Hedi dressed slowly, and by chance caught her reflection, a pale moon laid on still water.

The image felt time-lost, like a face across ages; her last self-check was a memory weathered to the edge of forgetting.

In the mirror, her creamy pale face carried a faint blue coolness, like dawn frost.

Her half-lidded eyes were the faintest stars in a night sky, born heavy with weariness.

By contrast, her nose rose straight, lines graceful like a Rococo silhouette, lending her features an old-world charm.

"Chief Mandele is here already," the Holy Maiden’s voice cut through the steaming bath air. "How long are you going to play in there?"

"Eavesdropping isn’t exactly a virtue."

"Heh, your laughter ripples right outside; no need to eavesdrop."

Hedi didn’t answer. She lifted a hand and raked her tousled gray-white curls, like combing wind from reeds.

She took a fine-toothed comb and smoothed each strand, gathering the fluff into a neat ponytail, tight as braided rain.

She chose a simple black band and adjusted its place with care, even slipping a finger through to test for pinch.

No tension, no sting; only quiet fit.

Her ponytail poured down like a small waterfall; the tips swayed like willow twigs and brushed her shoulder and neck.

"Hurry up!" The Holy Maiden’s impatience flipped to startled. "Hey! Don’t splash it outside!"

Selina dipped water into a wooden basin and snapped back, flint in her voice. "When a girl washes—"

The water flew in a graceful whoosh, carving a glittering arc through air.

"Don’t rush her!"

Her voice spiked, sharp as a struck bell. "Are you trying to die?!"

Heat pricked under Hedi’s skin; goosebumps rose like grain in sudden wind.

A long-sleeping memory woke, bone-deep and bright, like a drum struck under frost.

It was about Cheryl: as a child, for her gray-white hair, she was often bullied like a lone sparrow in rain.

Each time, Cheryl stepped forward, and her opening counterstrike was always, "Are you trying to die?"

But the Holy Maiden’s nature and Cheryl’s were poles apart, like Antarctic ice and Arctic ice under different suns.

Was that flare just annoyance at Selina’s splash, or had a small jolt tripped a long-lock switch inside her, stirring dormant cells like spring sap rising?

"Cheryl?" Hedi tested the name, sending a pebble into still water.

At memory’s far end, a lamp flickered slow and steady; catch its pulse, and you could meet that girl again.

After the words, only rain hammered the roof, drumming like hooves.

After a long pause, the Holy Maiden answered from the doorway. "I’m not Cheryl. How many times must I say it?"

"Ah... watching you snap at Selina..."

"Splashing shouldn’t make me angry?! Ow! You’re still splashing!"

Selina swapped the basin for a small ladle, and splashed quick and dense, like a summer squall. "Don’t bully the Professor!"

Hedi tightened her coat belt and lifted the bath curtain, a sheet of damp cloud.

The Holy Maiden was fending off Selina’s attack with an umbrella, a dark shield beaded with water.

Seeing Hedi come out, she slid aside, dodging the spray like a swallow. "Come. Chief Mandele’s been waiting a long time."

"Wait for me!" Selina called from the bath, voice bobbing like a float. "I’m not dressed yet!"

The Holy Maiden shook droplets from the umbrella’s rim, silver beads falling like seeds.

At the threshold, she caught Hedi leaning on the wall with a sidelong glance.

Her expression clouded, storm-thick. "You really plan to wait for that girl?"

"Mm."

"No wonder. You two act like doe-eyed lovers, soft as spring mist."

"What happened between you two, really?"

"She didn’t tell you?"

"I want to hear it from you."

"Nothing worth saying." The Holy Maiden rubbed her eye sockets with a thumb, slow as smoothing paper. "Just know we don’t get along."

"Even so, you didn’t drive us from the Sacred Cathedral—"

"Because you’re tied to the Dark Realm that’s about to open, like wires under ice!"

Hedi folded her arms, silent as winter bark.

"I heard that girl—"

"Her name is Selena Viola."

A brief hush, like a held breath. Then the Holy Maiden said, "I heard from Viola that you entered Shattered City’s Dark Realm."

