He carefully cupped the hand that had landed on his forehead and brought it to the corner of his mouth. At that moment, her figure scattered like grains of sand.
A suppressed groan burst from Barcas's mouth as he watched the scene with a dejected expression.
Clutching the bed sheets as if to tear them apart and trembling violently, he soon sprang to his feet like a seizure. As he sprinted out of the room and ran down the stairs in one go, a storm of wind and rain raged from outside the wide-open door.
Barcas began to run aimlessly along the muddy dirt road.
Blade-like rain slapped his cheeks incessantly. It felt as if the entire world had turned into a sharp weapon, hacking him to pieces.
How long did he run and run amidst the pain that felt like every nerve in his body was burning? In the dim darkness, the figure of a small girl appeared.
He stared blankly at the young girl standing in the rain in the mud, then staggered over and reached out his hand. But once again, she turned into cold rainwater and quietly flowed through his fingers.
Barcas, who had been standing motionless as if frozen, continued his precarious steps.
He could no longer even know what he was wandering in search of. Cold rain and hot tears mingled, ceaselessly drenching his cheeks. His body, broken to the limit, continued to pour out pain of unknown origin, and screams that should never have been heard echoed in his ears.
He could not admit that this was sadness. He did not want to admit it. Because if he accepted that fact, the reality that he had lost her wouId become.
"Barcas."
At that moment, a wet voice echoed in his ears.
Barcas stopped abruptly and looked around the dark forest where the wind was swirling. A chilling voice mixed in with the raging wind.
"I want you to be in pain. Very, very much."
He narrowed his eyes.
"The truth is, you have been hurting me for a very long time. Your words, your gaze, everything about them was piercing pain to me. This is the result of struggling to ignore and pretend not to know that fact."
He closed and opened his eyes tightly.
As he lifted his head, he saw the window of the room where she had stayed. Her shadow, looking down at him from there, flashed across his retina like a hallucination.
"Barcas."
Driven by the hallucinations calling to him, he stepped toward the back door of the castle.
As he climbed the dark stairs and reached the door of her bedroom, the tomb-like silence tightened around his chest.
After standing rooted to the spot for a long time, catching his ragged breath, he staggered toward the windowsill where she often lingered.
Through the rain-splattered glass, the main gate of Raedgo Castle and the hills stretching beyond it came into view.
[I'm getting used to watching you leave.]
Barcas grabbed the window frame roughly.
Blood seeped out from between the crushed fingernails. However, the pain in his chest was so severe that the sensations transmitted through his body felt like nothing more than faint noise.
He pressed his forehead against the windowpane, staring blankly at the rain-soaked hill, before slowly collapsing to the ground. His eyelids, heavy as lead, sank, unable to withstand the physical fatigue.
I didn't want to care about anything anymore. Nothing anymore...
***
He couldn't tell how long he had been unconscious.
As he lifted his eyelids, which felt as stiff as untanned leather, the High Priest's worried face and Darren's rigid expression came into view one after another.
The High Priest spoke first.
"Your Excellency, if you continue to neglect your body like this, it will end up in a state beyond even my healing magic to treat."
When he did not respond, the priest added in a subdued tone.
"You are still young, Grand Duke. It may be difficult to endure right now, but... no wound can defeat the passage of time."
At that moment, a rough laughes caped from Barcas's mouth.
He thought he could understand why she felt comforted by the remark that there are wounds that do not disappear even after a long time.
The priest, looking down with troubled eyes at the sight of him trembling and giggling like a madman, eventually left the room with a heavy sigh.
Darren, who had been standing quietly, finally pulled his lips away.
"I heard that Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess did her utmost to protect this estate until the very end."
Barcas's laughter, which had been echoing eerily, suddenly stopped.
The man averted his gaze and continued speaking heavily.
"...Even she would not want Your Excellency to collapse like this."
He was a man who had shown a negative attitude toward her all along. As if feeling a pang of conscience at the thought of bringing her up now in the name of comfort, the man's chin was tightly stiff.
Barcas, who had been looking up at the sight with cold, lifeless eyes, parted his dry lips.
"I'm tired. You may take your leave now."
It was a voice so calm that it sounded strange even to his ears.
The man hesitated for a moment, then left the room.
After dismissing all the servants who had been loitering around bothering him, he got out of bed. The room was much more tidy, perhaps because the servants had put away the empty chests while he was unconscious.
Scanning his surroundings with empty eyes, he spotted a chest placed in front of the desk and staggered toward it. It looked as though her remaining belongings, which she had not yet managed to sort out, had been gathered together.
He was staring blankly down at it when he noticed a pile of parchment stacked on one side of the desk and paused.
For a moment, he discovered something she had left behind, and a hope arose that the servants might have tidied it up. However, the sheet of paper he snatched up contained a series of reports on the various political upheavals that had occurred across the continent while he was lost in thought.
He scanned the document with an expressionless face.
News followed that the engagement between the Lady of the Blesston family and the Crown Prince had been successfully concluded, that Marquis Orstein was successfully fending off the political offensive by the radical faction led by the Empress, and that post-war negotiations were entering their final stages.
The message of all those phrases was clear. It was the fact that the situation of the empire was finally finding stability.
Unless another Prince stages a rebellion, Roem will remain steadfast for a long time.
The world without you will move forward toward dazzling prosperity as if nothing had happened.
Barcath, looking down at the paper with a distant gaze, could not control the surge of emotion welling up inside him and tore the parchment into shreds.
Just then, amidst the scattering fragments of documents, a jewelry box sitting all alone on one side of the desk caught his eye.
He stared down for a long time at the object he had clearly kept for a long time, then recalled the key he had found in the annex, and staggered through the wall hangings to find a coat that was not yet dry.
He rummaged through his pockets and found a small key. When he inserted it into the lock of the jewelry box, the lid lifted slightly with a click.
He flipped the latch upward and carefully opened the box. Then, the interior filled with dried flower petals was revealed.
Barcath, blinking blankly, picked up a thin, faded white petal. The thin leaf crumbled and scattered like ash.
He followed it with his eyes, then lowered his gaze to the action again.
As he carefully parted the petals with trembling hands, a neatly folded handkerchief, a small brooch, and a small stone that looked like a gemstone appeared.
He was left breathless by a memory that suddenly flashed through his mind. Thinking "surely not," he scanned the bottom of the small box.
He then discovered a tiny button, no bigger than a thumbnail, hidden among the dried flower petals, and froze.
He picked it up with his pale hands and held it up to the flickering light, and the emblem of the Roem Knights was faintly revealed.
He touched the corners of his mouth with a trembling hand. Long-buried memories unfolded vividly before his eyes.
Fifteen-year-old Thalia, pouring out ridiculous threats that she wouldn't let him get away with it if he even harmed a single strand of her hair. And Barcas, enduring her tantrums while struggling to untangle the hair stuck in the buttons...
"Ah..."
A rough groan, like a beast growling, escaped through his parched throat.
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