A woman with her head bowed.
In the middle of the Hall of Winter, she knelt on the floor. Yellow hair, a worn dress.
Though calling it a dress was generous.
In the North, linen garments were nothing more than underclothes.
Yet this woman had layered several pieces of linen over one another.
Her body trembled quietly — whether from cold or from grief, I could not tell.
"Here it is, Your Highness."
A guard brought the letter.
I remained seated, watching the woman in silence. She seemed to be trying to maintain her composure, but the cold was making it impossible.
I took the blanket draped over my shoulder and handed it to the guard.
"Give that to her. She's shaking from the cold."
"Yes, Your Highness!"
The guard received the blanket with careful hands, approached the woman, and spread it across her back.
The blanket wrapped around her. That's an expensive one.
I bit into a piece of fruit and examined the envelope.
The seal pressed into the wax was unmistakably the crest of House Barth. There were no signs of it having been opened by anyone else.
To the Grand Duke of the North, Roland von Barth — even the index was written in the flawless hand of a nobleman.
To the Grand Duke of the North.
I extend my greetings to the Grand Duke, the eternal shield of the Empire. Though the North and I have had little occasion to correspond, I send my daughter to the North and ask that you look after her well.
Your renown reaches even the South. That you have made the North the finest domain in the realm is entirely to your credit.
She is a woman who has received the finest education the Empire has to offer, and I believe she would make an excellent match for you. I ask that you consider her with care.
Should this letter reach you last of all, you may do with my daughter as you see fit.
End.
It was a very short letter — and utterly without manners.
Where to begin with the rudeness — toward me, certainly, but also toward his own daughter. Why would he write of her like this.
"Hmm. I understand the general intent. But what brings you all the way here? My lady of House Barth?"
The woman could not lift her head.
Whether it was a trait common to southerners I couldn't say, but there was a certain prejudice about the North that ran deep among them.
Rumors that anyone who displeased the Grand Duke would find their head hanging from the walls of Winter Castle.
Of course, I was the one who had started those rumors — but I hadn't actually treated southerners harshly.
"If it would not be an imposition, might you raise your head and speak?"
"As you wish."
Only then could I see the daughter of House Barth properly.
The report I had received must have been accurate after all.
A woman who had fought a duel at the Academy and lost.
A woman who should have become the Crown Princess.
Daniela. The heroine who had been defeated within the novel.
"That is—"
"You came because you had nowhere else to go. Is that not so?"
Before Daniela, who had lifted her head, could speak, I took the answer from her.
People were beginning to arrive for the morning.
The guards filed into the Hall of Winter one by one.
Some showed a flicker of surprise at finding me already seated, but they quickly found their places.
Daniela lowered her head again.
That was likely a yes.
I turned the letter over in my mind once more.
This letter was certainly written by House Barth — but something about it was twisted.
"The road from House Barth's domain to the North would not have been an easy one."
"N-no. It was not."
"I have some thoughts about this letter that I'd like to share with you, if I may. My lady of House Barth?"
"P-p-please — please do as you see fit."
The trembling of Daniela's body seemed to be growing worse by the moment.
I dangled the letter in one hand.
The letter's intent was deliberate to the last.
It carried the appearance of a marriage proposal — but then came the next line. Do as you see fit.
Should this letter reach you last, do as you see fit.
The meaning of those words was plain.
I was not the first.
And this was the last place Daniela had been sent to arrive.
"Then sending you here amounts to saying: die here. That is how this letter reads to me. Am I correct?"
Daniela's body only continued to tremble.
No answer came.
The guards murmured among themselves.
Within Winter Castle, failing to answer the Grand Duke's words was a breach of northern etiquette.
But I pressed on.
"They must have sent letters like this to other places as well. But the other domains would have refused — and yet they couldn't simply kill her either — so she wandered from place to place until she ended up here. Is that what this means?"
But there would not have been much time to spare.
Which meant she had been drifting from place to place dressed in nothing but roughly stitched linen.
Whether my guess was close to the mark, the guard who had first found her offered a quiet word.
She had nothing proper — not shoes, not clothes.
It would have been best to reach some conclusion as quickly as possible.
What to do.
Should I kill Daniela here for the novel to proceed as written — but no, she was supposed to die at the hands of bandits.
"Hmm..."
The deliberation stretched on.
At some point, Daniela's body began to shrink.
The blanket caved inward.
Her body was still shaking — but she could no longer remain upright.
She had collapsed.
Should I let her die here.
As the original novel intended.
But I could not let a person die here. I simply could not.
I descended the steps quickly and shook Daniela with care.
I pulled the blanket away from her face and gently pressed my hand to her forehead. She was burning with fever.
Bright red heat blossoms had bloomed beneath her ears and around her mouth.
It was a kind of whim.
Daniela had been defeated as a heroine.
What happened in the novel after this — I found I could not quite recall.
I stepped outside and returned to the Hall of Winter.
The guards, who had been murmuring, fell silent when they saw me.
Word of what had happened here would likely spread before long.
"The daughter of House Barth has come to us, and we will receive her as a guest. The guard should know that."
"To what extent shall we permit her movement?"
"See that she is comfortable. I will decide what to do with her later and inform you then."
"Understood, Your Highness."
The guards fell quiet at once.
I sat in the Hall of Winter and thought in silence.
I looked over the letter from House Barth once more.
I wasn't sure how to read this letter. The political intent was clear enough — and yet it was deeply bleak.
"If Dorgon is anywhere within the castle, bring him here at once."
"Understood."
What I needed now was more information.
Being expelled from the Academy alone could have been cause enough for serious trouble.
But to treat her this harshly — there was some deliberate intent behind it.
The North and the Empire were separated by mountains so deep and forbidding they inspired dread, which meant information had always been scarce and difficult to come by.
And in the old days, the North had been little more than a place of exile.
Obtaining intelligence about the Empire from the North had been extraordinarily difficult.
But Dorgon was different.
He was the head of the North's intelligence service, which I had built from the ground up — a man who maintained an extensive network of informants throughout the Empire.
Dorgon entered the Hall of Winter in haste. He said he had been sorting through intelligence reports within the castle.
"The daughter of House Barth has come to me. Dorgon, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it."
"Your Highness — did you receive a letter?"
"Yes, something like this. You may read it."
"Is this a marriage proposal addressed to Your Highness?"
"Come and see for yourself. Dorgon."
Dorgon began reading the letter partway up the steps.
As he studied it, his brow furrowed.
When he finished, he handed the letter back to the guard. The meaning was likely plain enough.
"There is intent here — but I do not believe it is the kind of intent one might first assume."
"She crossed the mountains and came all the way to the North. Are you saying there was no intent behind it?"
"It sounds absurd, I know — but I have received word that this young woman was subjected to hardship as she traveled from place to place."
"Tell me more."
Dorgon descended the steps and knelt on one knee.
"It appears House Barth had already abandoned this young lady and dispatched letters to various destinations on her behalf. One can surmise they were wary of the Imperial family's displeasure, given that the engagement to the Crown Prince had fallen apart. I have even received word that loyalists to the Imperial house stripped her of all her dowry and drove her out."
"Despicable. They could at least have let her survive on her own."
"And so it seems she crossed the mountains believing she would die here. According to the latest intelligence, the road construction was recently completed, and she appears to have traveled safely along that route."
"What a coincidence. What a coincidence indeed..."
It's not my fault, is it?