MHHC Chapter 146

I Can Hear You

Adelheid bit down on her lip to swallow the sob rising in her throat. Everywhere he had marked her, a searing heat bloomed beneath her skin.

The solid weight of him pressed against her chest—warm, dense, settling over her with a heaviness that recognized no measure, no mercy—and with every movement Valentin made, the damp friction of skin against skin filled the narrow space between them.

A primal terror seized her—the fear of being consumed, devoured whole—and yet beneath that visceral dread, something ached with a grief she couldn't name.

Had such feelings ever been meant to coexist? She didn't know. Only that he, utterly absorbed in her, was too beautiful to look at directly—

"Ah, Valentin..."

The moment she crossed some invisible threshold, dizziness swept through her—the world tilting and spinning on its axis—as though every drop of vitality she possessed had been drawn away all at once.

Cold replaced warmth. A bone-deep chill seeped through her limbs, and where her vitality had been, a profound, leaden exhaustion rushed in to fill the void. She thought she might faint.

She wanted to collapse, but could manage nothing more than a feeble shudder against him.

Because Valentin held her completely—every inch of her bound, no gap left between them.

"Ah."

At that faint, fraying sound—a sigh on the verge of dissolution—he stopped. Valentin wrenched his head up as though surfacing from somewhere far beneath himself, as though reason had just now found its way back to him.

He looked at Adelheid—limp, drained, utterly emptied—and the color fled his face.

The full weight of what he had done—how far he had pushed her, how terrible it had been—seemed to strike him only now.

"Good God."

He tore off his cloak in haste and draped it around her shoulders. The hand that touched her ashen cheeks, her bloodless lips, trembled badly.

"You're so cold. I'm sorry. I pushed you too far."

"I'm fine, I'm fin—"

"You are not fine. This time again—it was only barely that I heard your voice in time—"

Adelheid gathered what remained of her fraying consciousness and shook her head.

If this was all she could offer him, then he was welcome to take it. Even more than this, if he needed it— The thought drifted, half-formed and hazy, before a self-mocking laugh rose unbidden in her throat.

In the end, it seemed she had no choice but to forgive him—whatever he had done, whatever he had been.

Even if he had committed great massacres. Even if his oracles had plunged countless people into ruin.

Even knowing she could never forgive herself for forgiving him—not even in death—

"Someday."

Adelheid found her own voice strange to her ears.

It sounded parched, fragile—like something that might crumble if pressed. She moistened her lips with effort and looked up at him.

"Do you think we could ever be happy together?"

He was briefly silent—struck, it seemed, into speechlessness. He looked at her with eyes she couldn't quite read, then opened his mouth before the silence could stretch too long.

"Of course."

The smile that had rested at his lips like a faint inscription deepened slightly.

As though he wished to soothe her unease. The intention was perfectly transparent—and yet Adelheid looked up at him as though spellbound.

She could feel it now, radiating faintly through the surface of his skin—the divine authority that flowed through him, warm and sovereign. The same authority that had been hers, only moments ago—

A longing gathered in her parched mouth, rising like instinct.

She understood now, she thought—the thirst Valentin felt each time he looked at her. How desperately, urgently powerful that want must be.

"I'll take you to your room. Your face is pale. You should rest."

"Just a moment more, like this..."

He deferred to her wishes, as he had before. When Adelheid reached out with weakened, exhausted fingertips, he bowed his head toward her, compliant.

Even so, she managed only to brush his cheek.

Ringed in his own power like a halo restored to its rightful place, he looked whole again—like the being he had once been, before everything. Save for one thing: his eyes.

"Your eyes..."

"Ah."

Valentin blinked slowly, as though trying to bring himself back into focus. When it didn't seem to work, he raised a hand and pressed it firmly over his eyelids.

When he lowered his hand, his pupils had returned to their human roundness.

He shrugged, as though it were nothing.

"The resonance intensifies sometimes. It happens."

"...Resonance?"

"The corruption being expelled, the monsters being spawned—all of that is my true body. As I draw closer to it, the connection to this false flesh grows unstable."

He saw the anxiety in her face and tilted his lips into the ghost of a smile.

"There's nothing to worry about. It's temporary."

Adelheid fell silent. No matter how temporary, the unease she felt was real.

If the connection became unstable—if, by some chance, the bond between his soul and this body severed entirely—would the original Grand Duke of Ansgar return?

'It was something I once wished for so desperately.'

Adelheid curled her trembling hands into fists.

But how could she say it? That she wanted him now? That it didn't matter what became of the Grand Duke of Ansgar?

No matter how genuine that truth was, it made her nothing more than an active accomplice in whatever erasure had occurred. She choked on her own hypocrisy.

