The Grand Duchess of the North Saw Through My Idiot Act
“I need Your Highness.”
My body stiffened.
My heart skipped a beat.
Anxiety seeped into the empty space in my chest.
The words I’d heard in a dream.
Similar words.
But the words that had to be different.
I looked at her.
Adell didn’t let go of my hand.
In her eyes was the usual cold elegance.
But beneath it lay a very faint sadness.
“But…”
She continued.
“I don’t want my need to become a leash that chokes Your Highness.”
A leash.
The sensation of ink wrapping around my neck from the dream came back.
I instinctively swallowed.
Her hand wrapped mine a little more warmly.
“It’s fine if Your Highness can’t trust me.”
She smiled.
Sadly, she smiled.
Why did it look so sad?
The pain was mine, yet the sad face appeared there?
A clumsy, slightly painful smile.
And that smile spread pain to me as well.
“I don’t intend to force you to trust me either. After all, I’m not your religion.”
“…Am I supposed to smile?”
“It was a conversion strike.”
As a Northerner, her gag was even colder.
“But there was one thing I wanted to say.”
Adell wrapped my hand with both of hers.
Her hands were still cold.
Yet strangely, the inside of the hand I held was warm.
“I need Your Highness.”
I put strength in my fingertips.
I wanted to run, but my hands wouldn’t move.
Adell spoke quietly.
“It’s not for political legitimacy needed in the North.”
My breath stopped.
“It’s not a pretext to check the Imperial Court either.”
She didn’t avoid my eyes.
“I don’t want Your Highness to be used in that way.”
The carriage creaked.
Adell’s shoulders trembled just a little.
“The reason I need Your Highness is…”
Adell seemed to think for a moment.
And said very slowly.
“It’s because Your Highness’s expression softens a little when you eat sweets.”
“……What?”
I asked blankly.
Adell looked serious.
“It’s because when Your Highness sees something you hate, you make a very honest face.”
“That’s…”
“It’s because when you say you’ll eat it, and I tell you your stomach might hurt, you immediately give up.”
“Wait a second—”
“It’s because every time the carriage shakes, you pretend not to care while inching a little closer to me.”
“Adell—”
“It’s because when I wait for praise, you pretend not to know, and then eventually give me praise.”
Adell’s voice was calm.
Small things.
Trivial, useless, everyday things.
“That’s something anyone can do. I don’t have to be the one. Anyone can do it.”
I spoke without realizing.
The word “need” clung to me even as it dissolved…
Ah, that was what I had wanted.
To need me.
Even if it meant to feel my empty space and regret.
To become something impossible, so that those people would come looking for me again.
“That’s right. It’s something anyone can do. But there’s something only Your Highness can do. Something meaningless without you.”
Adell looked straight into my eyes and said.
“Even if it’s the same place, same time, everything the same, if what’s inside it isn’t Your Highness, it has no meaning. Because you’re Your Highness, because of who you are, Noel has value.”
Adell’s hand cupped my cheek.
“Your Highness creates needs. Even now, the reason you’re needed beside me keeps continuing.”
I laughed in surprise.
“What’s that?”
My laughter trembled a little in my throat.
“It’s too trivial.”
“It’s trivial.”
Adell didn’t deny it.
“But I need those things.”
“……”
“I need moments when Your Highness relaxes even a little in front of me.”
I stopped laughing.
Adell looked down at my hand.
“I need you to tell me when it hurts.”
Her thumb brushed the back of my hand very lightly.
“I need you to say ‘I don’t like it.’”
That movement was too careful.
As if she might break me.
“I need moments when it’s okay not to smile even if you don’t want to.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“That’s what I need.”
Adell lowered her head quietly.
Her silver-gray hair fell forward over her shoulders.
Dim winter light, neither moonlight nor sunlight, fell thinly over her hair.
Her face looked strangely clear in that light.
It was like cold-baked glass, or like melting snow just starting to melt.
I couldn’t look away from her.
Adell carefully lifted my hand.
And brought it to her cheek.
“Adell?”
Adell didn’t answer.
She rested her cheek lightly against the back of my hand.
Sof t sensation.
Cold skin.
Very faint warmth.
Her breath touched my hand.
I thought I should pull away.
But my hand wouldn’t move.
She moved her head just a little.
Like a cat rubbing its face against your hand.
Very carefully.
Very slowly.
She pressed her cheek to the back of my hand.
My heart beat fast.
It vividly told me it was here.
Every beat of the vessels in her ears was vivid.
Adell lowered her eyes slightly and said.
“The North is the place where I was born and raised.”
Her voice was a little softer.
“A place that’s cold but warm.”
