“Have you heard the news?”

At the breathless maid’s voice, Grita barely lifted her head from the dishwashing basin. Due to the influx of mourners, they needed three or four times the usual amount of dishes. All the castle’s maids were crowded in the kitchen, cooking and carrying plates.

One of the women wiping dishes looked up with a face drenched in fatigue.

“What happened?”

“His, His Highness…”

“Her Highness, what?”

“No, no…”

The maid gasped, her lips moving with difficulty. Her face had turned ashen as she waved both hands. Someone offered her a glass of water at this bewildering display. The maid managed to swallow a few sips. Even then, she remained agitated for quite some time.

“What’s wrong with her? She looks like she’s seen a ghost.”

“Yes. That, that…”

“What? A ghost?”

At someone’s voice, the maid nodded her head vigorously. Unable to properly part her lips, she looked around wildly, truly seeming like a madwoman. A few servants watching with folded arms exchanged glances among themselves.

She seems to have gone mad, doesn’t she? Let’s drag her out.

Just as they took a step towards the maid, the door swung open once more with a clatter.

“I saw, I saw it! I just came from seeing it!”

Hot steam rushed out as cold outside air swept in. The faces of the maids with their heads buried in the dishwashing basins twisted in annoyance. As if they weren’t busy enough already, now there were two people spouting nonsense instead of just one.

Someone asked in a bored tone, without expectation or worry, just tedium:

“What did you see?”

“The, the Grand Duke…”

“Our Grand Duke? Why bring up the deceased?”

But the woman had mentioned not the ‘Grand Duchess’, but the ‘Grand Duke’ himself. The air stirred lightly.

Amidst the noisy commotion, Grita alone remained calm. Without surprise, she stacked the cleaned plates one by one.

It’s not like it’s the first time the Northerners have caused such an uproar…

Their extreme loyalty to Ansgar was nothing new by now. They were the type who firmly believed that even the slightest joke about the family crest behind closed doors was blasphemy.

“…I’m telling you?”

The story progressed steadily even amidst Grita’s indifference. In contrast to their boisterous entrance, the voices that had been exchanging quietly with heads huddled together suddenly grew much louder at some point.

“What? Is that really true?”

“Damn it all. Where on earth did you see such nonsense… Hey, did you smoke mallet weed or something?”

“No, just believe me. I saw it clearly with my own two eyes.”

“Right. The rumor I heard was the same…”

“No way… Even if that’s the case, a corpse that’s been lying there for over ten days…”

“If you can’t believe it, just go see for yourself right now.”

“If it were that easy…”

The second maid who had burst in was now thumping her chest with her fist as if exasperated. Unable to contain her indignation, her voice grew louder and louder, as if splitting iron in half.

It was just as Grita had awkwardly picked up a stack of plates and was about to move. The maid’s voice that finally burst out struck her ears like a blow.

“I’m telling you, the Grand Duke has come back to life!”

Who did what to whom…? As the strength left Grita’s hands, the plates she was holding crashed to the floor. They shattered with a loud clatter, scattering in all directions. People flinched away from the fragments, cursing at the sudden commotion.

Even as everyone was in an uproar, Grita grabbed the shoulder of the woman who had shouted so abruptly.

“What, what on earth do you mean by…”

“What is it?”

The maid frowned as soon as she realized it was the Grand Duchess’s nursemaid who had grabbed her shoulder. Normally that alone would have had an effect, but now Grita’s expression was unsettling.

“The Grand Duke, now, I must have heard wrong? Coming back to life?”

“Suddenly speaking so informally… Ah, how many times do I have to say it? He really has come back to life!”

“…”

“If you don’t believe me, go to the reception room yourself and…”

Before the woman could finish speaking, Grita rushed out the kitchen door with a face turned deathly pale. Through the open door, a few maids who had been shoved aside by Grita’s plump body could be seen glaring in annoyance as they groaned.

Suddenly left alone without her conversation partner, the woman shrugged as she looked across at another kitchen maid.

“Why is she acting like that all of a sudden?”

* * *

“Adelheit.”

The hand gripping the edge of the coffin was still blue. Adel barely managed to raise her frozen eyes. When faced with the incomprehensible, people tend to become frightened and run away. But she learned for the first time that when something is too overwhelming, the body freezes instead.

‘It’ made a sound.

