The Line
Rattle, rattle.
The carriage that departed from the royal castle passed through the walls, passed through the capital, and rolled along the road heading south, toward the Southern Border.
And the moment the towering, snow-white castle finally shrank out of sight behind them, a girl shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Farewell, royal castle! May we never meet again!!"
Hannah's bright voice rang through the carriage. She had her face practically plastered against the window, brimming with excitement as she spoke.
"And to you too, Her Majesty the Queen... or, well, the ex-Queen! Bye-bye!"
Had anyone else heard it, Hannah would have been dragged off by the hair on the spot — a far cry from the girl who had appeared at the Immigration Office just yesterday. Gone was the grim-faced girl who hadn't slept for two nights straight while begging for help with her friend; in her place sat a tomboy overflowing with anticipation.
Hannah whipped her head around.
"Princess, Princess! They say the bread at the Southern Border is to die for! It's right next to the Mahalan Kingdom, the greatest grain belt on the continent, so bakers flock there from everywhere! We have to buy some the second we arrive!"
"..."
"Princess?"
But no answer came. Elaine sat buried in the deepest corner of the carriage, in the spot where the sunlight couldn't reach, her face drawn tight with tension. No matter how much Hannah bounced and chattered beside her, she didn't react in the slightest. She wouldn't even glance toward the window — as if she were forbidden from looking — and instead hugged her knees in silence.
There was, however, one place her gaze had been fixed ever since she boarded the carriage. And that was...
"Haaaaah..."
...me, pressing a hand to my forehead and letting out the twenty-ninth sigh of a man whose soul had left his body.
I am so, so screwed.
I still couldn't wrap my head around it. Nearly half a day had passed, and no matter how I turned the problem over, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how things had come to this.
Why must this trial fall upon me...
Was the world out to get me? Or had I simply reaped what I had sown? Escorting a princess to the Southern Border. Unbelievable.
I knew what I was signing up for when I went to the castle.
Punishment had been a given. My visit had strayed wildly from its original purpose, and a clash with the Queen had been all but guaranteed.
But this...
The royal proxy's words still echoed in my skull.
"We hereby command that Princess Elaine Castor undergo two months of isolation at the Southern Border, and that the Central Officer bear full responsibility for her keeping."
How in the world was that a punishment?
Well, no — viewed from a certain angle, it absolutely was. It meant that I, a mere civil servant, was now responsible for keeping a princess of the realm, the King's own daughter, safe and untroubled for a full sixty days.
When we arranged things with the Minister for Erzena, the promise was three days — send her to the Northern Border, no incidents.
This was twenty times that. I don't know why, but King Rio was, without question, trying to kill me.
No. That's going too far. If he wanted me dead, he'd have sentenced me at the trial.
I shook my head. Enough nonsense — what problems needed solving right now? Let me think this through slowly.
Lodging fit for the Princess. Meals that must not fall below castle standards. How far to disclose her presence to those around us. How much worse her power could spiral if it ran wild. Where on earth to procure court-appropriate garments...
The list never ended.
"Haaaaah..."
The thirtieth sigh. But the greatest problem of all was something else entirely.
How am I supposed to handle security?
The Princess's safety, plain and simple. The Southern Border was already hosting Erzena under temporary asylum — one VIP on our hands already. The small mercy was that the pilgrimage had departed completely, and the Holy Church's influence in the south was weak enough that her safety posed no great problem. Better still, with her divine power restored at full strength, she could defend herself, which took a weight off our shoulders.
If anything, she forcibly healed the attendants and the Five Senses Officers' fatigue, which doubled our efficiency.
Elaine was a different matter. She could not hide what she was. That distinctive eye color borne only by the royal bloodline.
When I lifted my head and looked at her, Elaine met my eyes for an instant — then slid her gaze away and burrowed back into the shadows, out of the sunlight.
A woman with green eyes, the same as King Rio's. Even a princess who had avoided public life for years — one look at those eyes, and anyone would know exactly who she was.
And the King and his proxy had dumped every ounce of responsibility and duty for her onto me. Seriously — a princess of the realm leaves the castle, and they don't even send an escort detail?
Incanthus. What exactly are you playing at... and what was it you wanted to say to me?
I turned over what he had said to me alone, after the royal decree.
"I, Incanthus Verbotem of the dragonewts, place my trust in you."
What he had performed was, unmistakably, a dragonewt's vow — the clicking of teeth and the hand pressed over his heart left no room for doubt. I'd been staggered by so sudden and unforeseen a gesture.
But something about it was off. The vow was missing its 'when,' its 'where,' its 'how,' and its 'why.'
Dragonewts were always like this. Terse to a fault.
Dheen Askyrin, the Northern Border's chief officer, was the same — and so is the proxy.
They sling a vow at you unbidden, declare that they trust you, and then refuse to explain a single thing. Then they just send you on your way.
Damnable lizard-brained...
For the first time in my life, I dared curse the royal proxy in my heart. If something is a problem, you're supposed to tell me what the problem is. If you want me to find something, you're supposed to tell me what to find. I was grateful that the King's proxy had declared himself my ally — but with no idea what he was truly after, the feeling was nothing but uneasy.
