Chapter 55
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Chapter 55
Beneath the crystalline autumn night sky, I buried my face in Leopold's broad chest. With the silver stream flowing gently before us, we lay entwined on a blanket spread across grass carpeted with fallen leaves.
"Charlotte."
When Leopold whispered my name, a soft vibration resonated against my cheek—a tremor that echoed the timbre of his voice through his chest.
"Do you truly intend never to speak of meeting the Sorceress today?"
"There was nothing remarkable to tell, Your Majesty."
I answered while extending one hand to dip into the silver stream. This mystical current, luminous as moonlight itself, radiated a gentle warmth—temperate as the pale glow of the moon. For a stream hidden deep within an autumn forest that no one visited, it possessed remarkably peculiar qualities.
"..."
Leopold quietly brushed back my hair. He could discern at once that I was not speaking truthfully. After all, I would recount even the most trivial tea time with elaborate enthusiasm—describing each variety of biscuit served alongside the tea with genuine fascination.
"Your Majesty, you said so before—that true darkness begins for you the moment sunlight touches the world, and that when you hear my voice, you open your eyes beneath the moonlight."
I spoke hesitantly, my gaze fixed upon the stream.
"Does the darkness that comes with sunlight frighten you? Does it cause you pain?"
Leopold's brow smoothed. He drew me closer and answered.
"It does not frighten me, Charlotte. Fortunately, at the end of that darkness, you have always been there."
"..."
I remained silent for a moment, watching the silver stream rush swiftly around us.
"Your Majesty, this stream will eventually flow into the sea, will it not? Just as all the world's streams converge and meet in the ocean, perhaps our lives too flow onward toward some destined place..."
Leopold's gaze met mine as I looked up at him from within his embrace. My sparrow-brown hair danced about my face as I gazed at him with earnest intensity.
Unfortunately, Leopold—accustomed to reading the thoughts of others—had already discerned what Charlotte was about to say.
"Yes, Charlotte. If it flows like that, we'll meet again someday."
Leopold slowly lowered his head and pressed his lips to her hair, murmuring softly.
"As seawater evaporates into rain, and that rain becomes a stream that flows back to the sea..."
With each sentence's end, he began to kiss different parts of Charlotte's luminous face.
"Perhaps our love, too, merely changes form..."
Leopold spoke softly, having kissed her hair, her forehead, and the bridge of her nose.
"Repeating itself as it always has, or destined to repeat again."
Charlotte responded to his whisper with a faint smile.
"Then perhaps in another life, we were young lovers whose eyes met at a midnight concert in Romford."
Leopold's soft laughter spilled forth—the kind that stirred the hearts of those who heard it. He brushed his lips briefly against hers and spoke.
"Indeed, or lovers dancing in a brilliantly lit Ballroom, drawing every eye upon us."
Hearing his words, Charlotte suddenly recalled the day they first danced in the forest. That was the day he had called her "Charlotte" for the first time, not "Lady."
"I'm glad I can dance with you now, Charlotte."
"To feel the beauty of this moment—I wonder if perhaps I've lived my entire life for this very thing."
Had he perhaps held her in his heart from that day onward? Charlotte certainly had.
Suddenly, Charlotte pulled him into a tight embrace around his neck. Leopold stroked down her back as he spoke.
"I thought you were simply a fearless young lady."
He seemed to have guessed at the conversation she'd had with the Sorceress today. His brilliance and acuity would not allow him to misread her honest expression.
"It's unlike me, isn't it? To be afraid like this..."
Charlotte murmured against him.
"I was the one urging Your Majesty to be brave, yet you haven't grown disappointed in me, have you?"
Leopold shook his head.
"When I said I adore you as you are, it doesn't mean I've predetermined every aspect of who you should be, Charlotte."
As Charlotte lifted her gaze, she beheld Leopold's face—so noble it bordered on arrogance—softened by a tender smile. His voice, threaded with amusement, drifted toward her on the autumn breeze.
"In my eyes, everything you do is simply so endearing. Yet I cannot fathom how to explain this irrational heart with my rational mind, so I merely said that I cherish your essence as it is."
Leopold's eyes flickered in a playful wink, and Charlotte responded with a soft, knowing smile.
"How troublesome, then. The truth is, I've come to love you simply because you're devastatingly handsome, because your dark brows furrow so enchantingly, and because I adore the sweet sandalwood fragrance that clings to you."
Leopold's low laughter rippled forth. His laugh, mingling with the rushing stream, warmed the ache and sorrow in Charlotte's heart. She gazed at him intently, watching his exquisitely balanced features shimmer beneath the moonlight.