"A past I’d rather not revisit, ash in the mouth."

"She said you collapsed the same way inside the Dark Realm."

"I have to link this collapse to that one." Hedi sank into thought, fog pressing her temples. "It was a dream."

"Do you remember the content?"

"I don’t remember the last one, only that it was a nightmare, black as wet coal."

"This time, I wasn’t scared awake. Cheryl woke me."

Her lashes fluttered, moth wings at dusk. "You only said you talked about names."

"Mm."

"How did she wake you?"

Hedi shifted a little, teeth on her thumb’s nail edge, like biting a peach pit.

She spoke slowly. "In the dream, Cheryl told me, 'You know you’re dreaming. If you don’t wake, you can’t return.'"

"That’s it?"

"More or less. I don’t remember."

The Holy Maiden nodded, words folded like paper boats, setting off on a dark stream.

After that, Hedi spoke of changes in the Sacred Cathedral, talk drifting like smoke.

Slowly, the wind turned the vane toward Cheryl. "You remember her, right?"

"I remember."

"Once, Cheryl resented Sister Bertha’s punishment. She carried a puppy from town and let it slip into Bertha’s room."

"She got a beating and a week of confinement, bars like rain."

"Because Sister Bertha feared dogs."

Hedi touched her lips, fingertips cool as glass. "Another time, Cheryl’s little bug box broke."

"That night, I slept next door and kept hearing her roommate’s screams, thin as wire."

The Holy Maiden shook her head, memory snowed over, white and quiet.

"Then she climbed through my window and asked what to do."

"Did you give advice?"

"What advice could I give?" Hedi let out a bitter smile, sharp as a cracked seed. "I went to the confinement room to chat, like visiting a prisoner."

"And then? What else do you remember?"

Hedi fell silent for a moment, like a lake holding wind, then spoke. "She took me to the forest around the Sacred Cathedral."

"She spooked me with ‘ghosts’ while guiding me to a secret base, leaves whispering over our heads."

"I remember we didn’t reach it and turned back halfway, moon like a coin in the trees."

"Then and there, I kept wanting to tell her I was leaving—"

"You didn’t?"

"I thought there was time, but I ran into news that Priest John was failing, life flickering like a guttering wick."

The Holy Maiden sighed deep, wind through reeds. "You never visited Priest John. From that day on, no one could find you."

"Sister Bertha put me on a train, iron snake in rain."

"Why?"

"The adults always knew I studied Dark Magic. They just never told you."

"In Priest John’s words: ‘Didn’t want it to bring me censure,’ like soot on white cloth."

Silently, the Holy Maiden wet her lips, a lake licking its shore. "I only knew after you admitted it yourself."

"Back then, I snarled at Sister Bertha: ‘I’ll never come to your funeral.’"

"You didn’t."

"It took me so much to return," Hedi said, her gaze soft as a faded lantern. "And everyone I knew had gone."

"Only I stayed."

"Why?"

"John and Bertha always believed you fit the Holy Maiden best."

"No matter how I tried, I couldn’t change their minds, as if the script were carved in stone."

"The Sacred Cathedral’s Holy Maiden is just a title—"

"Heh." The Holy Maiden laughed without agreeing, like a pebble skipping twice. "If it’s just a title, why does everyone treat me as you?"

Hedi shook her head and waited, dusk pooling in the pause.

"Because the training was tailored for you!"

"But you’re not me. You should become yourself, like a river choosing its bed."

"If the Priest, at death’s door, wished you to be the Holy Maiden, would you refuse?"

Hedi’s lips sealed like wax; her words curled up and slept in the pit of silence.

"You wouldn’t—" The Holy Maiden tilted her chin, moon-slice bright. "Refuse a dying elder’s request."

"So he hoped you would become the Holy Maiden?"

"Priest John only recognized you. Everyone only recognized you."

Hedi understood then; her chest grew heavy, as if she’d inhaled a clot of cloud.

"He mistook you for me."

"Not studying Dark Magic—" the Holy Maiden answered softly, like rain on silk. "The Hedi Melvina who stayed in the Sacred Cathedral."