“Cold but warm?”
“Yes.”
She smiled faintly.
“Winters are long, snowstorms fierce, wind that slices people’s cheeks.”
Her cheek touched my hand closer.
“But inside the house, there’s always fire.”
Adell’s voice filled the carriage quietly.
“The stone walls are cold, but in front of the fireplace it’s warm. First, they hand out blankets to those who return from outside. If their hands are frozen, they give them warm tea, and if someone lost on the road, they carry torches all night.”
A picture came to mind.
White snow.
Dark stone walls.
Yellow light through windows.
People stepping in, shedding wet cloaks.
Blankets handed with big hands.
Warm tea cups wrapping cold hands.
“The people of the North can’t be sweet.”
Adell said.
“They’re rough and blunt, and sometimes too hard.”
A tiny smile curled at the corner of her mouth.
“But if someone falls, they don’t leave them in the snow. If someone gets lost, they go out even while cursing. Even if food is scarce, they give warm soup to the children first.”
“……”
“I grew up in a place like that.”
Adell rested her cheek on my hand and raised her eyes.
Those eyes were clearer than before.
The sadness was still there, but a faint light hovered above it.
“So I hope the North becomes a place like that for Your Highness too.”
I couldn’t answer.
She wrapped my hand with both of hers again and slowly lowered her head.
As if making a vow.
As if praying.
“I hope Your Highness doesn’t feel the North as another prison.”
My heart sank.
“If you want to run away, I hope there’s a place where you can leave freely.”
“……”
“If you want to hide, I hope there’s a place that doesn’t blame you for hiding.”
Adell’s hand gripped mine tightly.
“And when you want to come back, I hope there’s a place where the fire isn’t out.”
My throat felt clogged.
If it was smoke.
I muttered inside.
If it was smoke.
It was really awful.
I shouldn’t do this.
But I wanted to believe.
I wanted to lean on.
And I would lean again.
Adell raised her head.
At that moment, a white light brushed past the carriage window.
It wasn’t snow yet.
It was just sunlight reflecting off the fields.
But that light briefly illuminated Adell’s face.
Her silver-gray hair looked almost white in the light.
The red rims of her eyes, the pale cheeks, and the slightly upturned corners of her mouth all became strangely clear under that light.
Adeline von Ernhaert.
Grand Duchess of the North.
Even just the name made people tense.
A cold, dangerous, dangerous-to-get-close-to person like a black snowstorm.
Yet that person was holding my hand tightly and smiling now.
Brightly.
As if a clear sky opened briefly at the end of a long winter.
That smile had almost none of the usual lazy playfulness or the danger that tested people.
It was just clear.
Too much.
Transparent like melted water, fleeting like breath rising in cold weather.
I couldn’t say anything while looking at that face.
It’s beautiful.
A thought came to mind.
Even in the original story, Adell was beautiful.
She was always beautiful in reality too.
But now it was a little different.
Not the cold beauty of a perfectly finished statue.
One that could disappear if you reached out.
But clearly warm.
That kind of beauty.
Adell didn’t let go of my hand as she said.
“Everyone has their own needs, right?”
Her voice was quiet.
“The Imperial Court has its needs, the North has its needs, and I have my own needs.”
“……”
“But there’s no need to pull people along for those needs.”
She looked at me.
“I’m not a tool.”
As if she wanted to avoid touching the thorns already embedded inside me.
“When Your Highness says you need the North—”
Adell said.
“It doesn’t mean you want to use me.”
“……”
“At least not to me.”
She smiled sadly again.
But this time it didn’t look as painful as before.
“I need Your Highness.”
Her hand gripped mine tightly.
“It’s just because Your Highness is here.”
“……”
“When you say you don’t like it, that’s fine.”
“……”
“When you laugh because you think the sweets are delicious.”
“……”
“And someday—”
Adell paused for a moment.
“I want to become a person Your Highness isn’t afraid of.”
My breath caught.
I looked at her.
Adell didn’t avoid my gaze.
The carriage wheels kept rolling.
Creak.
Creak.
The Imperial Palace was getting farther away.
The North was still far away.
I was holding her hand somewhere in between.
The hand that had been held now held her back.
“Adell.”
My voice grew a little hoarse.
“If you say something like that—”
I tried to smile.
Like usual.
Like the idiot who knew nothing.
But the laugh didn’t come out properly.
“I want to believe.”
“If you want to believe—”
She said quietly.
“You can believe slowly.”
“……”
“It’s okay if you can’t believe.”
Adell’s thumb brushed the back of my hand very slowly.
“I can wait. I can wait forever. So I’ll keep waiting.”