You Are Needed in the North
I stood in the hallway of the imperial palace.
It was a painfully familiar place.
White stone walls.
Patterns traced in thin gold leaf.
A thick carpet that swallowed every footstep.
The light pouring through the windows was blindingly bright, and the corridor itself felt oppressively silent.
It was the kind of space where even breathing would sound too loud.
I knew this hallway.
It led straight to the Empress’s palace.
I didn’t want to go.
Yet my feet were already carrying me forward.
Not going wouldn’t spare me from what came next.
The only resistance I could manage was to shorten my stride, just a little.
That helpless feeling crushed down on me like a weight.
My every struggle had become mere entertainment placed before their eyes.
Like a fish trapped in a bowl, slamming itself against the glass.
Like a bird hurling its head against the bars of its cage.
I couldn’t escape, yet I still dared to wish for freedom.
At the far end of the hallway stood the Empress.
She was smiling.
Just as she always did.
Graceful, beautiful, elegant.
“Come here, Noel.”
I tried to answer.
But no sound left my throat.
When I opened my mouth, only a thin breath escaped.
Fear had seized my neck in an iron grip.
“What’s the matter, Noel?”
A tender voice.
A warm smile.
All of it was a mask.
Through the cracks leaked something vile and rotten.
The door began to close.
The narrower the gap became, the more clearly I saw the fissures in her mask.
From beyond the closing door came the laughter of the maids.
In the end, I had no allies.
Inside the room where the air itself felt suffocating, the Empress opened her mouth.
Her lips split in a grotesque tear.
Nothing above her eyes was visible.
What had her real face looked like?
I couldn’t remember. I had always kept my head bowed before her.
In her hand she held a small diary.
A light brown leather cover.
A cute little journal stamped with the imperial crest.
She held it out to me.
Investigate whether the Grand Duchess of the North truly cares for the youngest prince.
She took my hand and squeezed it tight.
The pressure was crushing.
It hurt.
My face twisted on its own.
Yet the Empress kept smiling as though my pain were invisible to her.
“Who you met.”
Her voice dropped lower.
“What you heard.”
The Grand Duchess of the North, Adeline von Ernhaert, displays more than a certain level of interest toward the youngest prince, Noel de Astrea.
However, said interest appears to stem from political motives.
I reached out to slam the diary shut.
My hand refused to move.
The Empress laughed.
That laugh was soft.
“Our youngest is so honest.”
No.
I am not honest.
I have never been honest.
Honesty meant death.
To survive I had to smile.
I had to pretend ignorance.
I had to pretend I remembered nothing.
I had to pretend I was powerless.
Behind her, shadows stirred.
The hallway walls began to split like tree bark.
White stone turned into black trunks.
The carpet became damp earth.
Before I realized it, I was perched high in a tree.
It was so high I couldn’t bear to look down.
Cold bark pressed against my palms.
I clung desperately to a branch.
Above me, someone laughed.
Below me, someone watched.
“It’s all right. His Highness the youngest prince knows nothing.”
“Even if he falls, he won’t remember a thing.”
“Why would she possibly favor a half-witted prince?”
Voices tangled together, scraping at my skull.
The branch shook.
I tightened my grip.
I must not fall.
Not this time.
Then the branch beneath my feet snapped.
A short, dry sound.
Crack.
My body tilted.
I swallowed a breath.
The sky flipped upside down and the tree receded.
The ground rushed up slowly.
I was falling.
I stretched out my hand.
Nothing to grab.
Right before impact, the earth turned into paper.
The youngest prince’s outward harmlessness holds high political utility.
I landed on the sentence.
It didn’t hurt.
That felt even worse.
It was as if my body were being flattened against the page.
The sensation of turning from a person into mere letters.
A tool.
A pawn.
A justification.
Bait.
Something that could be used.
Something that could be thrown away.
I tried to breathe, but the paper sealed my mouth.
Above it, silver-gray hair spilled down.
Adeline stood there.
Black cloak.
Pale face.
Eyes as deep and cold as a winter lake.
She looked down at me.
Beautiful. Terrifyingly so.
“Your Highness is needed in the North.”
I stared at her.
“Your Highness is needed in the North.”
The same words repeated.
I opened my mouth.
“Why do you need me?”
Adeline gave no answer.
She simply repeated the phrase.
“Your Highness is needed in the North.”
“Why do you need me?”
My voice rose a little.
“To check the imperial family?”
Adeline remained motionless.
“For political justification?”
No reply.
“Because I’m an idiot?”
My mouth had gone dry.
“Because I look harmless?”
