I couldn't say how brutal the winter that had descended upon Winter Castle truly was.
With a guest having arrived, it felt as though the heating had been turned up — and yet the cold still seemed to fill every corner of the castle, more than any warmth.
Of course, I had grown accustomed to it enough that I barely noticed anymore, but by my reckoning, it was hardly warm enough for someone from the South to live comfortably.
"Alfredo, you've set the study fire to a proper level, haven't you?"
"Yes, Your Grace. Are you still feeling a chill?"
"No — it's because the guest is unwell. I thought it better to raise the temperature regardless."
"You are most considerate, Your Grace."
"She came from the South. Naturally I should be concerned."
She was still fast asleep, but the weather was bound to be harsh for someone from the South.
That was simply another thing that had to be taken into account.
"Speaking of which, Your Grace."
"Yes, what is it?"
"How have you been sleeping, Your Grace?"
"Just getting by, more or less."
"Your health will suffer for it. Might I suggest moving to the guest room, even now?"
"No. Leave things as they are."
I was in the middle of working through the documents on my desk.
Alfredo, who had been standing in the room, asked me with careful hesitation.
It had been nearly several days since Daniela had taken ill and taken to bed.
I had been squeezing in sleep however I could during that time, but by now I had apparently adjusted — I felt no discomfort at all.
That was the strangest part.
How a person simply adapts.
"If you wish, I can have another bed prepared at any time, Your Grace."
"No. I'm comfortable as I am."
"Mm. Your Grace, if I may be so bold — might I ask what the nature of your relationship with the guest is?"
"She's a guest. What else would she be?"
"I only wondered whether this particular guest might have found a place in Your Grace's heart."
"Are you making sport of me right now?"
Alfredo said nothing. He simply stood there, watching me with an unreadable expression.
He looked as though he had something more to say.
I made a deliberate effort to ignore his gaze.
But the weight of it became too much to bear. I gave in and asked.
"What is it, then."
"The truth is, there seems to be a rumor circulating about the guest currently staying here."
"A rumor? What sort of rumor?"
"That Your Grace has at last taken a new Grand Duchess."
"Come now, how could that rumor have started already."
"Your Grace, you are aware that I, Alfredo, have served you since childhood and attended the late Grand Duke before you."
"That's true."
"And in all that time, this is the first occasion on which Your Grace has allowed a woman to sleep in this room."
I had nothing to say to that.
The truth was, if I had wanted to send her to a guest room, I could have done so easily enough.
And yet I had kept Daniela here, in my own chambers.
Even if I tried to explain the reason, it seemed to belong to some realm beyond rational accounting.
I didn't know why — only that I felt as though the guest ought to remain in the Grand Duke's room.
"There's a first time for everything. Let's call this one a beginning."
"We of the council have always been most welcoming, Your Grace."
"Keep saying things like that. Please."
"A Grand Duchess... it feels as though I am seeing one for the first time in nearly thirty years."
"Alfredo."
The moment I spoke his name, Alfredo fell silent.
There was a prohibition I had established since my youth.
A rule that all who served the North, all who sat on the council, were bound to observe.
It was simple enough.
As a general rule: refrain from speaking of Wintergard — that is, of my family, or of the house.
Alfredo seemed to recall it in that instant, and held his silence accordingly.
"I will fetch the medicine for our guest, Your Grace."
"See that you do."
"If I may venture one last word..."
"Nothing will happen. Don't worry yourself. Do you think I would crumble before such a frail woman?"
"That is precisely when the greatest disasters occur, Your Grace."
"A man of the North doesn't die so easily. Off with you."
Alfredo offered a bow and stepped out of the room.
His manner of late had been peculiar.
He wore the expression of a man who wanted something.
But taking Daniela as Grand Duchess all of a sudden — that was a bit much, wasn't it.
...Though it wasn't entirely out of the question.
"Daniela?"
I called out from the study side of the room, but no answer came.
Still sleeping, then.
I approached the bedside with quiet steps.
The heating seemed to have grown stronger all at once.
The warmth was rising, filling the air.
"Daniela?"
I sat at the edge of the bed and studied the woman lying there in silence.
Alfredo had been right.
If he had watched over me since before I became Grand Duke — since I was very young — he would know.
Not a single woman, nor any servant, had ever slept in my room.
The servants had no reason to sleep here, and as for women — there had simply never been occasion for one to enter uninvited.
"Sleep on."
I observed Daniela quietly.
Her eyes were closed, but even so, her complexion was the kind of pale luminance that anyone would call the mark of a noble lady.