“Ah, uh…”

Unlike the very clear voice that had called her name just moments ago, this was a slurred and indistinct sound. Adel looked at ‘its’ face. Stiff frozen eyelashes, twitching cheeks, blackened lips. No matter where or how she looked, there was not a trace of life to be found.

How much worse must it be for a body that had been lying in a coffin until just now? The bluish veins still stood out prominently under the pale skin. Forehead, nape, wrists, backs of hands… It was the same everywhere her gaze fell. It was an appearance that was utterly difficult to believe was breathing and alive.

“…Uh, huh.”

Those wide golden eyes, that persistent gaze, pooled on Adel. She couldn’t tell if it was Valentin or herself that was shaking so violently. The hand she had rested on her knee trembled uncontrollably. She gripped her skirt tightly, crumpling it.

At the same time, Valentin completely emerged from the coffin and stood on his own strength.

“Aaaaah!”

“L-Lord Morig…!”

In an instant, the moment of overwhelming shock that had silenced people quickly ended. All sorts of commotion followed. The priests each called out to their gods, the maids screamed, and some even impiously kicked open the door and ran out.

Adel read her own face in the expressions of the knights who had been guarding the coffin.

Shock, confusion, fear, instinctive revulsion and disgust…

“Adel…”

He called her name. As if that alone was the truth of the world, without paying even a shred of attention to anything else… His gaze, fully fixed on her amidst this uproar, overflowed.

At last, a cold grip seized her wrist. It was not human body temperature. Adel’s jaw trembled.

“Huh…”

As she sobbed, he pulled her into his arms. Arms, round shoulders, slender waist… He gradually drew her into his embrace as if cherishing something very precious.

His temperature, which had been so cool, warmed adequately with hers.

“Adel.”

Even with such ardent eyes, his face remained impassive. As if he couldn’t see Adel’s face drenched in terror, as if there was nothing to be done even if she cried.

‘Or… perhaps because of rigor mortis, he still can’t make any expression…’

The thought that suddenly occurred to her sent a chill of horror down the back of her neck. Like a well-honed blade had been pointed at her, leaving a single shallow cut before disappearing. He nuzzled her nape with his forehead.

“Adel.”

Absurdly, the voice calling her name sounded sorrowful. She simply couldn’t believe this was reality. Had she gone mad? Or was she still dreaming all this time?

The heated breath that burst from between Valentin’s lips spread across Adel’s nape. It was a body that until moments ago had been unable to even breathe, let alone speak.

What clung to her entire body felt not like her husband, but a hard, cold corpse. It was an unbearably eerie moment.

* * *

Adel watched the healer examining her husband with an anxious face. The healer, who happened to be staying in Ansgar, looked extremely tired, having been dragged out of bed.

“How is he?”

At Adel’s hasty question, the healer slowly straightened up. He turned to her and said:

“Surprisingly, all bodily functions are normal. Breathing, pupil response, blood flow, even heart rate. All of it. You say his heart had stopped for over two weeks?”

Adel barely managed to nod. The healer exclaimed briefly.

“Lord Morig must have helped. I’ve truly never seen a case like this before. I’d like to write a paper on it right away. If this were Falkenheim…”

Greed swam in the healer’s eyes. It was a look as if he had found an extremely desirable test subject. He clicked his tongue in unmistakable regret.

It was an irreverent attitude, but understandable for someone from Western Falkenheim.

Falkenheim was a town where the continent’s finest scholars and swordsmen were produced, with academies and universities clustered together. Scholars from Falkenheim could be said to dedicate their lives to researching fresh and unusual phenomena.

“However…”

The healer trailed off, examining the Grand Duke with a solemn face.

Now Valentin was tightly gripping Adel’s wrist, watching the healer with a wary gaze. If the Grand Duke had been an animal, it was the kind of intensely possessive look that would have already bared its teeth.

After a while of being unable to continue speaking, the healer finally opened his mouth.

“Whether from the shock of ‘thawing out’ and waking up, it seems he has lost his memories. And quite thoroughly at that.”

“…His memories?”

“For example, even someone who has lost their memories should retain survival instincts like ‘fire is hot, it will hurt if touched’, but I don’t sense anything like that from the Grand Duke.”

“…”

“Moreover, it’s as if all the holy power in his body has dried up… Was he originally of this constitution?”

Adel made a troubled face. She didn’t know much about her husband. Humans born without holy power were rare, but not non-existent. Adel herself was one who had not received the blessing of holy power.

She shook her head.

“I’m not sure.”

The healer sank into thought with a pondering look, then finally spoke.