The paper crumbled beneath my feet.
I was falling again.
Black tents.
White masks.
A request document on a table.
Black ink spreading across it like blood.
Therefore, the Grand Duchess of the North’s actions are most likely performative and difficult to regard as sincere.
The sentence was completing itself.
I reached out to stop it.
But the ink crawled up my fingers.
Cold. Sticky.
It rose to my throat and coiled there like a collar.
I couldn’t breathe.
I lifted my head.
Adeline stood before me again.
This time she was close.
She was holding my hand.
No—she was holding the collar.
“Your Highness is needed in the North.”
“So tell me.”
I clenched my teeth.
“Why do you need me?”
At that instant every sound in the dream vanished.
Only the rattle of carriage wheels remained.
Clatter.
Clatter.
Clatter.
I opened my eyes.
A dark ceiling.
A trembling window.
The faint glow of a lantern.
A blanket covered my body.
And beneath my head lay a warm, soft sensation.
It was a wonderful pillow.
Far better than anything I had used in the imperial palace.
Not too firm, not too deep, supporting my head perfectly with every sway of the carriage.
If such a pillow existed, someone should have told me sooner.
I wanted one in my own bedroom.
For some reason one of my hands refused to move.
Still half-dreaming, I reached out with the other.
Toward the sky.
Though it was blocked for now.
Gazing at the blue expanse that lay beyond.
Then my fingers found something.
It was soft. Much softer than expected.
Squishy and warm.
The feeling of it yielding beneath my palm.
I paused with my eyes half open.
What is this?
Squeeze, squeeze.
Soft.
Squeeze, squeeze.
Yielding.
Quite satisfying to touch.
The surface was smooth, yet inside there was a mysterious resilience.
It didn’t sink too far.
When my fingers pressed, it gave slightly then tried to spring back to its original shape.
Strangely comforting.
While I was lost in that sensation, a familiar voice spoke from above.
“Your Highness.”
A low, calm tone.
It was Adeline.
“Your Highness really does like this sort of thing.”
I blinked.
My vision slowly cleared.
The swaying carriage ceiling.
The warm lap beneath my head.
Silver-gray hair spilling down in front of me.
And Adeline’s face looking down.
Her cheeks flushed deep red.
A hint of reproach in her eyes.
Yet somehow that expression looked unbearably cute.
Only then did I realize exactly where my hand was resting.
“……”
I carefully, slowly withdrew it.
“A mistake.”
“If Your Highness enjoys this, I can gladly offer it, but the location seems a little unsuitable, doesn’t it?”
“W-what are you saying?”
“Oh, do you perhaps prefer this kind of play?”
“What kind of play?!”
Adeline gazed at me with a faintly suggestive smile.
“So, were you satisfied? Did you enjoy yourself?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
I turned my head away.
“Aaaah.”
I didn’t want to hear it, yet the sound still reached me.
“Perhaps you prefer them larger… I still have my compression bandages…”
“I was wrong.”
I tried to sit up.
I wanted to escape her.
Her hand descended over my head.
And gently pressed me back down.
“I know.”
This time her voice was different.
The teasing had vanished, replaced by quiet warmth.
“Your Highness isn’t the sort of person who would do such a thing on purpose.”
“……”
“So it’s all right.”
I cracked my eyes open a little.
Adeline was looking down at me.
“Do you feel a little better? Have the scary things grown smaller and farther away?”
“Well… a little.”
“I’m glad. Did I help?”
“That too… a little.”
“Hehe.”
She gave a bright, childlike laugh.
Strangely, my heart refused to settle.
Whether from the lingering dream or something else, I couldn’t tell.
Perhaps both.
My emotions still churned.
“It’s all right.”
Her low voice.
Quiet.
Steady.
“It seems you had a nightmare.”
I drew in a breath.
A dream.
It had only been a dream.
Yet my throat still felt tight, as if a collar remained wrapped around it.
The faint taste of blood lingered in my mouth.
I must have bitten my lip.
Adeline’s gaze moved to my lips.
Her eyes darkened slightly.
“Your Highness.”
“Yeah.”
My voice came out hoarse.
I should have smiled like always.
Like a child who knew nothing.
With a face that claimed I hadn’t dreamed at all.
But the smile wouldn’t form properly.
Whether because of the medicine, the nightmare, or Adeline’s hand still holding mine, I couldn’t say.
Lately there were more and more things I couldn’t understand.
And I wondered what effect the answer I eventually reached would have on me.
Would it be something good?
Adeline spoke softly.
“I need you, Your Highness.”
The same words as in the dream.