MHHC Chapter 52

Sympathy

Viewed from beyond the fence, the cabin looked even more dire than it had from a distance.

It seemed ominously haunted, as if a ghost might emerge at any moment, and the roof—decrepit beyond decay—looked unable to withstand even raindrops.

Just as Valentin had said, it appeared to have been abandoned for hundreds of years.

"Someone must have lived here for a very long time."

Adelheid grasped Valentin's sleeve and pointed here and there. As she said, traces of long habitation filled every corner.

From the food storage shed to the old chicken coop, the abundantly dried herbs hanging overhead.

The strange thing was that despite everything being covered in dust, all items remained in their proper places.

The owner seemed to have cleaned everything neatly beforehand, as if sensing they would never return.

Valentin gently detached her hand from his sleeve.

"I'll look, around for a moment."

"I'll stay here."

"Don't go, far. Stay, here."

Where would she go in such a suspicious place? Valentin slipped into the cabin without her.

He must have had business there from the start.

"......"

She carefully crossed the garden where tomatoes hung temptingly ripe.

Though she'd entered out of curiosity, her original purpose had been the inscription on the headstone. Once she read the letters, she intended to leave this eerie place without regret.

But the inscription carved on the headstone was in a language she couldn't identify at all.

Despite her fluency in ancient Arian and Dirth, she'd never seen anything resembling this language.

"Excuse me, Valentin. Do you know what this headstone says?"

Adelheid gestured toward Valentin, who had apparently finished looking around inside the cabin.

"......"

Valentin crossed the garden slowly and looked down at the headstone.

In an instant, eyes filled with fury—cold beyond measure—narrowed languidly beneath a single layer of eyelid that couldn't hide what burned beneath. He concealed it deliberately and answered in a leisurely voice.

"May you rest in peace."

Adelheid pressed a hand to her chest, suddenly racing. She didn't know what had startled her.

The fact that he'd actually read it? Or that inexplicable hostility he directed at the grave—sharp and terrible as broken glass?

She hesitated, looking at the headstone again. It still seemed small and precarious, as if it might disappear at any moment.

"...Is that all it says?"

"Yes. That's, all."

Adelheid realized instinctively that he was lying. Valentin gripped her wrist firmly.

"There's nothing more, to see here."

He looked at the headstone coldly and pulled Adelheid toward himself with some urgency.

As if a hand might reach out from the grave to keep her there forever.

"Let's go, now."

Valentin hurried, grasping Adelheid's hand as they exited beyond the fence.

The moment they crossed the boundary completely, the fence latch locked itself again.

"That's—"

"Mag, ic. Very old, and now, dying."

"Is it still waiting for its owner?"

"Who, knows."

She thought this must be what an old witch's cabin in a fairy tale would look like.

Adelheid was taking one last look around the cabin when she noticed Valentin holding a thin leather book and a golden bracelet.

She was certain he'd been empty-handed when they arrived.

Valentin noticed her gaze and continued nonchalantly.

"They were, mine to begin with. I'm only, taking back, what's mine."

"Things you'd lent to the owner of the cabin?"

"That's, right."

That made sense. If they were connected to Valentin, this might truly be a 'witch's' cabin.

Adelheid felt as if she'd stepped into a fairy tale, and in an unusually excited mood, asked:

"Was that person human?"

"...Yes."

"Really? How fascinating. Were you friends?"

"Ask about something, else. Adele. Please."

He looked somewhat weary.

The usual gentle curve of his eyes when he looked at her had vanished, replaced by something close to expressionless.

Had she asked too many questions? Adelheid gripped his sleeve tightly, anxiety surging suddenly.

"Forgive me. I was too presumptuous..."

Valentin, who had been gazing down at her quietly, sighed and pulled her lightly into his arms.

Adelheid managed to breathe with her nose buried in his chest.

She knew it wasn't normal to be this anxious, but the thought of losing the warmth and goodwill she'd barely obtained was unbearable even to imagine.

"I'm, sorry. I didn't mean, to be so harsh."

His embrace carried the same cold winter scent it always did—like frost and forgotten things. Being held like a child made her gradually embarrassed.

Adelheid pushed him gently and escaped from his arms.

"Now that I think about it, your pronunciation has improved considerably."

It seemed better to escape this uncomfortable situation. He smiled crookedly, as if he'd noticed her intention.

"Does it, seem that way?"

"Sometimes you don't stutter or trail off at all. Everyone knows Your Grace's recovery has been rapid, so if you're doing it deliberately, you needn't anymore."

"But, if I don't, you won't pity, me. If I don't, pretend to be, this inadequate."

"Nothing you do could ever make you seem inadequate."

"You do, pity me, though."

