← The Duke's Daughter Fled Because She Didn't Want to Become Empress# Morning Shadow
She traces letters on the frost-covered windowpane with her finger. The letters fade to a pale white.
Karen lowered her hand. White breath bloomed before her nose and scattered. It bloomed again. The room was cold as ice.
Two hours had passed since she threw wood into the fireplace. The embers still burned stubbornly weak. The timber in this village was never properly dried. Nothing was. Damp air, rotting wood, wallpaper torn like rags.
She rose from the bed. Her movements were precise. Not a gesture wasted. Left foot first to the ground, spine straightened in a line, right arm supporting her body. This way, there was no dizziness.
In the year she turned eighteen, the court physician had spoken of her skeleton.
"The constitution of a duchess. Everything is refined."
Her father had answered with laughter. In that laughter, Karen sensed it. Pride, and something dark. Fear of that something.
Today she dressed in the same clothes as yesterday. A gray linen skirt, a faded black belt, a brown blouse mended in three places at the sleeves. As she dressed, she looked at her own hands. Her fingers were long. The skin too pale. Not the hands of a laboring woman.
She stood before the mirror. Carefully.
Her face was beautiful. This was a curse. In a place like this village, a beautiful face made life difficult. It had been the same three months ago. When she tried to buy eggs at the market, an old woman kept lifting her eyes to Karen's face, then looking away. There was suspicion in that gaze.
Karen tied her hair again. Tighter. She let her bangs fall to half-cover her eyes. And quickly covered the mole on her left cheek with powder. Because she knew how beautiful that mole was.
She looked out the window.
The village was waking. Blue smoke rose from below. From the neighbor's chimney. Then that house, and that one. The smoke scattered into the sky. Above the village where sunlight had not yet appeared, only the smoke danced like a song.
The owners of that smoke would now be kneading flour. Or boiling broth. Or mending their children's collars.
They were doing the simplest work in this world. And they looked the happiest.
Karen clenched her teeth, then released them.
She descended the stairs. The wood groaned. This house announced every movement with sound. As if trying to expose all its secrets to everyone.
The kitchen on the first floor was even colder. Was it because it was close to the ground? Or was this house simply like that? Karen had already left this house three times and returned. Each time, the house greeted her with the same temperature.
She boiled water. She watched the boiling pot. The water formed bubbles and disappeared, formed and disappeared.
Could she not see herself on a mirror-like surface of water?
Even in a mirror-like mirror, she could not see herself properly. Then what about water?
Water reflected nothing. Only heat and steam.
Karen lowered the pot.
She sat at the table. This table had belonged to the previous owner. The previous owner had also been from this village. She had died of some illness. Karen had heard but ignored it. Everyone died for the same reason in the end.
She ate bread. Baked yesterday. Already hard. She soaked it in warm water.
A knock sounded at the door.
Karen's fingers stopped. The bread in her mouth stopped. Her eyes did not move.
"Is Karen home?"
The voice was low, cracked, hurried. It was the village landlord, an old man.
"Just a moment."
Karen answered. That voice too belonged to another person. Slightly higher, slightly blunt, slightly weary. The voice of a common woman.
She opened the door.
The old man opened his eyes, then closed them. He looked at Karen, then turned away. This was a habit. Everyone did the same.
"Well, the well froze over. All the other houses too. The villagers asked me to call you."
"Me?"
"Your hands are quick. I won't ask where you learned, but they say you're fast with wells. I'll pay you for it."
Karen bowed her head. At a precise angle. Not the angle of refusal, but the angle of acceptance.
"I understand. I'll prepare and come."
"Good, then hurry. The villagers said they're quite inconvenienced."
The old man left. His footsteps faded into the village.
Karen closed the door. She went back to the table. She picked up the bread. Chewed it. Swallowed it. Every movement was mechanical.
Sunlight began to enter through the window. Becoming thin golden lines.
That too would soon disappear. Like everything else in that village.
Karen stood up. She put on her coat, pulled on her gloves, and picked up the tools for fixing the well. Even the way she held the tools was precise. The center of gravity positioned at the center of her body.
She stepped out the door.
Cold air touched her face. She closed her eyes, then opened them. Once. That was enough.
She headed toward the village. Her pace was quick but unhurried. Such a gait did not exist. Every speed carried intention, and intention is always revealed.
The morning sunlight swept across the rooftops of the village. The smoke now remained only pale white.
No one tried to look at her. And she looked at no one.
This was the way to survive in this village.
In a way that must neither be seen nor see, forever.
Dreams always begin with someone else's voice.
