MHHC Chapter 129

High Tide

[Think of drawing out a rope.]

Even transmitted as pure will, she could feel the panting in it. He barely managed to raise his upper body, clenching his trembling jaw as he continued his instruction.

[Imagine it concretely. What it is you want.]

"To summon a rope, and then what, exactly, how..."

[Wrists or wherever. Bind me so I cannot lunge at you.]

He let out a suppressed groan. As though he could barely endure it, he seized Adelheid's wrist—the hand she had pressed over his eyes—and pulled it down. Unable, it seemed, to finely control his own strength, his grip was harder than usual.

The fireplace light draped deep shadow across Valentin's face, contorted in pain.

[Hurry.]

Startled by his urgency, Adelheid snapped to attention and hastily summoned her magic.

Supple ropes sprang from both of her palms and wound tight as snakes around Valentin's wrists.

In that instant, the thick tendons of his forearms stood taut. As his body was restrained, instinct—the impulse to break free—appeared to react before reason could. The strands of hair fallen loose across his forehead were slightly damp, drenched by sweat falling like rain.

[Place a constraint. So that I cannot dare to break free.]

Had it been voiced aloud, the words would have been so fragmented and broken as to be incomprehensible. The breath escaping through his parted lips was so feverish it might have appeared white even in warm air.

"A constraint, then."

[Any specific condition will do. Something that keeps me from moving—even for only a few hours.]

Adelheid lowered her eyes, lost in thought. She did not deliberate long. Word-spells wove densely into the magic-woven ropes.

"These ropes will be my life. Unless I release them myself."

[Are you out of your mind?]

His will struck her like a lightning bolt from a clear sky.

No matter how desperate the circumstances, Valentin had never once directed such words at her—not once in all their time together. Knowing this, she could gauge the magnitude of the shock she had just delivered him.

But... what other choice was there?

She had not yet learned to wield 'authority,' and he was a god—even as he was dying. No matter what constraint she placed, he would not hold unless some part of him desperately wanted to.

Slowly, Adelheid withdrew her hands from his wrists, the way one releases the reins of a rearing horse.

"So... you must endure. There is no other way."

At her plea, Valentin's throat worked with a convulsive effort—the visible labor of something being held back at terrible cost. She thought she ought to give him some distance. If her presence was the source of his longing, then remaining before his eyes might only be adding to his torment.

But the moment she set one foot off the bed, his will caught her mid-step.

[Don't go.]

"..."

His gaze was so intense it seemed as though he would devour her every movement.

His skin, lit by the fireplace, gleamed with a vermilion shadow draped across it. The urgent working of his throat, the deep furrow between his brows—raw desire was unmistakably, nakedly plain in all of it. Decadence, or something like sensuality. Heated to such a degree, it seemed as though even a faint scent of iron might seep from his body.

[Adele. Please.]

At his desperate entreaty, Adelheid faltered—and climbed back onto the bed.

From his violent thrashing, Valentin's hair had fallen into complete disarray, strands threatening to prick the corners of his eyes. She swept it back carefully with her fingertips.

"What else... can I do for you?"

[I need you.]

Between his pleading lips came a sound like a groan pressed down against pain, barely contained.

"I'll stay by your side. For as long as you wish."

At her words, the face contorted in pain eased with uncanny swiftness—as if the pain had simply never been. Even his shuddering, convulsive movements gradually stilled.

The situation had not improved. It was simply that his eyes, still carrying their bright and formless madness, now looked at her differently—with something like a predator's patient, coaxing calm—as Valentin called her name.

[Adele.]

He was already half out of his mind.

[Just for a moment. Untie my hands.]

"No..."

[I'm thirsty.]

Even as he claimed thirst, the gaze fixed brazenly on her lips made plain precisely what he was thirsty for.

Just as she was flustered and searching for any response at all, he curved his eyes into an appealing arc and wheedled.

[Hmm?]

Like before. The eyes of a predator setting a seductive trap.

And knowing it, she still couldn't look away.

With eyes that seemed to have utterly forgotten he had asked to be bound, that great body trembled pitiably. Afraid—merely afraid—of breaking those slender ropes encircling his own wrists.

Over that desperate, almost wretched sight, a voice from somewhere else in time settled like a veil coming to rest.

'To smile at what is good, to recoil from what is not—to achieve, to desire, to be stubborn—all of it.'

Why was it? Why, of all things, had those particular words risen to mind now? Because his goal had become her goal as well?

No—perhaps it was nothing more than base, ignoble desire.

To be told to express what one liked and disliked was ultimately the same as being told one could be as honest as one wished in the face of what one wanted.