"What on earth does this office expect of me..."
I sent the exasperated murmur out the window along with a sigh. Why was it that the sky had to be so mercilessly clear on a day like this?
Then, at last, Elaine entered my field of vision. The Princess was still curled up small, hiding from the sunlight pouring into the carriage, wearing the guarded expression of someone who had no business being here at all.
"Your Highness."
Even at the gentle call, she flinched hard.
"Please don't worry about security. I will do everything in my power to ensure nothing threatens your safety."
The Princess was the King's daughter. The movement of a personage this monumentally important toward a national border was a matter of state.
I'll have to request the Intelligence Department's cooperation.
No — this wouldn't be a request. It was the obligation of a state organ.
I am not dying alone in this.
Rumor control, investigation of any threats in the vicinity — I'd dump all of it on the Intelligence Department. Hadn't Incanthus himself declared he was leaving everything in my hands? Then I'd use that responsibility for all it was worth.
The faint, distant sound of Melanie and her department screaming was probably just my imagination.
But Elaine shook her head. Then, only after a long while, she raised her card again.
A trembling voice, though the card said none of it aloud. Her gaze stayed fixed on me alone, refusing to wander.
She tossed the uncertain question at me. She'd left out the words 'from what' — but I knew. From herself. And from this freedom.
That was when it happened.
"We're nearly there, ladies and gents!"
At the coachman's booming call, the Princess startled and sucked in a breath.
"Ngh..."
At the same time, Elaine hugged her knees even tighter. She was still afraid. A bird caged for years does not know how free it has become, even after the door swings open.
If anything, it's all foreign to her.
Everything would be a first. If this went on, even arriving at the Southern Border might change nothing for her.
When the Princess had first tried to escape the castle, it hadn't been a yearning for freedom. She had simply moved on the thought of running away. And once she was truly out, every purpose she had vanished into thin air.
A bird that had lost its way. That was what I saw when I looked at her.
Maybe...
Maybe I could help. At the very least, I could show her the direction — that there was no need to be afraid.
I spoke quietly.
"Your Highness, would you care to look out the left window? Miss Hannah, you as well."
The words had barely left my mouth before Hannah jammed her head against the left window. Elaine, face taut with nerves, didn't move an inch.
I took her hand gently.
"It's all right. There's nothing dangerous. Have a look."
Only then did she turn her head — slowly, very slowly — and steal a sideways glance out the window.
There, running from one edge of her vision to the other, stretched a line. The horizon. Not the cramped, jutting peaks of the great Urakaras range, but the crisp, sweeping horizon of the Southern Plains, splitting sky from earth and spreading all the way to the ends of her sight. Blue above. Deep green below.
"Whoaa..."
Elaine and Hannah stood slack-jawed before that majestic vista, unable to close their mouths. The carriage began its slow descent along the mountain road.
"There's something Director Haillin once said to me, back when she hired me on."
I reached back into an old memory — the days when I couldn't have cared less about the post of Immigration Officer, and why I had become one anyway.
"There are lines in this world. A great many of them — lines drawn straight and cold, without mercy."
Lines drawn across the land. Lines dividing sky from earth. Lines between one person and another. Lines we draw for ourselves.
"And among all those many lines, the world inside that line is the world we in this office live in."
I pointed below the horizon with a finger. The two women followed it, and instead of the endless horizon, their eyes fell upon something rising high and unbroken — an immense wall of stone, rock, and timber. From this distance, it looked almost like a thick, dark line drawn across the world.
Elaine murmured the word quietly. It was the merciless line that divided nation from nation. And for the Princess, that dark, cramped room and the castle where she'd been shut away so long — that had been her line.
"I'll be honest with you. The world is not that kind. All you do is cross a single line, and everything changes root and branch. Your life, the way you think — even what you believe."
What I had lived through as a merchant's son, and then as an examiner, had never once been easy. Where every race, culture, history, and tradition collided, conflict was simply a fact of life.
"I understand the fear, too. I was terrified beyond words when I first started out."
"You — you really? Even you were scared of something, Central Officer?"
Hannah asked, wide-eyed.
"I was. There was a time when I was afraid of everything. A real coward, too."
With a small smile, I passed on, word for word, what Haillin had once given me.
"We all feel the same. We fear what is different, we hate what is different, and because we are different, we bare our blades at one another."
"We all feel the same. We fear what is different, we hate what is different, and because we are different, we seek to erase one another."
For someone like Elaine, that truth would cut deeper than for most. A Talent Awakener whose power ran wild — to any ordinary person, that was something existing impossibly far from their own world.
More alien than any foreign race's appearance — her very existence would read as something other.
Something too different. A monster. I knew only too well how that epithet would land on the Princess's heart.
One look at the Queen and the priests that day was proof enough.
The expression that had crossed Helena Castor's face had been pure, uncut fear and resentment.
"And yet today, you crossed that line bravely. Thanks to you, Princess, your world has changed."
