The S class Guide belongs to the Duke

~Chapter 2~

Duke Cedric Voss had never believed in miracles.

Yet a dead girl's heart had started beating beneath his hands.

Cedric was one of the empire's youngest S-Class Espers, he was meant to be on a mission for his Majesty the emperor.

Not meant to be carrying a half-drowned maid through Count Hailan's manor in the middle of the night.

Yet here he was.

Water still dripped from Cedric's hair in slow, rhythmic patterns onto the marble floor of the Hailan manor's entrance hall, each drop echoing far too loud in the sleeping silence of the house. He was drenched to the bone, his shirt clinging to a frame built more for war than court, dark hair plastered flat against his brow, and the girl in his arms hadn't stirred once since he'd forced her lungs back into motion at the lake's edge.

He had carried her the entire way without stopping to question why a duke of his standing was hauling a half-drowned maid through a count's private halls in the middle of the night instead of summoning servants to do it for him.

The manor was dark.

Too dark.

Most of the lamps along the corridor were either burning low or extinguished entirely. No one had expected visitors.

Which meant that if her heart stopped again, there would be no physician nearby to save her.

He looked down at her face, pale as porcelain even in the dim light, lips still faintly blue at the edges, and something in his chest tightened in a way he didn't have a name for.

How does a heart that's stopped simply start again?

He'd felt it beneath his palms — the terrible, hollow stillness of her chest, and then, impossibly, the flutter of a pulse returning like something had reached down and dragged her back by force. He didn't believe in miracles. He believed in strength, in training, in the cold discipline that had kept him alive through worse than a midnight swim. But he had no explanation for what had just happened at that river, and the not-knowing needled at him worse than the chill soaking through his ruined boots.

A strand of dark hair had fallen across her cheek, stuck there by riverwater, and before he'd even decided to move, his fingers brushed it away.

He froze the instant he registered what he'd done.

What are you doing?

He straightened sharply, jaw tightening, cursing himself under his breath for the lapse. She was a stranger to him — a maid, nothing more, someone else's staff dressed in someone else's misfortune — and he had no business studying her face like it mattered whether her hair was in place. He adjusted his grip instead, all business now, and quickened his pace toward the stairs.

That was when he heard them.

Footsteps two sets, fast and voices drifting down from the upper landing, one clipped and anxious, the other low and commanding in the particular way of a man used to being obeyed.

"—should have been ready an hour ago, my lord, if we don't leave now we'll miss the—"

"I'm aware of the time, Halden."

The first man came into view first, thin and quick-moving, practically vibrating with nerves — a butler, judging by his dress, the kind of man who treated every minute like it might be his last if wasted. The second man rounded the landing a step behind him, and it was on him that Cedric's attention caught and held.

Count Caius Hailan stopped dead at the top of the stairs.

He was dressed for travel — a fine dark coat, gloves already on, the unmistakable look of a man moments from walking out his own front door — and whatever destination he'd had in mind clearly hadn't included finding a dripping wet duke standing in his entrance hall at midnight, carrying an unconscious woman in his arms.

"Duke Cedric?" Caius said, and there was genuine shock in it, the kind that cracked through even the most composed men. "What in the— I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow evening."

"Change of plans," Cedric said simply, unwilling to explain himself to a man he hadn't spoken more than a dozen civil words to in years.

Caius was already descending the stairs two at a time, his gaze sharpening as it dropped from Cedric's face to the woman in his arms. "What happened? Why are you—" He stopped mid-stride, close enough now to see her properly, and something in his expression shattered.

"Elewisa."

Ah, Cedric thought distantly. So that's her name.

He hadn't expected Caius's reaction.

The count crossed the remaining distance in three strides.

He took Elewisa from Cedric's arms, cradling her against his chest.

"Elewisa."

He said her name again.

This time, his voice cracked.

"Can you hear me?"

No response.

Caius's face went pale.

"What happened to her?"

His eyes snapped toward Cedric.

"What did you do?"

Cedric stared at him.

Cedric arched a brow. "Excuse me?"

"I pulled her out of the river," Cedric said flatly, patience already fraying. "You're welcome."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting” Cedric shook water from his sleeve, unimpressed. "Unless you'd have preferred I left her at the bottom."

Caius opened his mouth.

No words came.

Then he turned.

"Halden. Send for the physician."

The butler hesitated.

"My lord, the meeting with Lord Ashcombe—"

"Now."

The single word cracked through the hall.

Halden immediately bowed.

"Yes, my lord."

"I said now." Caius's voice cracked like a whip, and the butler flinched, finally scrambling toward the servants' corridor without another word.

Cedric watched the whole display with something between disbelief and disdain. Same reckless temper. Same instinct to accuse first and think later. He'd known this man since they were boys throwing wooden swords at each other in the academy yard, and it seemed thirteen years hadn't smoothed a single one of his rough edges.

He said nothing else. There was nothing left to say to a man who'd rather assign blame than say thank you. He turned toward the door, already reaching to shrug the sodden weight of his own jacket from his shoulders — the one he'd wrapped around her at the lake, useless now that Caius had claimed her.

"Here," he said, more to himself than to anyone listening, tossing the ruined jacket over the back of a hall chair. Caius, distracted, was already stripping off his own coat to bundle it around her instead, tucking it close around her shoulders with hands that shook faster than the night's chill could explain.

Cedric paused at the door.

He should leave. He had no reason to stay.

He had a royal assignment waiting.

He had no business involving himself in the affairs of the Hailan household.

Yet his feet refused to move. Cedric looked back.

Caius was kneeling beside Elewisa now.

His hands trembled slightly as he pushed wet hair away from her face.

The tenderness of the gesture made something cold settle behind Cedric's eyes.

He had seen men look at people they loved.

That wasn't quite what this was.

It was more complicated. More dangerous.

"I'd like a room please," he said, turning back. "Whatever you have available will do. I apologize for arriving ahead of schedule — the road was faster than expected."

Caius barely looked up from where he knelt beside the unconscious girl, smoothing damp hair back from her face with a tenderness that looked nothing like how a count treated hired help. "Fine. Whatever you need."

Cedric studied him a moment longer — the panic, the desperation, the way his hands lingered too long against her skin — and something cold and knowing settled behind his eyes.

"One more thing," he said, pausing at the threshold, voice deceptively mild. "You might want to look into how your household is run, Caius. It's rather unbecoming of a count to keep murderers among his staff."

Caius's head snapped up. "What did you just say?"

His boots echoed through the empty corridor.

Behind him, Caius remained frozen.

my household?

His gaze dropped to Elewisa.

He remembered the bruises he'd occasionally noticed.

The unexplained scratches.

The way she sometimes lowered her head whenever certain maids entered the room.

Things he had dismissed.

Things he had failed to question.

His fingers curled around hers.

"Whoever did this..."

His voice was barely a whisper.

"I'll find them."

He looked down at her face — still too pale, still too still — and felt something in himself go dark and quiet in a way it never had before.

"Whoever did this to you," he murmured, low enough that only the empty hall could hear, "I will find them."

Cedric reached the doorway, then stopped.

He looked back at Elewisa.

For the briefest moment, the pain that had plagued his body for years disappeared.

Then it returned.