MHHC Chapter 113

Enlistment

Margaret lifted her trembling eyes to meet Adelheid's gaze steadily.

Adelheid found immense comfort in the fact that those eyes held no resentment or fear toward her.

Perhaps reading the emotion in her expression, Margaret opened her mouth with difficulty, her face resolute.

"You shouldn't have... done this for someone like me..."

"Save the scolding for later. I'll listen to as much as you want then."

"I don't matter either way... but how do you intend to resolve this situation? Especially after making such a spectacle..."

Margaret's eyes twisted with sorrow as she spoke.

Margaret's fingers touched lightly against the back of Adelheid's hand, which cupped her nape. Even in the midst of dying and being brought back, she seemed to worry only for Adelheid.

"Run away..."

Whether from loyalty to Ansgar, atonement for the past, or simply pity for the crime such a fragile body must bear—perhaps none of these, perhaps all.

The complex emotions on Margaret's face revealed little that could be read clearly.

Adelheid smiled faintly to reassure her.

"I'll make sure Ansgar suffers no harm."

"Harm? You mustn't say such things..."

"If there's no escape no matter what I do, I may as well show strength that makes me worth using."

"Your Grace..."

"Thank you, Margaret. For many things."

The light healing Margaret's throat grew more intense before fading entirely.

Adelheid slowly withdrew her hand from Margaret's neck. The bleeding had stopped, and the wounded area had healed completely.

Adelheid rose with the same composed dignity she'd entered the tribunal with, hands clasped together calmly.

"..."

For some time, a silence descended upon the tribunal that felt horrifically oppressive. Healing arts were not omnipotent.

To revive someone half-dead in a single instant—that deserved to be called a 'miracle.'

In that moment, everyone in the tribunal thought of Charlotte, the 'Miracle of Reichenau.'

And almost simultaneously, they recalled that Adelheid was Charlotte's sister. Two miracles born to the same house...

"What a horrifying power indeed!"

Those who had been entranced by the 'miracle' Adelheid displayed all snapped to attention at that malicious pronouncement.

The voice was nearly spat out. Finding its owner wasn't difficult.

Only one person in this tribunal trembled with such rage he could barely contain himself. The Emperor, Josef.

His reddened face and eyes glittering with spite revealed a fierce determination not to let this pass. Pettiness rippled through his entire being—he would repay the humiliation he'd suffered.

"I cannot overlook this any longer. High Priest! How do you view this matter?"

The Emperor shouted irritably toward his right.

Only then did Adelheid notice the clerics from the Grand Cathedral gathered in one corner of the tribunal.

The person standing at their forefront was... Father Padre.

Padre gazed at Adelheid with eyes as cold as if looking at a stranger, then reported to the Emperor with calm detachment.

"An interesting spectacle. In some ways it felt like sacred power, in others like healing arts."

"...So the High Priest claims this devious power is sacred?"

Crack—the sound of the Emperor grinding his teeth reached even Adelheid below the platform.

She lowered her head without particular expectation. No matter their private friendship, Padre would make the fairest judgment of anyone.

After a brief silence, his answer echoed through the quiet tribunal.

"...I cannot call it sacred power, but neither can I definitively declare it demonic."

Adelheid's eyes snapped up to Padre in shock.

He knew better than anyone that she possessed neither healing arts nor sacred power.

Count Reichenau had him monitor her relentlessly throughout her childhood.

What's more, there was the letter she'd sent him.

She had shared her suspicion without concealment—that her husband might have been resurrected by some devious power.

And now she had suddenly demonstrated this power of unknown origin. Anyone would find the circumstances suspicious.

Under these conditions, for a devout priest like him to take her side...

"What did you say?"

To the Emperor's incredulous question, Padre answered calmly.

"Your Majesty knows well that Reichenau and several other houses produce powerful healers almost exclusively. Most of those born with healing talent without hereditary factors belong to 'the Tower.'"

"And so."

"I regret to say that as a cleric, I find precise judgment difficult. Since this woman originally comes from House Reichenau, the family's capabilities may have manifested belatedly..."

"You simply don't want to judge, do you? All of Denburg knows you've been consorting with this wench!"

"Your Majesty!"

At this pronouncement that shamelessly undermined the High Priest's honor, several clerics standing behind Padre cried out in protest.

"Silence! All of you, silence!"

