Chapter 255

Talia stopped breathing. Although she herself had believed the same thing all along, hearing someone else say it aloud caused an indescribable surge of emotion to well up inside her. Tiuran carefully wiped the tears from her cheeks and continued cautiously.

“Do you remember the story I told you before?”

“......That children who die without being baptized are reborn as animals?”

A faint smile appeared on the healer’s lips.

“Actually, whether they were baptized or not has nothing to do with it. That legend has been passed down since long before the Imperial Church spread to the East.”

The healer’s gaze fell upon the wolf, whose ears were perked up.

“The ancient easterners believed that those who met tragic deaths were reborn as beasts and returned to meet the people they had loved in life. Perhaps Khan missed Your Highness so much that he borrowed the body of a beast and was born again.”

“......Do you really think so?”

Tiuran slowly nodded.

“I believe there is a reason behind every encounter in this world. There must be a reason Khan came to Your Highness when you were suffering from the pain of loss.”

Talia looked down at Khan with tear-filled eyes. As though he held no resentment whatsoever toward the person who had hurt him, the wolf continued gazing at her with unwavering affection. Something knotted tightly inside her chest slowly melted beneath that blindly devoted gaze.

She gathered the wolf carefully into her arms and buried her face in his warm, soft fur. The healer quietly watched her for a moment before gently patting her back.

After that, Talia began following Tiuran around like a chick trailing after its mother hen.

Whenever she took Khan out for a walk, she brought Tiuran along, and sometimes she spent the entire afternoon with her in the kitchen, chatting as they prepared food together. At other times, she even followed Tiuran all the way to her cottage to watch her make medicines or help her prepare medicinal herbs.

Quite a few people looked upon the Grand Duchess of the East with disapproval for devoting herself to menial tasks fit for commoners, but she did not care. The joy of finally finding someone who understood her mattered more than anything else. She could not have cared less about the whispers of society.

“Why don’t you move into the main castle? I’ll have an especially spacious room prepared for you.”

Talia abruptly made the suggestion while lounging on Tiuran’s bed with Khan.

Tiuran, who had been sitting at her desk writing something in a journal, gave her an awkward look.

“I’m more comfortable here.”

“Why? You could live far more comfortably than you do now if you stayed in the main castle. If there’s anything you need, I’ll provide all of it.”

“You really don’t have to do that.”

Tiuran smiled softly and closed the book.

“This cottage is filled with memories of my late grandmother. I’ve lived here since I was very young, so unless there’s a particular reason, I don’t want to leave.”

Talia stared curiously at her face before abruptly asking,

“What about your parents?”

“They both died of illness when I was very young.”

The woman answered calmly, took a bundle of herbs from a shelf, spread them across the table, and began carefully measuring and mixing them with a scale.

Talia silently watched her for a while before asking something she had long been curious about.

“What about your husband?”

The woman’s hand paused for an instant as she ground herbs in a mortar.

A bitter smile appeared on Tiuran’s lips.

“I’ve never been married.”

Talia had vaguely realized that Tiuran, like herself, had once experienced the loss of a child, and confusion showed on her face. Tiuran gave her a bright smile as though it were nothing.

“There was someone I promised to marry, though.”

“Did he break his promise?”

Talia frowned and questioned her sharply. Seeing her fierce expression, Tiuran let out a quiet laugh.

“Yes. He left me and the child in my womb behind and went far away.”

“Tell me that bastard’s name. I’ll send soldiers to deal with him.”

Talia spoke indignantly.

“If you want, I can have him dragged here, forced onto his knees in front of you, and made to beg for forgiveness. I owe you for everything you’ve done for me, so I’ll make a special exception and deal with him however you want.”

Tiuran stared at her with an indescribable look in her eyes.

“Don’t you despise me for having a child without being married?”

“Did you forget that I was born illegitimate?”

Talia snorted incredulously.

“Condemning you for something like that would be the same as spitting in my own face.”

“......But Your Highness is not someone anyone has the right to point fingers at. Your father is His Majesty the Emperor, and your mother is Her Majesty the Empress.”

“An illegitimate child is still an illegitimate child.”

A mocking smile curled Talia’s lips.

“To my father, I’m nothing more than proof of his infidelity, constantly reminding him of his own wrongdoing. To my mother, I’m nothing but a game piece that has already outlived its usefulness. It’s the same with the servants. In front of me, they all bow their heads and call me ‘Your Highness, Grand Duchess’ or ‘Your Highness, Princess,’ but behind my back, they point fingers at me and call me the spawn of adultery.”

Seeing Tiuran’s expression darken, Talia erased the smile from her lips. A sudden wave of intense anxiety swept over her, as though she had exposed far too many of her vulnerabilities. Trying to conceal it, she exaggeratedly changed the subject.

“Just tell me who the man who betrayed you was. I’ll hang him upside down from the gallows and.......”

“He died a long time ago too.”

Talia faltered and fell silent at the calm reply.

Tiuran gently curved her lips as though it were nothing and added,

“You don’t have to make that face. It happened a very long time ago.”

Talia stared at her as though she were looking at something incomprehensible.

She could not believe that Tiuran was capable of smiling like that after losing her parents, the man she had loved, and even her child.

When Talia had lost her child, she had felt such despair that it seemed the entire world had collapsed around her. Even now, there were times when she missed the sensation of the baby moving inside her womb so desperately that she could hardly breathe.

How could this woman have endured all of that and still remained sane?

“After enough time passes...... does it stop hurting?”

The healer’s smile faded slightly at the hesitant question. She set down the mortar and slowly shook her head.

“There are pains in this world that never disappear, no matter how many years pass.”

“.......”

“But there is one thing I can tell you for certain. Even pain so deep that it feels as though it pierces your heart wears away little by little, year after year...... until one day, it becomes small enough to bear.”

Talia blinked vacantly before asking in a hushed voice,

“How long did it take before it became like that?”

“A very long time.”

“......I see.”

Talia murmured blankly.

“It takes a long time.”

At that moment, she felt something warm against her cheek.

Talia turned her head. Khan was licking the tears from her face. She quietly gazed into his blue eyes, which seemed to resonate with her sorrow, then lowered her head and kissed his soft, downy forehead.

That day, Talia returned to her bedroom and opened her diary.

She had only begun keeping it because Tiuran had insisted that honestly writing down her innermost thoughts might help alleviate her hallucinations. Contrary to Tiuran’s intentions, however, it had gradually become more of a record of Khan’s growth.

Talia casually skimmed through what she had written so far before turning to a blank page and writing down the conversation she had shared with Tiuran.

Rather than merely recording the day’s events mechanically, she also tried writing down how they had made her feel.

Would this really heal the sickness in her heart?

She stared doubtfully at the diary for a while, then gathered Khan into her arms and lay down on the bed.

Whether it was merely coincidence or whether some small part of the knot inside her had truly begun to loosen, that night she fell into a deep sleep without suffering from nightmares or hallucinations.

After sleeping soundly for the first time in a long while, Talia rose feeling refreshed.

Khan, who had been curled into a ball beside her pillow, immediately sprang to his feet and wagged his tail. She kissed his face, then walked behind the partition to wash herself.

Just then, the faint sound of a trumpet came from somewhere in the distance.

Talia flinched and looked out the window.

Dozens of burly men mounted on warhorses were entering the castle in a long procession.

The moment Talia recognized the face of the man riding at their head, her entire body went rigid.

Varkas had returned.