaked robe, revealing a face as white and flawless as carved marble.
It was difficult to believe this dignified, composed man was the same barbarian who mercilessly overwhelmed her almost every night.
Wiping the misted glass with her palm, Talia stared at him without blinking.
The moment Varkas turned his head toward her window, she hurriedly drew the curtain shut.
Merely brushing gazes with him sent heat rushing through her body, her heart beating wildly out of rhythm.
Anxiously biting her lip, Talia climbed down from the windowsill and curled up beside the fireplace.
Yet even before the roaring flames, her trembling refused to subside.
She wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her face against her knees.
She had no idea how she was supposed to face Varkas anymore.
Ever since they had spent the night together, everything she had once believed to be certain had become hopelessly tangled.
At times, the man beneath the daylight and the man hidden within the darkness felt like entirely different people.
During the day, he wore the same impassive expression as always, as though desire had never existed in his life, treating her no differently than before.
But the man in the darkness was different.
That man, existing only as a faint silhouette, was fierce and primal, like the king of the eastern pagans who had once terrified the ancient kingdoms.
Feeling the dull ache where he had so relentlessly tormented her the previous night, she instinctively pressed her thighs together.
Her cheeks burned.
She had never imagined Varkas would be so... enthusiastic in bed.
Wasn't he a man as ascetic as the priests themselves?
Considering their nights together had begun only because she had forced the issue, the intensity of his passion was almost incomprehensible.
Especially when she remembered how every woman in the Imperial Palace who had tried every trick imaginable to seduce him had ultimately tasted nothing but bitter defeat.
'...Was he like that with Aila too?'
Her thoughts immediately turned in a self-destructive direction.
Until now, she had firmly believed he was incapable of feeling such passion for anyone, convincing herself that even with Aila he had merely fulfilled the obligations expected of a fiancé.
But perhaps their relationship had gone far beyond that.
After all, wasn't he the sort of man who could pour out such overwhelming desire upon her, only to wear a perfectly composed face the following morning as though nothing had happened?
Perhaps he had done all manner of passionate things with Aila as well, only to continue masquerading as her refined and gentlemanly fiancé.
No...
He undoubtedly had.
She could never become someone special to anyone.
She had accepted that truth long ago.
If he could desire her, then he could desire someone else just as easily.
Had he married another woman instead of her, he undoubtedly would have responded in exactly the same way.
'So stop assigning some special meaning to his actions.'
“Oh, honestly! Stop biting your lips already.”
The frivolous voice shoved its way into her brooding thoughts.
Startled, Talia raised her head.
At some point, the nanny had entered the room, a large basket tucked beneath her arm, glaring disapprovingly at her.
“If you wound them, the dye won't take properly.”
“I don't care. After all...”
Varkas won't even be able to see me.
She almost snapped the words back before swallowing them.
The nanny fussed over dressing her every single evening.
If she discovered all her efforts were ultimately pointless, she would undoubtedly become even more unbearable.
Talia hid her bloodstained fingernails beneath her skirt and rested her forehead against her knees.