MHHC Chapter 51

The Invitation

Klaus, who had been sitting carelessly across from her, chewing on dried meat, spat out a remark that made her tilt her head.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Your Grace is following along remarkably well, considering you're not accustomed to long carriage journeys."

"It certainly is... a forced march. Just look at how gaunt Margaret's face has become."

As Donovan said, Margaret's cheeks had grown quite hollow over the past few days.

Her conscience pricked every time she looked at the woman, but Adelheid was barely managing to endure.

She could hardly confess in front of these men that she was receiving magical assistance.

"Do you have some technique for it?"

"Not particularly... I suppose I've simply built up a bit of stamina."

Just then, someone nearby let out a derisive laugh. It was Joachim.

The knight who had been cold from the moment they left Ansgar Castle had grown increasingly discourteous whenever he encountered her lately.

Sometimes when their eyes met, he would openly grimace and avert his gaze.

Donovan and Klaus glared at him fiercely, reproaching his rudeness, but Joachim passed them with a frigid expression.

"That temper of his. Don't let it trouble you too much, Your Grace."

"Thank you for your concern. I'm fine."

She answered with an untroubled face, but inwardly she felt anxious.

Joachim was the eldest son of a family that had produced a High Priest.

His deep faith went without saying, and he would have grown up familiar with holy power.

Such a man might have noticed something different about Adelheid recently.

'He doesn't seem to know I'm using magic specifically. If he did, he would have reported me to an Inquisitor in one of the villages we passed through by now.'

Still, the thought of encountering that man throughout the entire journey to the capital made her heart sink.

Even if things were fine for now, there was no telling when she might be discovered.

In any case, for the moment she had no choice but to trust Valentin's words—that holy power and magic shared the same source and were difficult to distinguish.

'Right. There's no solution to be found by worrying about it now anyway.'

She blew on the warm herbal tea Donovan had passed her to cool it, then took a sip. She nearly spat it back out immediately.

"Ugh..."

Adelheid grimaced and groaned. The warmth in her mouth was pleasant enough, but the taste was unbearably bitter.

Klaus nodded understandingly at her expression.

"It truly isn't tea meant for human taste buds."

"The taste is abysmal, but if you drink it regularly, it relieves fatigue and prevents colds. It would be better with sugar or honey, but those aren't easy items to acquire at a campsite."

Donovan added matter-of-factly.

"Even if it turns your stomach, finishing it will do you good."

The same tea seemed to have made the rounds among the soldiers sitting in the distance. The fragrant scent of herbs rose in wisps above the encampment.

She politely sipped a few more mouthfuls out of courtesy, then set down the cup.

That was when it happened. Suddenly Donovan and Klaus rose sharply from their seats.

Adelheid looked up at them with puzzled eyes, then turned her head to follow their gaze. Emerging through the frost-bound forest was Valentin.

"Adelheid."

He seemed to have returned from the woods carrying the cold with him. As Valentin approached, a chilling wind swept through.

"You're back?"

Valentin's lips curved upward as if the greeting pleased him.

He glanced once at each of those gathered together, then lowered his gaze back to Adelheid.

His cold hand touched her cheeks, warmed by the heat of the bonfire.

"Are you feel, ing well? There's a place I'd like to, show you for a moment."

"A place to show me?"

Adelheid glanced around quickly. Where could he possibly want to go in a place surrounded entirely by dark forest?

She continued with reluctance in her voice.

"But I heard we have to depart as soon as the road is cleared. Is it all right to leave now? If it takes too long, everyone's departure will be delayed..."

"It won't take, long. There's just something I want, to show you. No escort, needed."

At those words, Donovan and Klaus, who had been gathering their weapons, set them down again.

Adelheid looked once at the dark forest path he'd walked from, then carefully grasped the hand he extended.

"The forest will be, cold."

As his rough hands cupped her cheeks, she felt the temperature around her rise sharply. Magic.

She wanted to turn around to see what expression Joachim wore, but instead she took Valentin's hand and entered the forest.

He navigated the path skillfully. His figure striding through the dark forest path was both mesmerizing and eerie—like something magnificently cursed moving through shadows older than memory.

Adelheid found herself thinking absently that it felt like being enchanted by some terrible magical beast, then recalled Valentin's true nature with an awkward laugh.

"Why?"

"Pardon?"

"What were you think, ing to make you, smile like that?"

"It wasn't an important thought."

"It's important, to me."

He continued with a slightly melancholy expression, each word carrying the weight of some old wound.

"What you're think, ing, whether you're un, comfortable anywhere, whether you're hurt... I'm always, anxious."

"That's—"

"Once this mat, ter is finished, I'll shut myself, away in that small territory, you like."

"Ansgar?"

He nodded heavily. Adelheid swallowed a hollow laugh.

The fact that he could call the vast Ansgar a small territory was surprising enough, but what startled her more was how thoroughly Valentin's plans had turned languid.

