MHHC Chapter 97

The End

He couldn't avoid it.

Until the very moment the blade reached him, he seemed too preoccupied with worry for her to notice—or perhaps he had known all along and simply chose not to evade.

In that fractured instant, Adelheid thought she glimpsed resignation cradled in Valentin's eyes.

Time remained sluggish still. Do you want to take it back? Do you pity him? someone whispered at her ear.

Adelheid shook her head.

The child is innocent. I will bear the price of daring to stab him across all eternity.

She was an arrow aimed at its target, released from the bowstring, driven inexorably forward.

And so, the sensation of the blade—piercing through his skin, entering.

It was terrible. The steel tore through shallow leather and reached its mark at last, skewering his heart.

Through the palm gripping the sword, she felt the pulse throb. Thud, thu-thump—the sensation of it clinging and fluttering made her skin crawl.

Through all this agony, Valentin didn't even groan.

His once-composed face remained serene compared to what he'd endured.

His brow furrowed slightly, his eyes rounder than usual with surprise, his trembling lips appearing merely to endure the cold.

For one moment.

Then his upper body slowly pitched forward. Valentin barely caught her shoulder, supporting his collapsing weight.

His breath scattered across her forehead, terribly slow as it dispersed.

"Ah, ugh..."

He was the one stabbed, yet she was the one sobbing in pain. Most loathsome of all was the awareness that none of this had been impulse.

There was no regret. She could have done worse.

Even if the choice meant severing her own limbs, if it would protect the child in her belly—willingly.

So even her tears were deceit.

[Don't cry.]

She wasn't crying. How dare she have such audacity...

Yet her vision kept blurring as though she might faint. Eventually he extended his hand like a sigh, large and weary.

[Adel. You're hurting yourself right now.]

Valentin forcibly pried her hand from the sword she'd been clutching.

In her panic she hadn't realized—she'd gripped not just the hilt but the blade itself.

Her hand was drenched entirely in blood.

Adelheid stared at that blood and those wounds as though they belonged to someone else, then released a hollow laugh.

Who was worrying about whom, exactly? The desolate laughter soon subsided. Her neatly pressed lips contorted just as they were.

"Why didn't you dodge?"

Adelheid almost wished he would hurl curses at her, heap scorn upon her head.

Call her a shameless, selfish woman. Say that despite showing her compassion, she'd failed to recognize its worth. Ask how she could possibly do this to him.

But Valentin only gazed down at her without a trace of resentment.

Adelheid's throat tightened with the effort of suppressing her wailing.

"I know you could have avoided it. You suspected what I might do, didn't you? Knowing all of it, you still..."

Last night. That persistent will reaching out to her as if trying to reverse her resolve had been no coincidence—she'd known that all along.

Let's live together. You're all I need.

I'll protect you so nothing can harm you, so when this is all over, let's leave together...

All those honeyed words poured endlessly into her gasping ear during their passion had been about the future.

If he hadn't suspected her betrayal at all, there would have been no reason for such words. So things had unraveled this far because, ironically, Valentin had wanted them to.

Because he had allowed death to reach him.

[Avoiding it would have been meaningless.]

"I truly can't... understand..."

Tears spilled uncontrollably. She barely swallowed the surging emotion and continued.

"You should have... just killed me instead."

[I wanted to live cherishing you.]

"Those words... make even less... sense to me."

[I can't let you go, so even if we survive this time, the same thing will repeat eventually. In the meantime, your body and mind will be torn to shreds.]

"..."

[Morig will find a way somehow. Like this time.]

Having barely conveyed his will to the end, Valentin's eyes crumpled suddenly. His hand gripping her shoulder with difficulty showed raised veins across the knuckles.

His trembling lips, cheeks flushing pale with fever, the sweat beading at his chin—it all dripped down and mingled with Adelheid's tears.

He slowly wiped away the tears pooling abundantly in Adelheid's eyes with his thumb.

[This sword absorbs divinity, so at least I won't die immediately.]

Astonishingly, it came with a smile. As though she'd never stabbed him at all, or as if he'd already forgotten.

[It's fortunate I can see you a little longer.]