Charlotte traced her fingertip slowly along the bridge of Leopold's nose, whispering softly.
"And yet... even if your handsome face were lost to darkness and I could never see it again, even if your composed, dark brows turned white with age... I believe I would still love you."
Leopold's grayish-green eyes gleamed beneath the moonlight like fresh spring shoots of pale jade. He was the first to call her beautiful, the first to find her careless ways endearing.
Charlotte murmured as though caught in a dream.
"What has become of me? If sorcery truly exists, I must be under a spell. To love someone so completely."
She had once believed that unchanging, undying love must take a single form. Now Charlotte realized she no longer needed to define love so rigidly.
'So that's why Jane and Mrs. Smith spoke as they did. Love doesn't change and doesn't fade, yet it wears many faces. Love transforms yet remains unchanged, disappears yet persists....'
Charlotte gazed at Leopold and broke into a radiant smile.
'Your Majesty Leopold, you are love itself to me.'
***
The next morning, a soft voice as delicate as silk thread drifted to Charlotte's ears on a gentle breeze.
"Charlotte, my dear. Do wake up."
When Charlotte opened her eyes, morning mist suffused with sunlight had gathered all around her.
"Charlotte, it seems you dozed off without realizing it."
Aunt Elicia, dressed in a black gown, whispered softly as she brushed Charlotte's hair back with a gentle touch. Charlotte stirred and rose groggily. She was still in the forest where she had been spending time with Leopold.
"Oh, Aunt...."
Charlotte blinked her dry eyes and gathered her senses. After the sweet night with Leopold, as dawn approached, he had offered to take her home. But she had stubbornly refused his suggestion, insisting instead that she would remain until his last trace vanished beneath the sunlight before heading back.
'The sun rose, and His Majesty disappeared. Only then did I finally release the tears I had held back all night....'
Charlotte thought to herself, touching her puffy, swollen face. She must have fallen asleep while crying. Wrapped entirely in a blanket, she wiped away the dew that had settled on her face, washing herself like a cat.
"The household was thrown into quite a commotion this morning when you weren't to be found, Charlotte."
Aunt Elicia whispered to Charlotte in a dreamy voice.
"But I told them that I had planned an early morning walk with you. We can't let people discover this Secret Place, now can we?"
Charlotte nodded, her face still heavy with sleep, and replied.
"Thank you, Aunt. You're right—this place is mine and His Majesty's...."
'Secret Place.'
Charlotte's eyes flew wide open. It was one thing that Aunt Elicia was here in the Secret Place she shared with Leopold, but Charlotte felt something unsettlingly strange. Despite having spent the night and the past several weeks in this place with Leopold, something vital seemed to have vanished from it.
"Wait—the, the Stream...!"
Charlotte gasped in shock, her head whipping around. The silver Stream that had rushed with vigorous sound every time she and Leopold came here had disappeared without a trace. Instead, beside her lay only a parched, cracked earthen ravine and a desolate willow-covered hill that she had perhaps mistaken for an island.
"The Stream in this place dried up long, long ago. Even when I was a child, this place was nothing more than an unsightly depression."
Elicia spoke, brushing back Charlotte's hair as she stood frozen in bewilderment.
"But when night falls... yes, Charlotte. At night, beautiful moonlight flows again, carrying the souls of spirits. Isn't that so?"
"What? You mean... spirits?"
Charlotte's eyes widened in astonishment as she repeated back what she'd heard. The stream flowing through this place at night—carrying souls upon moonlight itself?
"So... you're saying that Aunt Elicia can also see the stream that flows here at night? That I wasn't seeing things?"
Charlotte asked, her voice trembling with awakening wonder, and Aunt Elicia smiled warmly at her.
"Of course, Charlotte. As I told you, what appears in daylight is not all there is. When you turn your attention to the invisible things around you, you can see so very much. The stream flowing here, carrying the souls within it—it is merely one of the many things we are capable of perceiving."
Aunt Elicia's voice rang out with unusual clarity and conviction.
"For instance, I was able to discern the shyness in the dawn light and realize that you had remained here
alone
."
I detected the subtle emphasis Aunt Elicia placed on the word "alone." I still needed to unravel the enigma of her cryptic words.
"Then... Aunt Elicia, does that mean anyone who comes here at night can see the moonlight—the stream carrying those souls?"
"Unfortunately, that is not the case, Charlotte."
Aunt Elicia whispered, her lined face softening into a girlish smile. Then she looked directly at me, her expression serene and measured.
"Just as the Prince of Dawn Light reveals himself to you, most people are destined to overlook the invisible things that surround them."
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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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