'Even shamelessness has its limits...'

Wuung. Wuu-uung.

She startled out of her thoughts. The warhorn.

The signal calling soldiers scattered to rest back to the central formation.

Valentin, who had turned his head toward the sound, released her.

"I must go now. The time has gotten away from me."

"Wait. You need to take this back."

Adelheid fumbled to remove his cloak from her shoulders. But Valentin shook his head and caught her shoulders with both hands, stopping her.

"Keep it on. You're cold."

Adelheid thought he might say something more. But Valentin only looked at her face—for a long time, in silence. The silence stretched.

His gold eyes moved very slowly.

As though he meant to fix every feature of her face into memory—to preserve her there, unchanging, a thing sealed behind glass. If a gaze could be felt as touch, his would have been unbearable.

Unease rising in her without clear reason, Adelheid reached out and caught his sleeve.

From the far end of the corridor came the sound of someone running, breathless and hurried. The knight who rounded the corner was unfamiliar to her.

The knight's expression shifted from visible relief at spotting her—to the ashen blankness of someone who has just noticed the ground beneath them has disappeared, upon seeing Valentin.

"I—I beg your pardon. I stepped away for only a moment—"

The knight hovered uncertainly, having stuttered to a halt. He had apparently been assigned to escort her today. Valentin regarded him with cold eyes, then inclined his head.

"Escort Her Grace to her lodgings. Find the maid Lena and have her attend."

Adelheid's eyes went wide.

"You're leaving right now?"

"Yes. I suppose we truly won't see each other again until after the subjugation is over."

Between one moment and the next, all lingering attachment—every trace of tenderness—had been gathered up and set aside. The change was swift enough to leave her disoriented, like watching a door close from the other side.

"..."

Adelheid hesitated, then released the sleeve she had been clutching, smoothing the crumpled fabric with fingers that didn't quite steady themselves.

She wanted to say something—anything—but her throat had closed as though something had stopped it from the inside, and nothing would come.

"This way, Your Grace."

Adelheid placed her hand on the arm the knight extended with such careful courtesy—placed it as though she were being guided rather than choosing, carried rather than walking.

Valentin tilted his head in a wordless, expressionless gesture. Go on.

He intended, it seemed, to wait until she had gone first. Adelheid hesitated—then finally moved, following the knight down the corridor.

'Don't look back.'

She pressed down on the part of herself that wanted to weaken. Why? She couldn't say. Only that the unease would not leave her.

But whatever she felt, there was only one answer. If she stopped here and turned around, she would want to drop everything—to go back and hold on to him and not let go.

She strained her ears, listening for the sound of him leaving.

But she had walked half the length of the corridor and still heard nothing. Had she missed it? Or—

She could not resist, and looked back.

"..."

"..."

Valentin was still standing exactly where she had left him, watching her.

The moment their eyes met, an impulse seized her—one she was utterly unable to suppress.

"Valentin!"

She pulled free of the knight's arm and ran toward him. Valentin looked slightly surprised.

He caught her steadily as she crashed into him. She buried her face in his chest and struggled to catch her breath.

The short sprint had made the dizziness return.

"I..."

She couldn't string words together, only gasped—and he slowly bent toward her, folding her into a deeper embrace.

His cheek came to rest against the side of her head. His heartbeat—quick, vivid—felt as though it were pressed directly against her ear.

"I..."

Adelheid steadied herself, drawing on what remained of her divine authority, and took a slow breath.

He went still—as though he sensed what she was about to attempt. Then she breathed out, deliberate, and loaded her thoughts with intention, placing each word carefully, the way he had taught her.

'You—'

It failed. Adelheid bit down hard on her lip. Again. Once more.

'I—you—'

That failed too. She gnawed at her lip, frustrated, desperate. What was wrong? She had done exactly as he had taught her—

'Please—'

The stubbornness in her eyes dissolved. They filled with tears, heavy and brimming and useless.

In the space where she had barely gathered the courage to try, self-contempt rushed in to fill the gap.

Why am I like this? Why can't I even manage this much? All this grand longing, and no ability to match it—always—

"I can hear you, Adelheid."

He pulled her closer—tightening his hold as he whispered it—and the force of his embrace was almost brutal.

Her chest was crushed by it. Her breath half-constrained, her ribs pressed against his, her heartbeat lost somewhere in the collision with his own.

"However you speak to me—in whatever way—I am listening with every part of myself."

His breath shook—only slightly. And only then did Adelheid understand that Valentin had been working the entire time—straining, quietly and without acknowledgment—to let her go with some grace left between them.

"So give your command," he whispered, "to your dragon."