She had thought he would be rushing from battlefield to battlefield to free himself from the 'contract.'

"You don't, want that?"

"What about fulfilling the contract? According to what you told me, you need to elevate the name of the Grand Duke of Ansgar."

"I can do that, even as an old, man. Elevating a name, can happen, anytime."

He glanced down at her face.

"I want you to live your life, fully."

A sudden gust of wind swallowed his voice, making it fade indistinctly.

Adelheid was desperately curious about the words she'd missed, but the path was too demanding to ask. She followed silently at his side.

The forest path that had appeared so dark and treacherous from outside was surprisingly easy to walk.

Faint fireflies illuminated the ground at her feet, and stones and tree roots seemed to leap aside of their own accord.

'Can magic do things like that?'

Adelheid looked up suspiciously at Valentin, who was walking as elegantly as if this were a ballroom.

'Rocks and trees were blocking the road so carriages couldn't pass?'

It was hard to believe that the Tulle Road, patrolled in rotation by three nearby families, could be so poorly maintained.

How likely was it that the only road running through Bitzleben would be left in such neglect?

"We're here. This, is it."

Just as Adelheid's doubts were deepening, Valentin pushed aside withered vines and spoke.

He stepped aside, gesturing for her to pass through first.

Adelheid carefully ducked beneath the vines. The moment she straightened, the sight before her stole her words.

"...This place."

It was a lake so vast she could scarcely believe it existed here.

At the edge of the shore where clear, clean water lapped gently stood a large tree, and beneath it a small, humble-looking cabin.

The moonlight was nearly as bright as the sun itself.

When she turned back, the withered vines were sprouting fresh greenery as if they'd never been dead at all.

"I told you it wouldn't, take long."

He looked strangely elated yet simultaneously unstable—like something barely holding itself together.

She too felt an eerie sense of déjà vu.

"Where is this place?"

"It's wonderful. Isn't, it?"

He evaded the answer with an irrelevant comment. But Adelheid was too distracted to point this out.

She walked carefully toward the cabin.

A white fence surrounded it like a solemn barrier, and beyond it she could see a well-tended vegetable garden.

Greens, tomatoes, grapes, and old pumpkins... Fresh vegetables that didn't match the season or time hung abundantly in the garden.

The rotting farm tools in a nearby sack, the furniture thick with dust—everything suggested a place long abandoned, yet the plants alone were uniformly fresh.

'It's as if time has stopped here alone.'

She walked carefully around the cabin, following the outer edge of the fence.

On the side of the garden, in a level spot, she saw a small grave. Judging by the small burial mound, it seemed to be for a newborn or perhaps a two or three-year-old child.

'Even though it happened long ago, it still weighs on my heart.'

Adelheid tried to read the inscription on the headstone, but without crossing the fence it was difficult to see clearly.

She should have stopped and turned back, but for some reason she felt an overwhelmingly intense urge—bewildering in its strength—to examine that grave.

"Take your, time looking, around."

Valentin gave her back a gentle push, as if he'd sensed that feeling.

Adelheid bit her lip and resisted the impulse.

"...No. We should go back. What if the owner comes while we're trespassing?"

"......"

"Valentin?"

When she glanced back, Adelheid met Valentin's unfamiliar gaze—something cold and unsettling moving behind his eyes like water under ice.

He was staring at her with an unusually subdued expression, but when Adelheid turned to look at him, a smile finally returned to his lips with visible effort.

"I wonder. It seems like no one's, here, so what harm could there be? It looks like it's been abandoned, for hundreds of years."

His lips curved into a splendid smile, beautiful and deliberate.

Adelheid felt that he somehow wanted to confuse her with his face.

Knowing she liked his smile, that she was weak to his appearance...

"Go ahead, and look. If there's any, trouble, I'll take respon, sibility."

Those words settled her decision strangely. Adelheid carefully reached for the latch on the fence gate.

Remarkably, the latch fell to the ground the moment her hand touched it, as if it had released itself.

"It, opened."

"Good. Go see as much, as you want."

Adelheid carefully opened the gate and stepped inside.

Valentin, whom she'd expected to follow immediately behind, was watching her from beyond the fence with that unfamiliar expression.

"Aren't you coming in, Valentin?"

"Would you, invite me?"

He asked lightly, as if joking.

"I don't have that right. I'm not the owner of this place."

"Still... try it. As if Adel, were the owner, of this place."

"You want me to invite Valentin?"

"Would there be any, harm?"

There would be no harm.

It wasn't her house anyway, and she didn't want to be alone in such a suspicious place to begin with.

Only then did she recall the northern superstition that wicked things could not cross a threshold before being invited.

It was somewhat amusing and entertaining.

As if he hadn't torn right through the sacred Curtain of Morig when it suited him.

"Then all right. If Valentin wishes it, you may enter."

Laughing like that, she didn't even notice how completely his demeanor had changed.