MHHC Chapter 151

Sowing

Adelheid clutched the front of her clothes and bent forward at the waist.

Was it because the repeated suspicions—the terror that Valentin might truly be gone—had driven her mind to its very limit? Every sensation that reached her from the outside world felt not sharp but dense and muffled, as though passing through fathoms of water before it arrived.

Her vision blurred. Sound reached her as if murmuring from a great distance. As though she were sinking, very slowly, into something deep......

Donovan caught her arm just as she was about to topple, pulling her upright.

"Your Grace. Are you all right?"

Adelheid gasped like a fish hauled out of the water.

"I'm fine...... Fine...... Just a moment, if I rest...... like this......"

"Your color is terrible. What on earth was said in there?"

Donovan pressed the question in a low, flat voice. Adelheid bit her lip and forced down the ragged edges of her breathing.

Either way, the situation was catastrophic. If Valentin had completely lost his hold over the monsters—if he had been swept away without even the chance to resist—then the probability of his survival had become vanishingly, impossibly low.

And then, in a million to one chance.

'It is too horrible to even imagine.'

Mikhail's words were almost certainly all lies. But in the truest one-in-a-million chance.

If Valentin had simply grown weary of all of this and chosen death for himself. If he had chosen to leave her—forever, irrevocably—

Adelheid closed her eyes, and all the strength went out of her. Then what on earth would she do......

The defeatist thinking embedded deep in her bones, and her long-tattered self-worth, only fanned those extreme thoughts further and further.

Someone like you could never be loved. Could never be liked by anyone......

Adele, I—

The voice came from somewhere impossibly far away, sudden as a match struck in a dark room—Valentin's voice.

Adelheid jerked her head up and looked around wildly.

She could feel Donovan watching her with startled eyes, but it didn't matter.

Tents lined across the open ground. The voices of soldiers clustered in small knots, calling to one another. Biting wind, and the fine grit of dust...... Of course, he was nowhere to be seen.

She must truly have gone mad. She was about to drop her shoulders with a hollow laugh when it came again—Valentin's voice, reaching her once more.

Whatever happens from here, I need to be certain you won't be drawn into it.

It was softer than it lived in her memory. The bridge of her nose burned.

Adelheid raised her clenched fist and scrubbed roughly at the corners of her eyes.

She had no idea what 'whatever happens' truly meant to him. But she could not remain here, collapsed into defeat.

Because even now, even in the middle of all of this, one thing was clear: Valentin would need her help.

"What His Imperial Highness confirmed for me today—"

She crossed both arms before her chest and held herself tightly. No matter how much strength she put into it, she could not stop the trembling—but her voice, at least, was clear.

"—is that he has no plans to assemble a search party of any substantial size. He said he would provide five people."

"What—what do you mean...... Five knights?"

Donovan looked at her, bewildered. Adelheid shook her head.

"The entire search party, including myself, will number five. If there are no volunteers, it may well be fewer."

"......All of Ansgar's knights were swept away. Our side has nothing left but the wounded—and there are no volunteers?!"

"Getting angry won't change anything, Donovan. For now...... I plan to join the unit departing at dawn tomorrow and move to the vicinity of the Watchtower. Will you come with me?"

"Of course I will...... Were you planning to leave me behind?"

"I was asking just in case. It's a dangerous matter." She exhaled slowly. "In any case, it seems there is a secret passage within the ruins a little to the west of here, one that leads into the interior of the fortress called the Watchtower. His Imperial Highness shared its location with me. Here......"

Adelheid drew a folded paper from inside her clothes and extended it to Donovan.

"The coordinates for the passage entrance."

Donovan unfolded the paper and studied what was written there. Then he fell silent with the expression of a man who did not know where to begin identifying everything that was wrong.

It was plain what he was thinking—that assigning a mere five people to search a tower swarming with monsters was one kind of madness, and that escorting a woman with no combat ability whatsoever to that same place was an equal and separate kind of madness. Both were written clearly across his face.

He exhaled a long, slow breath and offered the note back.

"......Do you truly believe His Grace will be at this location?"

Adelheid hesitated. Then she shook her head, honestly.

"I'm sorry—I cannot be certain. If I get a little closer, I think I might somehow be able to sense him. It's just that there's something slightly strange......"

She stopped abruptly. Donovan tilted his head and waited.

"Please. Tell me."

Adelheid chewed her lip slowly.

She had no idea how to put this sense of wrongness into words, let alone how to make Donovan understand it.

The truth was that the strange things were endless, if she tried to list them. The most subtle—the most easily dismissed—was Mikhail's manner toward her.

