At that moment, the crying that had briefly subsided rose once more.
Startled, Talia withdrew her hand and stared toward the window with distorted eyes.
The piercing sound was becoming harder and harder to endure.
She wanted to make it stop somehow, yet there was nothing she could do. The helplessness felt as though her intestines were being torn apart.
Clutching the aching pain in her abdomen as though a knife had been driven into it, she slowly ran her hand over her flattened stomach.
Then a deranged thought suddenly surfaced.
'...I can simply start over from the beginning.'
She dimly realized that her thoughts were veering in a direction that was no longer sane, yet she could no longer control herself.
As though drawn by something, she reached out.
When she lifted the wrinkled hem of his tunic, the tightly drawn muscles of his waist and his solid abdomen came into view.
Her fingers slowly slid over them.
Grasping the loose trousers favored by easterners, she tugged them down slightly.
The taut tendon running toward his groin and the sharply defined curve of his hip bone were revealed.
But the tightly fastened leather laces stopped her from pulling them any farther.
She fumbled with the leather ties.
Her clumsy fingers only tightened the knot further.
Feeling herself becoming increasingly agitated, she yanked at the laces more impatiently.
Then a large hand, veins standing out beneath the skin, shot out and seized her wrist.
She looked up.
His face, clouded with confusion, filled her vision.
Narrowing his unfocused blue-gray eyes, he forced out a voice rough with sleep and edged with iron.
"...What are you doing?"
Without the slightest trace of embarrassment, Talia answered calmly.
"I... want another baby."
The drowsiness vanished from his eyes.
Turning away from the expression that looked as though he doubted what he had just heard, she reached toward the waistband of his trousers again.
Like someone possessed, she murmured,
"Give me another one. This time... I'll give birth to a healthy child."
Then my baby will stop crying so sorrowfully.
Desperately, she slipped her fingers into the clothing that had finally loosened a little.
At once, Varkas, who had remained as rigid as stone, abruptly sat upright and caught both of her wrists in a grip as tight as a snare.
As his hands tried to pull her away, something inside her mind snapped.
Talia cried out in a voice that sounded as though her insides were boiling.
"Why... why are you refusing me?"
The corners of the man's eyes slowly twisted.
His pupils, dilated into blackness, trembled almost imperceptibly.
Everything else was blurred.
So why was only this man so painfully clear?
Feeling a disgust that seemed directed at herself, she twisted violently against his grip.
"You said you'd do anything I wanted! You said you'd grant every wish I had! Give my baby back to me! The baby you wouldn't even let me hold... give my baby back!"
At that moment, she saw something collapse inside his eyes.
Murmuring words she could not understand, the man snatched up the bedsheet and wrapped it tightly around her.
Like a fish caught in a net, Talia struggled even more violently.
"Liar! You're nothing but a liar with an empty mouth! You promised you'd protect my baby, but you wouldn't even look at our child! You threw away your promise to me like it meant nothing!"
Her screams poured out one after another.
Even to her own ears, they sounded horrifying.
It was as though an evil spirit had possessed her.
Unable to contain the resentment surging through her, she beat him with all her strength, clawing at him again and again.
The man did not move.
Holding her tightly in his arms, he simply endured it all.