"Give me back Khan! I'm saying, give me back my child!"
Boneless fists flew wildly at his jaw, chest, and shoulders.
Barcas looked down at the woman who was wailing desperately with distorted eyes and grabbed her wrist as if snatching her.
"Snap out of it! That's not our child. It's just a beast!"
"No! No! Khan is my child. You killed my child! You took him away from me twice!"
The woman continued her fierce struggle as if she were fighting to the death.
His blood boiled at the sight of her looking as if she had completely lost her mind.
Barcas tightly cupped her cheeks with both hands and leaned his head close over her face, which was contorted with tears.
"Our child is dead. It has been a long time since he died and was buried in the cemetery."
"Shut up! Shut up! I said shut up!"
The woman screamed and violently scratched the back of his hand. He could feel her blood-stained fingernails digging deep into his skin.
He subdued the woman even more forcefully as she twisted her body violently, almost as if having a seizure, and looked straight into her eyes, engulfed in madness.
"Stop it and face reality. That wolf is nothing more than a monster tamed by human hands."
A dagger-like hatred flashed beyond the tear-stained blue eyes. Those eyes mercilessly scraped at the depths of his being.
Barcas did not stop and continued speaking even more mercilessly.
"No, it wasn't even properly tamed. The truth is, you knew that monster was dangerous, too. You are paying the price for turning a blind eye to it despite knowing that."
Red blood flowed down the back of his hand, where dark red fingernails were embedded.
The woman, trembling with her bright red lips covered in dried blood scabs, spat out a curse-like remark.
“Die.”
Amidst the rapid, labored breathing like that of a drowning person, a voice like the first water gushed out.
"I wish you would just die."
At that moment, the savage passion that had been filling his body drained away like sand.
He responded in a dry voice, as if denying that chilling sensation.
"Then try to get a stronger medicine next time. I'll gladly swallow it."
It seemed as though those words had taken away all her fighting spirit.
Her shoulders, which had been taut like a bowstring pulled just before it snapped, slumped downward. As she poured out tears like a hunter, her pupils dried up in an instant.
The woman, looking up at him with a ghostly, pale day, muttered in a voice that seemed about to crumble.
"Khan isn't a monster. You're the monster."
"..."
"You are a terrible, emotionless monster... I shouldn't have married you."
A dry, self-deprecating smile crossed the corners of Barcas's mouth as he stood motionless for a while.
"Regret is always too late, no matter how early it comes."
The woman, who had been staring at him as if seeing something terrible just as she had said, soon closed her eyes as if exhausted. He pushed her further. She looked as if she were about to faint again.
He stopped trying to force her to eat and walked over to the fireplace. As he stirred the weakened embers with a poker, his eyes fell upon the tattered back of a hand.
He picked up a towel from the shelf and wiped the blood. Then, suddenly feeling an unbearable fatigue, he slumped onto a chair. His vision blurred, as if covered in frost.
Clutching his throbbing forehead, he shifted his gaze back to the bed. His vision was filled with the bed, a mess from the rough struggle, and the woman sprawled on it like a broken doll.
For some reason, he felt suffocated.
He roughly ran his hand across his face and buried himself deep into the back of the chair.
***
Days like a war continued.
He had to engage in a fierce struggle for three or four hours just to get her to eat a bowl of porridge.
Even when he managed to force jer to eat, sjd would often throw up more than half of it, and it seemed as though she was using up even the small amount of nutrients je had forced her to digest entirely in fighting with him.
Watching her grow thinner day by day, Barcas keenly realized the bone-chilling sensation of having one's blood run dry.
Although she had caused him trouble several times before by refusing to eat, this was the first time he had faced such fierce resistance.
She looked as if she had truly decided to starve to death. Barcas, holding tightly in his arms as if binding the woman who was stabbing her throat to vomit up the oatmeal porridge she had barely managed to swallow after wrestling for two hours, shouted to the maids standing at a distance with a look of terror.
"Take the sedative right now!"
The women standing by the door rushed over, put dried herbs into the brazier, and lit a fire.
Even then, she was convulsing and twisting her body to break free from his arms.
"Let go! I said let go of this!"
He leaned against the headboard of the bed, tightly wrapped in the sheet.
Not long after, the woman's body slumped limply like seaweed. Her body, weakened to the limit, could not even shake off this very weak medicine.
He brushed away the tangled hair from the nape of the neck of the woman whose limbs hung limply while he rested her head against his chest.
Her face, a mess of sweat and tears, looked up at him resentfully.
"Please stop now. Just leave me alone."
He let her sobbing pleas go in one ear and out the other, and wiped her face with a warm, wet towel.
