The Forgotten Field

Tears welled up in her stunned eyes once again.

The woman stood there in a daze, unable even to wipe away the streams running down her face. Her trembling lips finally parted.

“Why... why are you being so cruel to me?”

She glared at him with eyes full of resentment and demanded,

“We've known each other for almost our entire lives. All those years, you were always kind to me. So why have you changed like this?”

He frowned.

Had I ever treated this woman warmly enough for her to confront me like this?

He searched through the hazy fragments of his memory.

Though he had merely been trying to imitate Bernadette, he had indeed made an effort to treat her well. After all, she was a younger relative he had watched grow up since she was three.

Politically, maintaining an alliance with the Crown Prince had been essential. Preserving an amicable relationship had simply been the rational course of action, but it was also true that he had tried, in good faith, to fulfill his duties as her fiancé.

When had he become incapable of maintaining that goodwill?

For the first time, he found himself questioning his own emotions.

When, exactly, had Aila Roem Gwirta become so utterly unbearable to me?

—

“At the very least... let us recover that child's body and give her a proper funeral.”

—

The memory flashed through his mind, and his thoughts came to a complete halt.

His gaze dropped to the leather pouch in his hand.

A strange buzzing filled his head, thick as fog. Ignoring the agonizing ringing that felt as though half his brain were being crushed, he instinctively forced his eyes back to the woman's face.

A harsh voice escaped him before he even realized it.

“Now that you've cried enough, would you kindly leave?”

Her eyes went hollow with shock.

Staggering back a step, she stared at him in disbelief before fury gradually filled her gaze.

“Is it because of that girl?”

“...”

“Is it really... because of her... because of Talia Roem Gwirta that you're treating us like this?!”

Something in her voice mercilessly crushed what little remained of his reason.

He shot to his feet.

As though seized by instinctive fear, the Imperial Princess flinched and retreated.

He slowly approached her, casting a dark shadow across her tear-soaked face.

“I thought you were at least smarter than Gareth... but it seems I was mistaken.”

She looked as though her soul had already left her body. Even her pale lips had gone rigid.

She had spent her entire life adored and revered.

This was likely the first humiliation she had ever suffered.

The sight of her bloodless face, utterly unable to believe what she had just heard, twisted something inside him even more violently.

He murmured directly into her face,

“How many times have I told you to leave? Are you and your brother taking turns begging to have your throats crushed by my hand?”

“V-Varkas...”

“This is the last time I'll say it.”

His rough voice, laced with the scrape of steel, echoed ominously through the room.

“Get out.”

The eyes that had always shone with confidence and gentle dignity were now clouded by fear, shame, and humiliation.

She remained frozen for a long while, staring at him without moving.

At last, her cracked voice escaped her lips.

“I... I understand... what you're saying.”

Gathering every ounce of her composure, she clutched the shawl around her shoulders with trembling hands before abruptly turning away.

Even then, she stubbornly tried to preserve her dignity, wiping the tears from her face and hurriedly composing her expression.

For a brief moment, the effort itself almost seemed pitiful.

Still desperately maintaining the appearance of her usual noble grace, the Imperial Princess finally left the room.

The moment the door shut, Varkas walked to the cabinet beside the bed and took out a bottle of wine.

He yanked out the cork, poured the strong liquor into a silver goblet until it overflowed, then emptied it in one swallow down a throat that burned as though he had swallowed glowing coals.

He wanted something—anything—to steal away his consciousness once more.

After draining an entire bottle in moments, Varkas reached for another.

Just then, he caught a faint, peculiar sound and looked through the window, its glass gradually darkening with night.

The wind howled outside, battering against the panes.

It almost sounded as though faint sobbing were mixed within it.

He walked over to the window.

An endless, lightless night stretched beyond it, so dark that not even an inch ahead could be seen.

Varkas gazed into that immeasurable abyss for a long time before abruptly pulling the curtains shut.

* * *

The Imperial delegation departed Laedgo Castle in haste the following day.

Officially, they claimed they were rushing north to oversee postwar reconstruction, negotiate the peace treaty, and discuss the marriage alliance following the end of the civil war.

In reality, however, they looked no different from people being driven out.

The Crown Prince and the Imperial Princess were not the only ones flushed with humiliation—even the faces of their attendants had turned bright red.

The Grand Duke, meanwhile, never showed himself, not even on the day the Crown Prince departed the castle.

Grinding his teeth in fury at such blatant disrespect, the Crown Prince thundered,

“Tell the Grand Duke that I shall return before long. And when I do, I will not overlook such insolence again.”

The vassals of House Siorcan gathered at the training grounds to see the Crown Prince off and bowed in unison.

Yet not one of them gave the slightest response to his threat.

Reading open defiance in that icy silence, the Crown Prince shot them a blazing glare before sharply turning his horse around.

Once the Imperial party departed, a heavy silence settled over Laedgo Castle once more.

Driven back by the stubborn insistence of those around him, Varkas was removed from all official duties and remained confined to his room.

With nothing left to occupy him, he passed the days either sleeping under the effects of powerful sedatives or drowning himself in liquor as poisonous as venom.

Perhaps those efforts were effective.

As though the insomnia that had tormented him had never existed, he was now able to spend most of each day asleep.

Within those dreams, he was still serving as her Imperial Guard knight.

Whenever the mischievous girl's laughter tickled his ears as she busied herself devising yet another scheme to make his life difficult, he wished he would never wake again.

But once the medicine wore off, cold reality swallowed him once more.

Even clouding his mind with drugs and alcohol gradually reached its limits.

With each passing day, the amount of medicine required just to sleep continued to increase, while the mind that had already been worn to the breaking point grew not duller, but sharper.

He searched for even stronger, more potent drugs.

Yet eventually, no medicine would grant him refuge in dreams any longer.

All that remained for him were pale, bloodless days... and nights as deep as the abyss.

Unable to endure the agonizingly slow passage of time any longer, he finally rose from the bed.

If he did nothing, he felt he would go mad.

No.

Perhaps he already had.

Ignoring the servants who desperately tried to stop him, he calmly began dressing himself.

In the mirror stood a man who looked little different from a walking corpse, staring back with hollow, gloomy eyes.

Turning away from that ghost with the ruined gaze, he buttoned his shirt as neatly as always, slipped on his coat, and headed toward the door.

Just as he was about to leave, he sensed a cautious presence outside.

“Your Grace, I have something urgent to report. May I come in for a moment?”

It was the chief maid.

Varkas immediately opened the door.

The woman standing outside started in surprise and instinctively stepped back.

After silently looking down at her for a moment, Varkas asked calmly,

“What is it?”

“My apologies for disturbing your rest. However... I believed this was something Your Grace ought to know.”

She looked momentarily flustered before quickly regaining her composure.

“The Grand Duchess's nanny is packing her belongings and says she intends to return to the Imperial Palace.”

Varkas remained standing there with a rigid expression.

When he showed no reaction, the chief maid added anxiously,

“But... she's also taking Her Grace's personal belongings without permission...”

A trace of anger colored her voice.

“She wouldn't listen no matter how much we tried to stop her. I thought Your Grace needed to know, so I came here immediately.”

Personal belongings.

The moment he repeated those words to himself, a violent ringing suddenly tore through his head.

It felt as though every cell in his brain were screaming.

He squeezed his throbbing head with one hand and shut his eyes tightly, as though it might burst apart at any moment.

Seeing that something was terribly wrong, the chief maid hurried over to support his arm.

Varkas instinctively shook her hand off and looked down at her with bloodshot eyes.

“If she lays a finger on even a single one of her belongings... tell her she won't be leaving here alive.”

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