The Shadow in the Sunlit Room
The afternoon was bright and clear. Sunlight poured through the window in a warm cascade. It was a sight rarely seen in the North. Seated in the chair of my office, I slowly turned the pages of the documents before me. My eyes were fixed on the paper, yet none of the content registered. There was only one person occupying my thoughts.
Noel de Astrea. The youngest prince of the imperial family. The shame of the imperial family. The man who played the part of an idiot. And my fiancé.
“Hehehehe.”
Just thinking about it brought a silly laugh to my lips.
“Ahem, hm.” I cleared my throat and covered my mouth with the back of my hand. I glanced around the room out of habit. There was no need to maintain dignity even when I was alone in my office, but I still carried the name of the Grand Duchess of the North. No matter how I thought about it, that laughter from a moment ago had been far from majestic.
Still, it couldn’t be helped. Sir Noel was my fiancé. How could I not feel happy every time I remembered that fact?
I lightly pressed the tip of my finger against the Black Letter resting on the desk. The letter that had saved the North.
When it first arrived, I had mobilized every intelligence network in the North to track down its sender. But I found nothing. There were no traces. No messenger, no witnesses, and the paper and ink used were far too ordinary. It was clearly intentional—designed to avoid pursuit.
Yet something had still slipped through. A faint residue of mana.
It was an incredibly faint trace left on the surface of the letter. Anyone else would have missed it entirely. It was that subtle. Like dust on paper. Like an old scent. Like the warmth that brushes your fingertips for a moment before vanishing.
But I saw it.
I had followed countless such traces in the North. Magic landmines buried beneath the snowfields. The presence of assassins hidden in blizzards. The tracking disruption techniques the White Iron Nomads concealed between hoofprints. I had to find them all if I wanted to survive.
The battlefield of the North was not kind. The enemies you couldn’t see were far more dangerous than those in plain sight. Your senses had to be sharper than your blade, and you had to read the tremors of mana before you caught the scent of blood.
One of the reasons I had survived in the North—one of the reasons I was called the Shield of the North—was my talent for Magic Detection. In that regard, I was confident no one could surpass me.
The mana left on the Black Letter had been impossibly faint, yet unmistakable. It carried an unfamiliar quality. It was neither cold nor hot. Neither sharp nor heavy. It was simply quiet. Like water submerged in darkness. Like a shadow holding its breath where light could not reach.
It wasn’t unpleasant. On the contrary, it felt strangely clear.
I remembered that mana. I could not forget it. Because it was the letter that had saved the North. And because I absolutely had to find its owner.
At first, I thought it must be someone inside the imperial family. The letter contained the empire’s vulnerabilities. The scandals of the Fourth Prince Edwin. Accidents the imperial family wished to bury. The silence of lower nobles. The deletion of gambling house ledgers. A servant’s disappearance. Those were not things just anyone could know.
Someone with access to the imperial family, or the ability to monitor it. Someone who understood the North’s dire situation well enough to select the perfect bargaining chips to move the palace. Such a person existed within the imperial court.
So I investigated. Imperial officials. Members of the royal family. The chamberlain. The inspectorate. The imperial mages. High-ranking nobles who frequented the banquets. I listed every name that could possibly be suspect.
But strangely, the answer came from an entirely unexpected place.
Noel de Astrea.
The youngest prince of the imperial family. The idiot prince who supposedly couldn’t even read properly.
When I first saw that name, I remained silent for a long time. It made no sense, I thought. But what made no sense was only the world’s rumors. The evidence pointed directly at him.
The practice notebook I had gone to great lengths to obtain from the youngest prince. The handwriting was similar. And the faint traces of mana left on the writing practice sheets matched as well.
With half a conviction in hand, I attended the imperial banquet. There, I found the remaining half.
The doll-like figure sitting quietly and eating sweets. He was much smaller and more delicate than the rumors suggested. Pale skin. Long eyelashes. A face as lovely as a young girl’s. Black hair. Black eyes. A color that sank like night among the golden-blooded people of the imperial family. A hue that did not belong with the empire’s golden lineage.
People called it a cursed color.
Why had a child born beneath the imperial family’s sun been born with the colors of night? That question soon twisted into a filthy rumor. The Empress’s infidelity. A child not carrying the imperial blood. Some gossiped about it over drinks, while others whispered and laughed in the corners of banquet halls. That the youngest prince might not be His Majesty’s child. That his black hair and black eyes were proof.
But the imperial family sometimes moved more easily on rumors than on truth. The Emperor ignored Sir Noel completely, as if refusing from the start to acknowledge him as his own. He gave him no love. In fact, he gave him nothing at all. Perhaps that was why Sir Noel had such a slender build. If he hadn’t been allowed to eat properly, how could he have grown tall?