I turned my gaze and looked at the border alongside her.
"So don't be afraid. It's all right to look bravely at the scenery outside that window."
And then I gave her the rest of Haillin's words, exactly as she had spoken them to me four years ago.
"Because from now on, these are the sights that I and Miss Hannah will be seeing with you."
Sixty days. The days we would share from now on — and the freedom granted to her. If only, for however long this lasted, she could come to understand that the world was not so cruel as she believed.
And please — let her stay out of trouble, and let me stay out of trouble too.
Just sixty days. Just let us live them without a single incident. That was my prayer.
Elaine said nothing for a long while. She simply gazed at the border, and at the horizon beyond it. But she was no longer hiding from the light. Her green eyes caught the sunlight and shone.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Several hours later, late in the afternoon.
Creeeak.
The doors of the Southern Border Immigration Office swung open.
"Everyone, we have returned."
The moment I walked in wearing my exhaustion on my face, the Five Senses Officers, wrapping up the day's work, shot to their feet.
"Central Officer, you're back!"
"How did it go?"
"Well, you're in one piece, so I suppose it went all right?"
Questions came flooding in without giving me a second to breathe. And among them, one man asked with unmatched fervor.
"That friend of Hannah's at the castle — did you sort it out properly!?"
The Smell Officer flung down the documents he'd been processing, crossed the room in a single stride, and bellowed right in front of me.
"The bastard who made Hannah cry like that — you gave him what he deserved, didn't you!?"
"Ow, my ears."
Wolf or not, the man doted on that girl terribly. I couldn't help wondering what his face would do when he learned that this 'bastard' was the Queen. Genuinely curious.
"Well, about that..."
I stepped aside from the door I'd left ajar and spoke toward the hallway.
"You may come in."
Creeeak.
Two women stepped through the doors. The moment the red-haired girl with her braids appeared, the Smell Officer's face lit up like a festival.
"Hannah! You're safe!"
And Hannah, seeing the man who had worried over her more than anyone, beamed back just as brightly.
"Mister Wolfman!"
He bent at the waist at once, bringing his eyes level with hers.
"So? Not hurt anywhere? And your friend?"
"The Central Officer fixed everything! It's all okay now!"
The Smell Officer let out a long breath of relief. That was when the Touch Officer realized there was still one more person and asked,
"And who might the young lady behind you be?"
"...Hnng."
Elaine, standing stock-still behind Hannah, flinched.
"Ah, this must be the friend Hannah spoke of!"
"So you're the friend who needed our help. Welcome."
The wolfman strode toward her with heavy, easy steps.
"Welcome to— whatever happened back at the castle, I don't know the half of—"
"Smell Officer. Hold it, just a second."
Suddenly, the Hearing Officer stopped him short. His narrow blue eyes were fixed on Elaine.
"Something's strange. I'm getting a sense of déjà vu here."
"Déjà vu?"
"...This somehow feels exactly like when Lady Erzena arrived. It's strange."
At the rare sight of the Hearing Officer rattled, the Smell Officer wagged his tail as if to say how absurd.
"What's strange about it? She's Hannah's and the Central Officer's friend, isn't she?"
And with that, he held out his hand to Elaine.
"Welcome to the Immigration Office. Anyone who's a friend of the Central Officer's is welcome here anytime."
At the sight of that outstretched hand, Elaine backed up a step, then glanced quickly at me.
Nod.
All right. Go ahead.
She swallowed, then reached out — very, very slowly — and took hold of the tip of the great wolfman's fingers.
The Taste Officer studied her for a moment before blurting out,
"Oh? Your friend's eyes are green! They're really pretty..."
The Touch Officer tilted his head.
"Green? That's remarkably unusual. As far as I know, the only people in this kingdom with green eyes are..."
Then came a short, strangled groan.
"Dear God."
"Yes, Touch Officer? What is it?"
"..."
The Touch Officer didn't answer. Instead, he stared at me, face frozen in horror, his eyes screaming: what on earth have you done THIS time?
"Allow me to introduce everyone."
I could hardly play dumb any longer, so at last I opened my mouth.
"Princess Elaine Castor — and Miss Hannah."
Silence.
A silence so heavy it smothered the air descended over the office. Even the attendants froze dead mid-motion. Every gaze in the room slid past Elaine and Hannah and settled on me. Eyes brimming with every emotion imaginable bore into me.
The Taste Officer, petrified mid-surprise. The Touch Officer and the Hearing Officer, pressing their hands to their foreheads with I knew it, I just knew it written across their faces. And the Smell Officer, still holding Elaine's hand, every hair on his body standing on end.
Their expressions, their eyes, the very air around them were all saying the same thing.
Tell me it isn't so.
Even jokes have limits.
Please. Oh, please, no.
D-did I just speak casually to a PRINCESS?
And I said:
"These two will be staying with us here at the Immigration Office for the next two months."
I'm sorry.
"It's a royal decree."
I had no choice either.
The silent screams of the Five Senses Officers and the attendants rose plainly to their faces.
All but one.
"...Did you say... princess?"
Everyone except Erzena.