The Emperor struck the armrest with his fist hard enough to shatter it.

Loath as he was to admit it, he had just disgraced himself by shouting in apparent fear of a mere woman.

If few had witnessed it, perhaps—but the tribunal was filled with high nobility.

And who were the high nobles? Those who constantly judged his every move with eyes more imperial than the Emperor's own.

Always comparing him to his brother Edmund, who had fled north in fear of becoming Emperor, tail between his legs...

The Emperor ground his teeth into the ache. If he backed down now, the entire aristocracy would surely hold him in contempt.

He pressed the High Priest with the fervor of one who would grasp at nonexistent straws.

"This wench was raised in the temple until age five, I'm told. You served as her godfather then."

Padre closed his eyes as if unwilling to respond further. The Emperor was about to rage even more irrationally when—

"Couldn't we simply call a healer from the Tower to verify?"

A saccharine voice cut through the tribunal's disorder. The Emperor, still gripping the armrest, merely rolled his glittering eyes to stare at the back of Mikhail's head on the platform directly below.

"They say the energy that appears during healing is generally greenish, but in some cases the color varies slightly according to disposition. Summoning a healer from the Tower would allow more accurate judgment."

"What would those lunatics know..."

The Emperor muttered with furrowed brow. Why hadn't he summoned even a single healer to the tribunal in the first place?

If the half-mad scholars of the Tower witnessed this power, they would undoubtedly insist stubbornly that it was healing arts.

He could already see their future—they would try to spirit her away to the Tower by any means, keeping her alive to use as research material or an experimental subject.

He couldn't allow her to escape so conveniently—that was Emperor Josef's honest sentiment.

"All of them equally witless."

Originally, he'd planned to reach a moderate agreement invalidating the marriage, then quietly pardon her at an opportune moment.

With a parent's heart thinking of his child's future, he would feel pity and tenderness for having forced a crime upon someone innocent, planning to personally care for her later.

Moreover, wasn't she the very child Valentin—his only offspring who carried his blood—had personally begged him to spare?

But now. He could not possibly allow such a horrifying thing to remain by the Grand Duke's side. The Emperor cast a menacing gaze at Adelheid.

"Well then, let the accused answer directly. Whose instigation led you to approach the Grand Duke?"

"..."

"Where did you obtain this horrifying power?"

"..."

"Must I hold all of Ansgar responsible for failing to properly assist the Grand Duke before you'll open your mouth?"

Adelheid knelt calmly. The situation wasn't as desperate as she'd anticipated.

Particularly Padre's statement that it "cannot be definitively declared demonic"—that was today's greatest gain.

Though it had been a dream, she had lived as the Princess, as Valter, as Kirstin...

Perhaps thanks to her experience living as countless 'Adelheids,' Adelheid had felt even before entering the tribunal that she knew the single path she must endure to resolve this situation.

And now she saw it clearly.

'The question was how to shift the atmosphere even slightly in my favor.'

The more stubbornly the Emperor behaved, the more people cast sympathetic glances her way.

Adelheid quickly lowered her eyelids demurely.

"Ansgar bears no responsibility for this matter. After the marriage, I awakened the power I was born with as a member of Reichenau... there was no deception as Your Majesty suggests."

"You truly..."

"However, understanding Your Majesty's concerns, if the Grand Duke wishes it, I will accept an annulment and..."

That's when she heard it—the faint sound of soldiers' footsteps traversing the corridor. Her head snapped up as she looked behind her.

Distant at first, but within moments the footsteps seemed to have entered the corridor on the same floor, drawing closer by the second.

"Accept and?"

At the Emperor's prompting, Adelheid faced forward again. Josef watched her with the calmest eyes he'd shown thus far.

As if he'd vaguely sensed her conclusion, he hastily urged her answer.

"Continue."

"...I will serve the army for life as a healer."

The moment those words ended, the tribunal doors burst open.

In that fraction of a second, embarrassment and welcome rippled across the Emperor's face, irritation across Mikhail's, astonishment across the nobles'.

All of it seemed to unfold in extreme slow motion.

In the silence, the sound of polished shoes drew closer.

Adelheid remained kneeling as if nailed to the floor, watching with surreal detachment as a familiar shadow fell over hers.

Those well-known boots stopped beside her knees.

A gentle sigh, and then in the voice she'd longed for more than anything in this moment—

"I'm late."