Adelheid slowly took hold of both his shoulders.

He flinched and shuddered as though her hands were living flame. Through her palms she felt vividly the coiling movement of muscle beneath his skin—the sensation of something impossibly fragile pressing down a great beast.

"Valentin."

When she bore down with her hands, he arched his upper body backward as though in submission. Slowly at first—then all at once in a tangled collapse onto the bed. Adelheid raised herself from where she had fallen sprawling across his chest.

Her long hair cascaded like a curtain down beside his face. With his bound hands, Valentin gathered the spilling strands and held them.

"If I give you what you want..."

At those words, Valentin—who had been feigning docility with his eyes kept carefully cast downward—snapped them wide open with fierce intensity. Despite an expression that said he was half-mad with the desire to consume her whole that very instant, his answer was perfectly mild.

[Yes.]

"...Wouldn't it make it harder to endure?"

They were close enough that she could feel even the faintest tremor of his eyelashes. Feverish breath slipping through their parted lips spread across each other's skin.

Their lips, drawing ever nearer to each other, at last made the lightest contact.

It did not deepen. They only savored the trembling where skin met skin—neither seeking more, neither retreating. Parched lips grew rich and moist in each other's breath. Sometimes the shallow was better than the deep.

From the confirmation of existence into greed. From greed into tenderness. From tenderness back into longing. An endless trap circling the same ground, over and over. One she would rather drown in than escape.

"...Ah."

At last, with a lamenting sigh, their lips parted.

In that lingering aftermath, Adelheid's eyes had just begun to grow hazy and unfocused—

[If I am to suffer to death regardless.]

In the space of a single blink, their positions were reversed. As though even bound, keeping her alone from escaping presented no particular difficulty. Casting deep shadow over her, he slowly consumed her entirely.

[Better to drown in you.]

And then—it was paradise.

"...so if we begin planting the herbs from this summer..."

She stared vacantly out the window, only half-listening to Hermann's explanation through glazed eyes.

The slightest moment of inattention, and the memories of the previous night came flooding in like a tide. Those acts—less like amorous longing than something closer to a desperate soul clutching frantically at breath. He had known no restraint, and she had forgotten how to refuse. If she hadn't bound him... there was no telling how far it might have gone.

The aftermath of being driven to utter exhaustion until dawn had left behind a terrible ordeal in her body. The magic she had so carefully replenished was drained dry, and everywhere his body had pressed against hers ached as though she had taken ill. Her mind felt suspended and unmoored; dizziness surged in without warning or pattern.

"...Your Grace?"

"Oh."

Adelheid let out a startled breath and raised her bleary eyes. He had clearly been calling to her for some time—Hermann's face was full of concern. To have called a man who was already tremendously busy, only to lose herself in other thoughts entirely...

Adelheid reproached herself and clasped both hands tightly together. The sensation of her fingers pressing hard against each other brought a small measure of awareness back.

"I'm sorry. Where had you gotten to?"

"...Are you truly all right? The fatigue of travel won't have lifted yet—ought you not rest properly, at least until today?"

"His Grace is already occupied with preparations for the campaign. How could I? I myself must depart in a week's time—I cannot afford to neglect even a single day."

"That is..."

"I am fine, Hermann. There is a mountain of matters I must see to."

Hermann fell silent before her stubbornness, but loyally pressed on.

"You may feel well enough for now, but... I beg your pardon for speaking so plainly, Your Ladyship. You are not as His Grace is. For the sake of your constitution alone, you must rest."

At this carefully roundabout counsel, heat flooded the back of Adelheid's neck.

Well—after all, they had returned the evening before only to immediately decline the banquet and shut themselves in the room until morning. What a married couple might have been doing was hardly beyond the servants' capacity to surmise. Compared to the southern custom, where priests would prescribe the very days for conjugal union, this was positively humane—but to claim she felt no shame would be a lie.

Cheeks burning, Adelheid forced herself to shake her head.

"I am fine. Please continue."

Hermann still regarded her stamina with skeptical eyes, but at her command had little choice but to comply.

"The matter of creating an herb garden does not appear as though it will present great difficulty. Roughly ten varieties of the seeds Your Ladyship mentioned have been secured, and for those not yet obtained, I intend to send Yanik to Lingen to acquire them."

Adelheid turned her head in the direction Hermann indicated. Through the window, she could see small clusters of people gathered here and there, working the soil.

"The ground is rough and poor, so it will not come easily, but they believe by next spring they ought to see some results."

"That's a relief."

No sooner had she exhaled than Hermann hesitated and added:

"There are voices of complaint, however, regarding the gold coins required for the greenhouse..."