Chapter 167
THE FORGOTTEN FIELDS (NOVEL) – CHAPTER 167
Clear tears completely soaked the woman’s face.
He gazed at the scene with an emotionless look, then knelt on a single knee before her.
“As you have said, Your Majesty, I do not understand even a fraction of your pain. However, I remember very well that feeling of helplessness that stirs the chest of a child who has lost any shelter to lean on.”
Light began to gradually return to her pupils, which had remained empty like a black well.
He reached his hand under his coat and drew out a handkerchief; then, he wiped the tears from her damp cheeks, just as she herself had wiped his face in the past.
“Please, compose yourself, if only for the sake of His Highness the crown prince and His Highness the princess.”
The empress’s face was stained with a deep sense of guilt and shame. Her slender shoulders trembled weakly, and then she lowered her head in resignation.
“I am sorry. I should not have said such things to you…”
He gave a few light pats on the shoulder of the empress, who intensified her sobbing as if she were a little child.
Shortly after, he carefully carried the empress, who had lost consciousness due to extreme exhaustion, and laid her on the bed. Holding his breath, he walked out in silence, revealing before him the silhouette of Garis, who remained standing, leaning his back against the side of the hallway.
“Follow me.”
The boy suddenly pulled him, his reddened eyes shining with a fearsome glint. He followed the crown prince in silence.
“Look over there.”
Garis dragged him toward the watchtower connected to the main palace, pressed his body against the railing, and pointed outside. He stood beside the boy.
In the garden of the secondary palace, which the emperor used for resting, a man and a woman were holding a secret meeting. It was not difficult for him to distinguish the dark hair of the emperor and the sharp features of his face. With his broad shoulders composed of bone and muscle, the man, who wore his locks of curly hair loose, sat leaning back in the chair with indolence while caressing a woman’s waist.
He closely examined that woman of slender silhouette who leaned against the emperor. He found nothing special about her except for her long, light-toned hair and the harmony of her body, which looked perfect to a strange extreme. What was it about this woman that made the emperor of the Empire break his oath before God and abandon his honor?
While he cast glances full of suspicion at her, the woman raised her eyes as if she had perceived their presence. At that instant, he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end all at once. His skin grew completely cold, as if he were in front of something highly dangerous.
The woman gazed at him intently, then curved her eyes into a sarcastic smile. Right after, she grabbed the emperor’s hair and pulled him toward herself cruelly. Her touch was that of someone manipulating an insignificant possession and not the most exalted being of the Empire. Under that arrogant grip, the ruler, who seemed forged in steel, crumbled like a sandcastle.
The bodies of both, overflowing with vitality, intertwined under the resplendent sunlight, and their lips joined greedily.
“Filthy beasts,” Garis murmured like a roaring monster. “A week ago, he brought that woman to the secondary palace and began that filth. And that harlot dared to set her disgusting feet in the garden of the empress’s palace to trample on my mother’s dignity.”
Veins stood out in the boy’s reddened pupils as he contemplated the two intertwined bodies. He gripped the railing with both hands and said through gritted teeth:
“For that reason my mother drank the poison. Because of that damned harlot…”
Garis, who was trembling violently, kicked the wall cabinet, overturning it in a burst of fury, then began to randomly trample all the utensils scattered across the floor. This frenzy, which began as an explosion, did not conclude until everything in the room was destroyed.
“I will become emperor without fail. When I do, I will force that woman to kneel before me and I will pour into her throat the same poison my mother drank.”
The boy, panting in the midst of the chaos, turned toward him with eyes flooded with tears.
“Your task will be to drag that harlot before me and force her to kneel. I will be the emperor of the Empire, and you will be the ruler of the East and my chief confidant. We will avenge the humiliation our mother suffered.”
He turned his head and looked once more over the railing. Over the image of the man and woman united in broad daylight, the figure of Bernadette superimposed itself, she who was withering and becoming increasingly emaciated. She was the person who had rescued him from that prison-like place and cared for him like a son for seven years.
Why did he not experience the same violent fury that Garis felt? All he managed to feel was pity toward the empress and disgust for the vile act they were committing.
Garis grabbed him by the edge of his clothes and pulled hard.
