Chapter 216
## THE FORGOTTEN FIELDS (NOVEL) – Chapter 216
### Chapter 216
Varkas tried to hold onto the saddle by pressing with his thighs with all his might, but his body had already reached its extreme limit.
In the end, he collapsed heavily onto the cold, frozen earth.
“Your Excellency!”
With great difficulty, someone managed to cushion his body as he slid off his horse.
Despite being on his knees trying to catch his breath, he shook off the hands that intended to assist him and used his halberd as support to straighten his leaning body and stand firmly.
However, his vision began to distort and spin around him once more.
He rested his head against the halberd, waiting for the intensity of the dizziness to subside, and then cast a fleeting glance at his abdomen.
Everything indicated that the wound had opened due to his violent movements; hematic fluid was gushing in abundance from the opening that the sword had inflicted on his armor.
One of the knights exclaimed, tearing his own outer coat to quickly try to plug the injury:
“Summon a cleric immediately!”
When Varkas realized he was no longer capable of moving, he finally yielded and lay on his back on the ice.
He no longer experienced pain, but he perceived with absolute clarity that frigid sensation and the fatigue that were taking possession of his body.
‘Perhaps this is the last scene my eyes will behold.’
He weighed that thought while fixing his gaze on the firmament; the beautiful cobalt tone of the afternoon seemed to pour into his retinas.
At that precise moment, a feeling of deep bitterness ran through his entrails.
It was strange; the thrust had been in his side, without a doubt, so why did it feel as if a hole had been carved into his heart?
Varkas closed his fatigued eyes after blinking a couple of times with his exhausted eyelids.
A light, warm breeze caressed his face, impregnated with the pleasant aroma of grass.
And upon realizing that the scent of sweet fruits was mixed into it, Varkas changed the direction of his steps immediately.
It did not take long before he discovered the young woman he had been searching for for hours by the shore of the pond, tinged by the reddish glow of the twilight.
Varkas looked with annoyance at the young woman who remained seated on a thick branch of a tree, elevated to the height of his shoulder, while swinging her bare feet.
“Have you not already passed the age for climbing trees?”
The blue pupils that were contemplating the peaceful purple lake drifted toward him with a fleeting glance:
“Not yet. I am capable of executing whatever pleases me until I reach fifteen years of age.”
He raised an eyebrow with strangeness; ladies of noble lineages were habitually instructed in the rules of aristocratic behavior from the age of eight or nine.
He wanted to object, but instead exhaled a sigh and extended his hand to her:
“It has become late. Come, descend now.”
The young woman shot him a strange look, then turned her face away haughtily:
“I cannot.”
He narrowed his eyes with suspicion.
And under the intensity of his pressuring gaze, the young woman moved her pale feet beneath the hem of her dress, which had risen up to her calves.
“Do you see this? I find myself barefoot, so it is not possible for me to ever move from here.”
“…… And where has your footwear ended up this time?”
“I do not know. It fell at some point over there.” —She pointed toward the thick undergrowth at the lower part of the slope that led to the lake.
Varkas held back a sigh, descended, and began to search among the bushes, until he finally discovered the pair of velvet slippers the size of the palm of his hand.
After shaking them to remove the dust, he returned to the foot of the tree, at which moment the young woman’s foot extended in front of his face as if it had been waiting for him.
“Proceed.”
He experienced annoyance for an instant at her treatment—him being a knight and the heir to the duchy—as if he were a common servant, but soon he held one of her feet and slipped the slipper on with care.
The young woman moved the small toes of her foot as if experiencing tickles, then extended the other one to him.
He placed the remaining footwear on her without raising an objection, then straightened his posture, tilted his head, and said:
“Have we concluded now?”
“Concluded what? Now you must lower me down.” —And she extended both arms to him with a childish countenance.
Varkas remained contemplating her for a moment, then exhaled a sigh of capitulation and incorporated her body into his arms.
And while he was preparing to set her down on the earth, her slender arms tightened around his neck.
His body tensed at that unexpected behavior and, immediately the next second, he knitted his brows upon perceiving an intense aroma of wine.