Ah. She exhaled a short lament. He was the gentlest of men—and simultaneously a cruelly relentless avenger.

Only now did she realize there could be an abyss deeper than guilt. The taste of blood came from her burst capillaries.

"How can you call such a thing... fortunate... How..."

She could no longer bear her own sins. Her entire body trembled violently.

At the very least, she wanted to pull that cursed blade from his heart. But Valentin grasped her wrist just a fraction faster.

[Don't.]

"Why..."

[The power humans call holy force is the source that sustains the world. If you pull the sword out now, the shattered power will tear apart the world you must live in.]

"..."

[So for now, there's no choice but to let this sword gradually drain my power. Until everything is depleted...]

Suddenly, he moved his pale lips into a smile.

[When enough divinity has seeped sufficiently into the earth, even if I perish, you will live.]

You will live. The moment she heard those words, Adelheid realized who the hostage Morig had ultimately wanted to capture was.

She understood how extensively his carefully spread net had been draped, from where to where.

Making him know love to create a weakness for the god, planting fear that he might lose that love, ensuring he couldn't even conceive of shattering the world she would inhabit.

So that Valentin would willingly wield the divinity flowing out instead of blood, allowing Morig to reign as the sole deity...

Her frozen body was gently pulled forward.

Only when she felt his cool scent did Adelheid realize Valentin had carefully drawn her into his arms. His dry hand repeatedly stroked her wet cheeks and swollen eyes.

Valentin's face, contorted with difficulty, signified that little time remained for them.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of a stone wall collapsing behind her.

The sanctuary's buildings maintained by his power were gradually losing form. He asked abruptly.

[Adel. Did you love me?]

She had loved him. More than any other human breathing by their own strength.

But those were words she dared not speak aloud. Somehow discerning her answer, Valentin's eyes crumpled a bit more sorrowfully.

The hand that had been holding her cheek trembled slightly.

[You always longed for an ordinary life. To be loved ordinarily, to live a human life being cherished...]

Even his will trembled slightly, as though struggling.

[Did I ruin your dream? Is that why you resented me?]

He was genuinely curious.

His gaze seeking answers was desperate. As though devastated by the possibility that he might not understand before all of this ended.

"I..."

She couldn't trust herself to speak it properly aloud. Nor did she want to convey such content while hiccupping through a voice ruined by crying.

Adelheid grasped his pale cheeks with both hands, making him bow his head closer toward her.

Finally, forehead touched forehead. She slowly summoned her will.

[It was pity.]

At the unexpected answer, his eyes widened slightly more.

[I pitied the humans. That all those deaths originated from me was hardest of all to bear.]

He still seemed to struggle understanding, but tilted his head as though listening intently.

Perhaps trying to commit her will to memory one last time.

[Perhaps I pitied myself. I pitied my life for having no choice but to love you, I pitied the lives sacrificed just to protect someone like me, I pitied our child.]

[You pity everyone except me, then.]

The first grievance crystallized into words.

[Humans did nothing for you.]

[You don't have to receive something to be able to love.]

Adelheid removed her hands from his cheeks and very carefully cradled her belly.

[Nor do I have to possess something to be able to give.]

He gazed at Adelheid for a long while with unreadable eyes. Eventually a heavy breath settled.

[If we have a next time.]

"..."

[Promise me. When we meet next, remember now and pity me. Pity only me.]

"..."

[Then I promise to call your name. At the eye level of the humans you desire.]

Would they truly have a next time? It was desperate, wretched hope.

Perhaps it was a lie meant to ease the guilt she would carry. Even so, she wanted to believe.

[I will. If there is a next life. If we can meet as ordinary humans.]

[Yes. That's enough.]

The moment Valentin released her wrist, Adelheid felt warm metal against her wrist, warm as his skin.

A bracelet. So she could live mingled among the masses now devoid of divinity and magic. So she could appear to have lost her magical power, like an 'ordinary' human.

She quietly looked down at her wrist.

She'd seen this somewhere before. Had it been in a dream? Further in the past than this, or no—after long ages had passed...

When she barely managed to lift her head through her confused mind, Valentin, who'd been watching her with dazed eyes, smiled smoothly.

[Go, Adelheid.]