“You will do it, right, brother?”
Varkas lowered his gaze once more to meet Garis’s disturbed eyes. He could not empathize with his feelings, but he was fully aware that he owed the empress an impossible debt to repay.
He extended his hand and gently stroked Garis’s messy, curly hair. As he was preparing to open his mouth to answer, the figure of the little boy suddenly vanished like a dream. And the chaotic landscapes surrounding him were tinged with pale, somber colors.
In the next instant, he found himself standing at the side of a dark hallway where gloom reigned. A faint sobbing was heard coming from somewhere. Upon turning, he saw the maids wiping away their tears. One of them approached him and offered him a solemn bow.
“You have arrived,” the maid’s voice was broken. “Please, go ahead. Her Majesty has been awaiting you for a while.”
He crossed the hallway and entered directly into the empress’s bedroom. In the room, brightly illuminated by candles, were Marquis Aurestine, his relatives, and the high priest. The dark pupils of their eyes turned toward him all at once, only to return once more toward the bed arranged in the center of the room.
He examined their faces for a moment, then crossed the room at a slow pace.
“Varkas!”
A little girl who remained lying on the bed threw herself toward him. He wrapped his arm around the little princess’s body and began to pat her back lightly, just as he had learned from the empress long ago. The girl wrapped her slender arms around his neck and shed hot, damp tears.
“Varkas, my mother…”
He stroked the head of the girl, who was unable to conclude her sentence, and looked toward the bed. In a few months, the empress had become so emaciated that it was difficult to recognize her, and she gave him a vacant smile. Her appearance, devoid of vitality, was incredible for a woman who did not exceed thirty-one years of age.
She extended her skeletal hand toward him.
“Come here.”
He left Ayla on the floor and knelt on a single knee before the bed. The girl ran immediately toward her twin brother and hugged him tightly. Garis held his sister with both arms while desperately trying to contain his tears.
He cast a quick glance at that scene and then returned his gaze toward the empress. She touched his cheek with her hand, cold as ice.
“You have grown more during these months. When you reach maturity, you will be as tall as your father.”
“…”
“It is strange, isn’t it? Although your features are far from those of the people of ‘Khan’, when I see you I remember the plains of the East through which I rode on horseback in my childhood. Perhaps for that reason I kept you by my side.”
Suddenly, the face of the woman, who carried a pale smile, transformed into an expressionless countenance. She remained contemplating him with dark eyes that seemed completely black, then lowered her hand slowly.
“I did not request your presence to entrust these memories to you. I asked for your arrival in haste because I wish to make a single request of you.”
“… Dispose your order.”
The woman could not open her mouth easily. After a long struggle with herself, she turned toward her two children standing beside the bed. At that moment, as if she had taken a definitive resolution, she said in a firm voice:
“I want you to protect my children.”
He frowned. He could not understand why she was making such a request of him. She was a member of the Shierkhan clan, and the twins also carried the family’s blood. He had the duty to protect them in any case.
He gripped the back of the woman’s hand and replied in a serene tone:
“Even if you do not ask, I intend to protect them with all the strength at my disposal. After all, that is also the will of the ducal house…”
“I am asking you for an oath, Varkas Laidgo Shierkhan,” she seized his hand with all the strength she had left. “Can you swear in the name of God that you will protect Garis and Ayla until your last day of life concludes?”
He looked at the empress in silence. What she requested transcended the duties that the next duke should naturally assume. It was a pact that pledged one’s entire existence. And being aware of the weight of that pact, he hesitated to answer lightly.
However, that hesitation caused him a certain strangeness. Was this life not simply the continuation of the process of breathing? During the last seven years, he had not experienced joy; moreover, he had not even felt sadness or fury. What value did it possess for him to hesitate to answer, in these moments that he spent in an automated way, repeating the cycle of eating and sleeping?
He turned his head and looked at Ayla and Garis. The twins contemplated him with eyes filled with fear. He did not consider protecting them to be an extremely difficult task.
“Isn’t it a task I will perform anyway?”
After making a decision, he directed his words calmly to the woman who had rescued him from the abyss only to then attempt to chain him once more:
“I swear in the name of God that I will protect both until the instant my life comes to its end.”
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