The Empress hated the boy. She blamed him for the rumors of infidelity attached to her, for the Emperor’s cold suspicion, for the nobles’ mockery. All that humiliation was turned against Sir Noel. Harsh words were poured onto that small, fragile child. Slaps followed. Neglect became routine.
Then one day, Sir Noel fell from a tree. After that, the youngest prince became an idiot.
Once Sir Noel could no longer protest properly, once no one would believe a word he said, the Empress’s abuse gained the name of discipline. The Emperor’s indifference gained the name of political silence. And the imperial family’s neglect hid behind the name of dignity.
The mana I had been chasing all this time was flowing from that abused prince. The residue on the Black Letter. The faint traces left on the practice notebook. The same mana flowed very quietly beneath Sir Noel’s feet.
Shadows.
He was connected to the shadows.
I held my breath. It was too secretive. Too refined. Not everyone who handled mana left traces, but most mages created some degree of ripple. Just as throwing a stone into water creates spreading waves, moving mana usually left marks.
But Sir Noel’s mana was different. There were almost no ripples. There was movement, yet it seemed not to move. It flowed, yet seemed not to flow. As if it were simply a part of the shadow that had always been there. It was so natural that it felt unnatural.
Even I would have missed it if I hadn’t concentrated fully. That was how subtle it was. Others would never know. Even sitting right beside him, they wouldn’t notice. Even holding his hand. Even facing him. Even breathing in the same room. They would never realize that while Sir Noel smiled like a fool, he was seeing, hearing, and moving things through the shadows at his feet.
He was hiding it perfectly. The strange one was me, for noticing.
I liked that fact. I knew something no one else in the world knew. I had seen Sir Noel’s true face before anyone else. Who the owner of the Black Letter was. How meticulously he concealed himself. That he was not an idiot. I knew. Only I had noticed.
In that moment, my conviction solidified completely. The handwriting. The mana residue. The traces on the practice notebook. And the shadow mana I had witnessed with my own eyes at the banquet. Everything connected into one.
Noel de Astrea. He was the owner of the Black Letter. He had saved the North. He had called me here.
Therefore, this was no coincidence.
I leaned back in my chair and smiled slowly.
Fate. Normally I would not have believed in such a word. In the North, those who believed in things like fate did not live long. A blade was faster than fate. An arrow was more accurate than prayer. A blizzard was crueler than love. That was what I had learned.
But whenever I thought of Sir Noel, that word strangely came to mind. The Black Letter arriving in the North. Me not missing that faint mana residue. Obtaining Sir Noel’s practice notebook. Recognizing his mana at the banquet. Everything had been too perfectly timed.
So it couldn’t be helped. Sir Noel and I were fated.
I picked up my pen.
“Time to work.”
I tried to jot something down in the empty margin of the report spread across the desk. But I stopped. My thoughts had drifted back to Sir Noel again.
That brief instant before he began acting. That fleeting moment came to mind.
Sir Noel performed the idiot act perfectly. He smiled as if he understood nothing, deliberately stuttering his words. When he heard difficult terms, he would tilt his head and blink like a child who didn’t understand. If I hadn’t known from the start, even I might not have suspected him. That was how natural it was. That was how long he had honed the performance.
But I could still see it. Just before he began acting, Sir Noel hesitated for the tiniest moment. It was truly brief. But it was there. Right before starting the act, he took the smallest breath. In that short gap, the real Noel brushed past. Calm and sharp, a little weary, and ashamed.
I rolled the pen between my fingertips, then covered my mouth. The laughter kept slipping out. I wasn’t usually someone who smiled so easily. Why did thinking about him make me laugh like this?
Sir Noel pretended otherwise, but he was secretly embarrassed. There were times when his speech quickened slightly. Moments when his eyes darted to the side for a split second. When the tips of his ears flushed with a faint red. When he would purse his lips just a little.
Other people would never know. The people of the imperial family would know even less. They had never truly seen Sir Noel. Even when they looked, they hadn’t seen him.
But I knew. I knew how hard he was trying to endure his embarrassment right now. How ashamed he felt inside while making that foolish expression. And how hard he worked to appear nonchalant so no one would notice.
“...How adorable.”
Hmm. Maybe I should visit once every two weeks?
The northwestern alley of the imperial capital. A black robe. A white mask. An information broker who hid both his face and voice. Another face Sir Noel had created. The Noel in that place was not the idiot prince. I could see yet another side of him there. Even though both face and voice were fake, there was a certain charm in imagining what lay beneath.