At his insistence, Adelheid looked up at him speechlessly, and Valentin twisted his lips as if to say 'see?'

"If you pity me like this, then someday, when you want, to abandon me, you'll look back, at least once."

If a man with beauty enough for anyone to look back, with a strong and resilient body, could seem pitiable, then she would have to weep at the sight of every common man on the street.

Because none would be as exceptional as him, they would all seem pitiable by comparison.

Adelheid swallowed a hollow laugh and shook her head.

"Even if you don't do that, how could I abandon Valentin? I don't have the ability to do so."

"If you had, the ability? Would you abandon, me?"

He gripped her cheeks with both hands, almost growling. A crooked light moved through his golden eyes.

"Let me, ask something too. Adele. Why do humans, say they love, someone but think about, abandoning them?"

"......"

"And why do they hide, forever? When they said, they loved?"

Adelheid's eyes widened, unable to grasp the question's intent.

Valentin gazed down at her quietly, then curved his lips crookedly.

"Go ahead, and answer."

"I don't understand what you mean. I don't understand what situation you're asking about either."

"Just. Try, thinking about it. Why they, do that."

Adelheid met his wounded gaze. She'd known for some time that he was seeing someone else through her.

Had she resembled that woman so closely? Enough that he would occasionally mistake her like this, demanding answers as if she were that person?

"......"

Adelheid bit the soft flesh inside her mouth. Every time a situation like this arose, she had always pretended not to know, pretended not to hear and moved on.

Afraid that if she mentioned it directly, she would realize she was nothing more than a substitute.

If he actually said such a thing, it seemed nothing would be bearable anymore.

"Nnh."

While anxiously mulling over her thoughts, Adelheid felt something cold touch her wrist and snapped to attention with a start.

Before she knew it, Valentin had lifted her wrist and was fastening the golden bracelet around it.

The very one he'd said he'd brought from the cabin...

"That's why I went, there. To give you, this."

Valentin seemed to have calmed his emotions quickly.

As if he understood the answer to his question without needing to hear it. It felt like a kind of resignation.

Adelheid examined the bracelet quietly with a somewhat unsettled heart.

The bracelet looked valuable and precious at a glance. The material was gold, and the craftsmanship delicate.

A deep green emerald was set in the center.

"This will help, suppress your magic. Wear it, normally, and only take it, off when you practice, magic."

"It suppresses magic?"

"When you go to the imperial palace, Morig's servants will, be troublesome. If you wear, that, you'll be fine."

She looked at her wrist with curious eyes, turning it this way and that.

She'd been worried about Joachim and the High Priests residing in Pragma, so it was a welcome item.

Adelheid turned the bracelet on her wrist this way and that.

"Are you sure it's all right for me to use this?"

"It's fine. I made, it myself, originally."

"You made it yourself, Valentin?"

She looked at Valentin with fresh eyes.

Even though he'd made it and lent it out, it had been used by someone long dead. It would be a lie to say she felt no hesitation.

"But this must have been cherished by someone who has peacefully passed..."

"They didn't rest, peacefully."

"......"

"If they had, I would be, peaceful too."

His voice was so sharp that Adelheid looked at him with startled eyes.

In an instant, a chilling wind blew. The sudden gust swept along Adelheid's spine and set her loosely bound hair flying.

Adelheid's hair fluttered like golden thread following the wind's current.

It was an unseemly sight, so she tried hastily to fix it, but the more she tried, the worse it became.

"Hold still."

She heard him approaching through the wind.

"I'll do, it."

Valentin gently gathered her disheveled hair.

The touch brushing her forehead and ears was particularly tender. He leaned forward to tuck her hair behind her ear.

His cool scent, the breath pouring over her forehead, and the moonlight.

"I don't believe, in affection. But I believe in, sympathy."

Suddenly, he whispered in a quiet voice.

"So I hope you'll pity, me."

When they returned to the camp, sidelong glances poured over them—barely concealed.

It seemed everyone assumed the Grand Duke and his wife had spent some passionate time alone together.

Margaret glared at Valentin as fiercely as she could manage while wrapping thick blankets tightly around Adelheid.

Then she got a full kettle of herbs from Donovan and boiled a pot full of herb tea.

"Here, drink it all down."

"I'm really fine, Margaret."

Adelheid insisted desperately, but Margaret firmly thrust the steaming large cup under her nose with a resolute expression.

"You still must drink it. Every last drop, all the way down. In weather this cold, after spending hours in the forest..."

The moon had been so bright, and the space so removed from reality, that she hadn't realized so much time had passed.

Margaret, glancing repeatedly at Valentin with disapproval, was completely unlike her usual composed self—quite fierce.

She seemed to think he'd indulged his own desires in the forest, dragging along his already frail mistress.

"Has so much time really passed?"