When they had met in the imperial palace—no, even when they had met at Nassau Castle—his attention had been strangely fixated, obsessive in a way that made her skin crawl. But today, throughout their entire exchange, he had seemed as though his thoughts were somewhere else entirely, pulled in a direction she could not identify......

"Your Grace?"

"Ah."

Adelheid snapped back to herself and blinked. Donovan was still waiting. She gave up on explaining and shook her head.

"......No. It's nothing. I'll tell you when things become a little clearer."

"Either way, it's a serious matter. We'll need to start looking for volunteers now."

"If there are none, I'll go alone."

"Why do you keep excluding me......"

Donovan shook his head slowly, the gesture of a man who had accepted something he could not change.

"In any case—I should assess the Ansgar soldiers who remain. Find out how many are unaccounted for, who can move immediately, whether anyone will volunteer for the search."

"Please do. I'll be with Hazel."

"You'll be in the stables? Without resting?"

Adelheid nodded, her expression settled and resolute.

"Yes. See you tomorrow."

She exhaled a long, long breath and opened her eyes.

Her cheeks burned red from extreme concentration. Her breathing was a ruin. Her entire body was soaked through to her undergarments with cold sweat, damp and clinging and cold.

Adelheid wiped away the drops falling drip, drip from her chin with the back of her hand.

She had attempted it countless times through the night, but the 'will' would not move. Not even a fraction.

It felt like chasing a mirage she could never quite touch—certain it existed somewhere, and yet, the more desperately she strained toward it, the further it seemed to recede......

She steadied her mind, which had begun to grow heavy with exhaustion.

She straightened her swaying body and closed her gritty, aching eyes. Dawn was coming soon. Before it arrived, she had to make the 'will' her own—by whatever means necessary. Without fail.

'Hazel.'

Again.

'Ha—zel.'

One more time.

'Ha . zel.'

A faint spark leapt somewhere near her heart, and she opened her eyes.

This time was different from all the attempts before. A sudden surge of heat rose and spread from her heart outward, traveling all the way to the tips of her fingers.

Adelheid breathed slowly, deliberately, striving to hold onto the sensation. Once more. Again.

'Ha—' [zel]

At the inelegant, unfinished manifestation of her will, the mountain of hay piled before Hazel burst upward into the air with a whoosh.

At the very same moment, one of Hazel's ears—which had been calmly working through a mouthful of hay as though whatever Adelheid chose to do was entirely not her concern—pricked straight up, alert and listening.

"It work—"

She, Adelheid, on the verge of crying out with her whole heart—retched and sank down where she stood.

Was it the crude, lurching nature of the manifestation? Her insides churned and rolled, exactly the way they did during the worst moments of seasickness.

"Ugh......"

With nothing in her stomach, she could only bring up bile—and Hazel, drawing close, nudged her gently but deliberately toward the pile of hay.

Adelheid wiped her lips with the back of her hand and murmured weakly.

"Were you trying to share your hay with me?"

Hazel swished her tail—think whatever you like—and turned back to her feed. Adelheid finally laughed, a real laugh, surprised out of her.

"Thank you, Hazel. You're far too kind......"

She wrapped her arms gently around Hazel's neck. The warmth of the horse's body—solid and uncomplicated and alive—became a strange and genuine comfort.

She had failed to achieve a smooth manifestation. But confirming even the possibility was enough to feel like something worth holding.

Adelheid straightened up, her spirits lifting. She was about to continue her practice, to press forward while the momentum held—

The stable doors scraped roughly open.

"......You were truly here all night?"

She startled at the presence and drew her shoulders in—then recognized Donovan and let the tension go.

"Donovan. You startled me."

"You always manage to say what I was about to say first." He paused. "That aside......"

He had begun to step inside the stable, then stopped—pinching his nose shut with two fingers, his face contorting.

"The smell of horse manure is—ugh—absolutely dreadful. They say the central main force departs in an hour, so please wash first. I anticipated this might happen and had bath water prepared."

"An hour? Has it truly come to that already?"

"This way, please."

He spoke with the expression of a man who had made his decision and would not be moved from it. His entire bearing suggested that if she didn't follow him immediately, he was entirely capable of conveying her to the bath by other means.

Swallowing her reluctance, Adelheid followed Donovan out of the stable.

He pointed with his thumb toward a small tent nearby.

"I'll keep guard at the entrance, so go in, wash, and come out."

She had no idea what methods he had employed, but inside the tent a wooden tub filled with hot water had been prepared and was waiting for her.

She went in, tied the cloth entrance shut with careful attention, and hurriedly stripped off her odorous clothes.