Karen knew this. Even in deep sleep, her consciousness never let its guard down. Like a finger that wouldn't release a single thread in a maze.
But this voice was different.
"——The Young Lady of Duke Lyell, hiding in a commoner's village with her identity concealed amid the dark machinations of aristocratic politics. She wished to be seen by no one, but ultimately she is revealed to all."
Someone was reading. A voice reading from a book. Low and calm, yet carrying the sensation of something vast moving.
Karen opened her eyes in the darkness. But even with her eyes open, darkness remained. That was strange. That was the first warning.
"She left three times and returned. But there was no fourth time."
The sound of a page turning. Crackle—
Karen's body rose. Against her own will. Like a marionette's arm. She could not control this movement.
"The villagers ultimately drive her out. For any reason, in any manner."
The voice drew closer. Over her face.
Karen raised her hand. It felt like it wasn't her own hand. The fingers were long. Too long. The nails were black. It was not her hand.
"She flees. Into the forest. Into the darkness. And there——"
"No."
Karen spoke. But that voice was not her own. It was deeper. More elegant. A voice that resonated from deep within her chest, a voice she had hidden away.
"Continue reading."
"——she finds."
The darkness lifted. In an instant.
Karen was lying on a bed. But this was not her bed. A bed with four posts of black wood. The ceiling was high, and a chandelier hung from it. Candles burned brightly. Their light was golden.
Beyond the window, a palace garden was visible.
Karen raised her hand. This time it was her own hand. But the fingers were still long. The nails were pearl-white. On her wrist was a bracelet set with rubies.
"This is——"
"Reality."
A figure holding a book appeared. Karen turned her head to look at it.
It was a man. But his form was not clear. Like looking through water. The contours of his face kept wavering. But his eyes were clear. They were gray. So gray that it felt less like a color and more like emptiness.
"You thought you were dreaming. In that village, in that house."
The man lowered the book.
"But that was the dream. This is reality."
Karen's heart beat. It actually beat. She could feel her chest pounding. An actual pulse. Actual breath. Actual blood.
"That's impossible."
Karen spoke. And that voice sounded like her own. The voice of an aristocratic woman. The intonation learned in court. A voice with a note of defiance, yet elegant.
"It's already been three years since I returned. When I promised I would disappear——"
"Promises are broken."
The man opened the book. The smell of paper. Old paper. Very old paper.
"Whatever you chose, its ending was already determined."
Karen tried to rise from the bed. Her body wouldn't move. As if pressed down by a giant hand. The very air had grown heavy.
"That village?"
"A story you created."
"Those people?"
"Background."
"I——"
"You are a character in a novel, Lyell."
When her name was called, something shattered.
The name Karen, being false—Karen herself came to know this.
Her memories wavered back and forth. Memories of the village. A shabby house. The habit of avoiding mirrors. Even knowing they were all lies, they became more vivid.
And at the same time.
Memories of the palace surfaced. Corridors. Portraits. Her father's face. Her brothers' laughter. Politics. Schemes. Poison. Blades. Blood.
"That you left three times and returned——"
"Was a setting readers would enjoy."
The man opened the book again.
"Your fourth chapter begins like this. The villagers gather. They discover you. The real you. And——"
"Stop."
Karen raised her hand. This time it moved. The air tore. Actually. A sound rang out. Crack—
The book flew from the man's hands.
In that moment, everything trembled.
"Impossible."
The man muttered. Like an actor who had forgotten his lines.
"You shouldn't be able to resist."
"Me?"
Karen rose. This time completely. She stepped down from the bed. Her feet touched the floor. Cold and solid. The sensation of reality.
"If you know what I am, you cannot stop me."
Her eyes changed. To a color no human could possess. The color of the night sky. No, something far older than that.
"I am Lyell."
The bed shattered. Wood scattered like powder.
"And I have awakened."
The palace began to crack.
"——What——"
The man raised his hand. As if to summon the book. But the book was already gone. Pages were falling away. In the air. Without any wind.
Karen did not look at him. She went to the window.
Below, a village was visible. But it was simultaneously the palace garden. They overlapped. Two worlds existing at once.
And the boundary between them was growing blurred.
"This is impossible."
The man's voice grew distant.
"The novel hasn't ended. You still——"
"There is no still."
Karen spoke. And she jumped through the window.
She fell. But she did not fall.
She flew.
Her eyes opened.
A black ceiling. Wood. No candles, no chandelier, no palace.
Karen rose from the bed. The village bed. Her bed.
Her heart pounded violently. It was a dream. Just a simple dream.
But——
She raised her hand. Her fingers were still trembling.
And at the tips of her nails, there still remained a golden light.