However, Sieghart didn’t so much as glance at it. Instead, he raised a hand toward Noah, beginning the motion to cast a barrier...but he was too late.
“Khh...!” he grunted as he realized his efforts would be in vain.
Noah’s blade came down for the head of his cousin, but he suddenly stopped and leaped backward as if something had screamed at him to get away.
“What did you do?” Noah asked, voice wary.
With a sharp clatter, the sword Noah had been holding slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor.
“Ha ha...” A ragged laugh spilled from Sieghart’s lips. “Ha...ha ha ha!”
Noah clutched his throat instinctively, dropping to one knee. Claudia watched as a dark mist rose around him.
“You recognize this spell, don’t you?” Sieghart said.
“Sieg...hart...” Noah choked out.
“It’s the curse that tormented you as a child...” Sieghart said quietly. Noah could only clutch at his throat as Sieghart, under the control of their ancestor Reinard, looked down at him. “This is a spell of domination, stronger than even your slave contract.”
A pitch-black sigil appeared around Sieghart’s throat, wrapping around it like a collar.
Noah’s breath hissed between clenched teeth as he grasped at his own throat. Sieghart summoned another sword to his hand as he looked down upon his cousin.
“We cannot resist it—not with this body that carries Reinard’s blood. There is no escape.” Turning from the writhing figure of Noah, Sieghart looked once more toward Claudia. “Now then, Adelheid... I wish to ask for your hand in marriage.”
“Oh my,” Claudia said with a smile that did not reach her eyes. “I remember now. Reinard would sometimes say such things in jest.”
“Ha ha! What an unkind thing to say. You knew full well that it was serious,” Sieghart said as a bead of sweat traced down his temple. “I have but one wish, Adelheid.”
“Very well. I shall listen. Please continue.”
“I desire only to make you mine.”
Claudia was the very witch who had shattered the psyche of Sieghart’s father. And yet, within the depths of those obsidian eyes, she could see a fervent longing burning for her. Meanwhile, he saw Noah, who was writhing at his feet, as an obstacle to be cast aside.
“That day ten years ago, when I looked up and saw you in the garden, I thought you more beautiful than anything I had ever known.”
Claudia slowly closed her eyes. “Curses are born from wishes, fervently made.”
“Adelheid?” Sword still in hand, a bewildered Sieghart stared at Claudia.
“And a wish is nothing more than desire. Foul magic of this world takes a wish born from desire and twists it into a curse. Was it for the cultivation of magic—magic that would one day bind us—that Reinard scattered cursed artifacts across the land?” Claudia asked, tilting her head in curiosity.
“Who’s to say?” Sieghart tore his gaze from Claudia, fixing it on Noah. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
He leveled his blade once more at Noah, who held a fiercely burning light in his eyes despite his labored breathing.
“This is the end, Leonhard. I shall remove you and claim Adelheid for my own.”
“You...shall never...possess her,” Noah rasped, drawing breath with difficulty, forcing out his words one by one.
“You overestimate yourself, Leonhard.” Sieghart’s voice carried an edge of frustration, which was uncharacteristic of him. “Struggle all you like—it will amount to nothing. Reinard’s curse holds us in its grasp and will never let us go.”
Noah did not answer him.
“No matter how many times you try... Even if you try, again and again, you will never escape it,” Sieghart said quietly, as if to himself. This pensive state did not last, as he soon forced a hollow smile and addressed Noah again. “You can no longer protect Adelheid. That place at her side shall at last belong to me.”
He spoke with no expectation of a reply. Instead of a conversation, this was a lecture for his cousin.
“Forgive me. Just give in, Leonhard. Accept it.”
“You...!” Noah rasped, bowing his head low and exhaling his breath. “You know nothing of Her Highness.”
Silence fell across the chapel. Sieghart tightened the grip on his sword.
“Do you presume that merely standing by her side earlier means you understand her? And what of it? Whatever I lack, I will make up for in the coming decades—no, centuries—that we shall share. I shall come to know all there is to know about Adelheid.”
“You will never be capable of that,” Noah countered.
“How dare you!”
Then, quite unexpectedly, Noah, still gasping shallow breaths, allowed himself a faint smile. “Do you truly see Her Highness as a princess who exists merely to be protected by me?”
Sieghart’s eyes narrowed, but he had no response.
“My liege is a woman full of compassion. I continue to protect her, only because she allows it...” Sweat dripped from Noah’s chin, falling silently onto the crimson carpet. “But if she so wished, she could eliminate any threat by her own hand.”
“No... That can’t be true...” Wide-eyed, Sieghart turned back to Claudia.
“Especially now,” Noah continued, “that she has awakened from that long slumber, finally reclaiming both soul and body, now complete with her magic.”
“Adelheid, what have you...?!”
“Thank you for stalling him, Noah. You truly are my good boy,” Claudia said, beaming at him as she ignored Sieghart’s outburst.
“It is only to be expected of someone in your service,” Noah said.
“Thanks to you, I was able to conduct a thorough analysis of Reinard’s curse and how it is composed.”
She slowly raised a hand toward the two of them.
“I’ll give you a proper reward later. A little penance from a wicked master, who ordered you not to resist even when a curse was cast on you.”
“I require no reward,” Noah replied, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Instead, show me.”
The faint boldness in his voice might have been a lingering echo of Leonhard from the dreamworld. Or perhaps, unconsciously, it was a display meant for Sieghart, to show him that it was Noah alone, Claudia’s beloved hound, who could speak in such a way to her.
“Show me your full power—without the limitations of your imperfect vessel.”
After a moment of silence, Claudia laughed. As she began to cast her spell, she knew that she would never again need to put herself in a magical sleep.
“I shall grant your wish, my dearest Noah.”
“A-Adelheid!!!” Sieghart yelled in alarm.
In an instant, white lilies burst forth across the floor, blooming in every direction. The air grew thick with their cloying sweetness, and the chapel was soon bathed in purest white, like a snowfield under a moonlit night.