Not a single blemish.
And yet the exhaustion that clung to her was impossible to conceal.
I reached out and brushed the hair from her face, tucking it to the side.
Golden hair.
Cut short, in the manner of someone from the North.
"Y-Your Grace?"
"You're awake?"
She called out to me in a rush, but Daniela could not lift herself upright.
Yet the moment she realized I was beside her, she began struggling to raise herself anyway.
I tried to stop her, but with a series of strained sounds, she managed to push herself up.
"It's time for your medicine. Wait just a moment."
"Th-thank you."
"You seem better than a few days ago, at least. That's a relief."
"Th-thank you."
There were only the two of us in this room, and yet something about it felt —
just slightly —
awkward, one might say.
After all, it had been nearly thirty years since a woman had last been brought into this space.
Alfredo seemed to consider it a historic occasion.
"Well then, Daniela. Ah — is it rude of me to address you by name alone?"
"Not at all, Your Grace."
"I would forgive any discourtesy from House Barth, but my own discourtesy is another matter..."
Under ordinary circumstances, I might have pressed further — pushed the point with a certain boldness.
But with Daniela, I could not bring myself to do it.
Daniela, lying in the bed, went still for a moment.
Not trembling from the cold.
Not frozen in sudden shock.
"Your Grace, please forgive us our discourtesy."
"Under ordinary circumstances, the proper course would be to send you back to House Barth. But it seems there's no need for that now."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"It rather feels as though you were sold off to me. And yet I find I'm not particularly displeased."
"Thank you — truly, thank you."
The discourtesy of House Barth.
Was it not the law of the nobility to refuse such an affront?
But the North was not so narrow-minded as to take offense over something like this.
If anything, had a man of the North sent his daughter in such a manner, the North would have raged at the sky and called him a worthless creature.
Yes — even this was a matter of fate.
"Still, I honestly don't know how one forgives a father who sends his own daughter off as though to her death."
"There must have been reasons. I had no choice but to follow my father's judgment."
"Is that so? What reason in this world could justify that?"
"It was, in the end... a matter of politics."
A matter of politics.
What a sorrowful thing to say.
It violated what the North held most sacred. Heaven's order. The will of the sky.
Was that not something that transcended even the laws of the nobility?
Could a father truly abandon his daughter?
Though, thinking back on the past, the North had little room to speak on the matter.
Wars where blades were washed in blood. The North's own history was not without them.
"So what do you feel, right now?"
"R-right now, I feel very much at ease, Your Grace."
"You may speak freely. You are a guest here. Speak without formality."
"W-would that truly be permitted?"
"You're not accepting that a little too readily?"
"I'm sorry!"
It had been a jest.
Of course I wouldn't go so far as to have her call me by name — that would be madness — but I could extend this much grace.
And besides, she was a character from a romance fantasy novel.
I had only known Daniela through the pages of that story, but there was something to it — like meeting someone famous in person.
In the novel she had been portrayed as a wicked young lady, but here before me she seemed nothing but gentle.
"Well, speak freely. 'Grand Duke' — that would do nicely."
"Th-then..."
"You're not going to refuse even once? You should push back at least a little."
"Ah, um..."
"I'm joking. Call me Grand Duke."
"Is... is that truly all right?"
"Yes. Call me Grand Duke."
Daniela gave a small nod.
Who knows — perhaps I too might become something like the protagonist of a romance fantasy novel.
I couldn't recall the details clearly, but as far as I knew, the point at which Daniela died came near the very end of the story.
Well. That had nothing to do with me.
"Even so — to come all the way to the North. In those clothes, in that condition. Remarkable."
"Not at all, Grand Duke. There was a road, and I simply followed it. That's how I arrived."
Before the roads had been laid, the path between the North and the South had been nearly nonexistent.
Even if one took a back route, it was exactly the kind of road where one was likely to encounter bandits.
There had in fact been so many brigands in the surrounding area that the North's army had been dispatched to deal with them.
Being troops trained to cut down nomadic raiders, they had made short work of the bandits.
"I'm glad. A woman traveling that road alone would have come to certain harm."
"Perhaps it was the will of heaven."
The will of heaven.
A welcome thing to hear.
Perhaps, by now, the story had strayed far from its appointed path.
But one thing was certain — Daniela's words, that 'will of heaven,' had struck something in me.
"Beautiful. Those words. Might I borrow them someday?"
"P-pardon?"
"The will of heaven. I'll use it myself, one day."
Daniela smiled, quietly and with care.