The woman, who had been looking up at him as if she were horrified, soon lost consciousness from the effects of the drug.
He stood up, having laid her diagonally on the bed where pillows were stacked high. Then, as he took off his tattered shirt and put on a new one, he felt furtive glances.
He looked back at the maids who were scurrying around.
"What?"
"Uh, well... I was wondering if Your Excellency should treat your wounds as well..."
The maid blushed and answered in a hushed voice.
He lowered his gaze to look at the red fingernail marks on his forearm. The nails, which had inflicted quite deep wounds during the first few days, were now barely making thin scratches and lines.
It seemed as though even the strength of her grip was weakening day by day. Barcas, who had been looking down at it with a subdued gaze, buttoned his shirt and replied indifferently.
“No need to worry.”
“Ha. But..."
"More importantly, where is the Grand Duchess's nanny currently working?"
The maid flinched and stiffened her shoulders as if surprised by the sudden question, and looked up at him.
"L-Lady Brenda is staying at the textile workshop in the outer castle. She was completely removed from her position as a court attendant a few years ago due to a grave offense she committed against Her Highness..."
The maid replied hesitantly. She looked worried that he might reinstate her as the Grand Duchess's attendant.
He loosely draped a black bunka over a thin shirt and gestured toward the door.
"Bring that woman downstairs to the annex."
The woman hesitated for a moment, then went outside.
Barcas called another maid, instructed her to check on Thalia's condition, and left the dim bedroom.
As he went down the stairs, the spacious hall where the maids lived, the cozy kitchen, and the neatly decorated entrance to the welding room came into view.
He went into the room where the fire was lit and plopped down on a velvet chair.
A maid who had followed him to attend to him filled a glass with wine and placed it on a small table.
As he picked it up to quench his parched throat, a half-dwarf woman with tanned skin was led by a soldier into the annex.
He scanned the face of the woman he had grown tired of seeing since childhood. She didn't seem to have lived a particularly hard life; she had gained weight since the last time he had seen her.
"I, I greet Your Excellency the Grand Duke."
The woman dragged in front of him muttered with an anxious face.
Barcas remained silent for a while. As the woman cautiously opened her mouth, glancing at him and rolling her pebble-like eyes back and forth, she began to speak.
"I don't know why you called me..."
"She has been refusing food for over two weeks."
He finally opened his mouth.
The woman, who had been wide-eyed as if taken aback by the words, soon let her shoulders droop.
"It looks like that bad habit of hers has returned."
The woman let out a deep sigh as if it were nothing new and shook her head.
"She's always been the type to refuse to eat or drink whenever she was in a bad mood, causing so much heartache... I wonder when on earth she’ll ever grow up..."
Then she clicked her tongue. She did not seem particularly worried, even at the news that the woman she had cared for with her own hands since she was a newborn had refused to eat or drink for fifteen days.
He glared at the woman with an icy gaze.
"Watch your mouth. Do you still see her as a little kid wrapped in your skirt?"
The woman flinched and hunched her rounded shoulders.
He pressed firmly against his throbbing eyelids, unable to sleep for several days, and brought up his business.
"Make some food she can eat."
"Ah. Your Excellency, you know very well, don't you, Young Lady... no, Her Highness the Grand Duchess, that once she keeps her mouth shut, it is of no use, no matter how much those around her beg and plead. No matter what is made and offered..."
"Still, didn't she often eat the food you made? If you need any ingredients, I'll get them for you. Make the dishes she used to enjoy and bring them over."
The woman kept her mouth tightly shut and did not say a word. Barcas glared at the woman who dared to disobey his command with a murderous look.
"Can't you hear me?"
"I... I heard you. I heard you clearly."
The woman stammered in response with a look of horror. However, her face still clearly showed her reluctance.
The woman, rolling her eyes nervously, spat out a hesitant remark.
"I, I will obey Your Excellency's command... please grant me just one request."
He let out a dumbfounded laugh.
"Do you think you are in a position to make a deal with me right now?"
"I—I am not a member of the Grand Ducal family. I am merely staying here to look after Her Highness the Grand Duchess on the orders of Her Majesty the Empress."
He leaned forward from the backrest of the chair. Then, he lightly nodded his head as if to say, "Go ahead."
The woman, who had been flinching and stepping back as if intimidated by him, squeezed her eyes shut and poured out a rapid stream of words.
"However, Her Highness the Grand Duchess dismissed me, stating that she had no need for me, and left me to do menial tasks among lowly servants. I can no longer tolerate such treatment. Once Her Highness the Grand Duchess recovers, I would like to request that you send me back to the Empress's Palace."
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