Everything indicated that she complained too much because she had stolen liquor to consume it in some corner.
He tried to distance the young woman who was pressing against his chest, and asked her in a firm tone:
“Where did you obtain the wine?”
“It is a secret.” —The young woman let out a contained laugh.
That tone, which resonated with clarity like a warm breeze, made the entirety of the severe reprimands forming in his mouth vanish in an instant.
He looked with astonished eyes at her small face, flushed with a subtle blush.
He was unable to tear his gaze away from the young woman who habitually looked as if she were about to succumb to misfortune, and who was now laughing free of worries.
“Look, Varkas. There is a moon in the firmament.” —And she suddenly pointed toward the sky, which was beginning to turn a dark blue.
He followed the direction of her finger, discovering a crescent moon suspended on the boundary that divided the reddish glow and the blue.
The young woman continued contemplating it for a long time as if she had discovered a treasure, then murmured in a dreamy tone:
“In one more year, I will reach sixteen.” —She lowered her blue pupils, impregnated with moisture, slowly until resting them on him—. “You know, when that moment arrives……”
Her voice, which flowed with slowness, was suddenly interrupted.
Varkas contemplated with distraction the silhouette of the young woman vanishing as if it were a mirage.
A gust of strong wind blew from some point and invaded his body severely.
The next instant, he found himself standing in the esplanade of Raidgo Castle.
He spotted her behind the garden, where flowers bloomed in abundance.
She was smiling with joy under the glow of the bright sun, holding a small infant in her lap.
The woman contemplated the child’s face with the same gaze with which she used to observe the moon, then lifted her head suddenly and spotted him.
‘Varkas.’
He approached with caution the woman who was summoning him, and she showed him the infant’s face as if granting him a special grace.
‘Look. Is it not truly beautiful?’ —the woman said with pride, as if exhibiting a treasure of great value, then placing her rosy lips upon the clean cheek of the child.
Varkas witnessed that scene without blinking, then shifting his gaze toward her lap.
The infant possessed a small face that resembled a combination of both, in which two blue pupils shone like gems. And at that precise moment, the image of a pale and frigid face wrapped in an infant’s cloth passed before his eyes.
Were blue pupils like those hidden behind those eyelids that closed forever?
He weighed that with distraction, and extended his hand to feel the child’s cheek.
In that moment, that subtle and ephemeral vision vanished like a mirage.
And she disappeared too with her cheerful smile in the blink of an eye, like dust scattered by the wind.
He contemplated how every shining object dissolved into the air without emitting a sound, and clenched his empty hand.
Straight away, the surroundings turned gray and fractured into pieces.
And the wind that blew from some point swept away the remaining vestiges of those fantasies.
Nothing remained for him now but his eroded body and an endless emptiness.
He prostrated himself on his knees upon the crumbled earth, remaining with his gaze fixed on those infinite ruins.
“Have you regained your senses now?”
With a weak groan, he opened his eyes, discovering first and foremost the pale face of DarÃn.
To what was the presence of the man who was presumably supposed to guard ‘Tarlen’ at his side at this moment due?
He knitted his brows and immediately realized that he was not in a military tent, but in a bedroom furnished with opulence, so he tried to incorporate the upper part of his body.
DarÃn was alarmed upon realizing this and pressed his shoulder to force him back to the bed:
“The wound has not yet fully consolidated. You must not make movements.”
Varkas examined his body with imperturbable features. Thick white bandages surrounded his naked torso tightly.
He exerted a subtle pressure on them, experiencing an intense stiffness and a throbbing pain.
He looked at DarÃn with strangeness and asked him:
“Why did you not employ medicinal magic?”
“And how could we not employ it? Four of the high priests consecrated themselves to your injury, pouring the entirety of their holy powers.” —the man said while sitting on the chair with fatigue, emitting a sigh—. “Everything indicates that the sword was impregnated with monster venom. The wound did not respond adequately to medicinal magic, which forced the clerics to remain alert at your side for the space of two full weeks to attend to you.”
Varkas raised an eyebrow and asked:
“How much time exactly did I remain unconscious?”
“You have been deprived of your senses for the space of exactly two weeks and five days.”
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