Night fell on the highway. Three days since leaving Farnese. The soles of Aria von Aldia's feet had long since transcended pain—the sensation itself had dulled. Blood seeping inside her shoes had dried and hardened, pulling at her skin with each step. But now was not the time to dwell on such things. Breznitza—a waystation thirty kilometers from Aldia's western border, positioned at the entrance to Garesta Trade Federation territory—lay ahead along the winding road. A torch's light flickered at a bend in the path. Aria peered forward from behind the carriage. A checkpoint. Four soldiers in Selvadian military garb had laid a crossbar across the road. No—four was not the full count. Two more lurked in the shadows of the trees. Six in total. They were checking each passerby one by one, forcing them to open their cargo. The soldier standing by the bonfire held parchment in his hands—likely a wanted notice. Aria's fingertips gripped the hem of her coat tightly. *(My face is written on that parchment.)* She had known this fact intellectually for three days. But now, in this moment, seeing the soldiers silhouetted against the torch flames, it sank into her not as knowledge but as bodily sensation. Queen Aria von Aldia existed on that parchment. She was being hunted. "Your Majesty." Kolin clung to the side of the cargo wagon, whispering softly. The young attendant in his early twenties looked terribly gaunt after three days. His cheeks had hollowed, his eyes glinting alone in the darkness. "Please get into the wagon bed. I'll take the reins." "The numbers won't match." "It's not uncommon for a merchant to transport goods alone. The problem is your face, Your Majesty." Aria considered for only a second, then nodded. Don't judge by emotion. Kolin was right. She lifted the wagon's canvas cover. Beatrice was already huddled inside, her knees drawn to her chest, hiding in the shadow of the cargo. When Aria entered, their shoulders naturally touched. The canvas closed. Darkness. The wagon bed's floorboards creaked. Hoofbeats. The carriage began moving slowly. In the darkness, Beatrice's breathing was right beside her. Shallow. Rapid. The sound of someone suppressing fear. Aria became conscious of her own breathing. In through the belly, out slowly. Releasing the body's tension—though not completely. Her shoulders remained rigid. Her arms remained rigid. Some instinct braced for impact, tensing every muscle. Beatrice's shoulder pressed against Aria's. During the twenty-four years Aria had spent in the palace as a ruler, she had always maintained distance from others. In the audience chamber, sufficient space separated the throne from the courtiers. In the corridors, attendants kept their distance as they followed. The sensation of someone's body being this close—perhaps not since childhood. Strangely, that proximity registered in her awareness before fear did. Someone was beside her. She could hear her own breathing. The other's body heat transferred to her. *(Not alone, then.)* Where that thought came from, Aria couldn't say. This was not the moment to contemplate solitude. Yet Beatrice's warmth, transmitted through her shoulder, mysteriously loosened one thread of tension in Aria's chest. The carriage stopped. "Where from?" Aria heard Kolin's voice answering—from Farnese. A grain merchant, he said. The soldier asked something. The sound of knuckles rapping on the canvas. Aria gently grasped Beatrice's arm. *Don't move.* She felt Beatrice hold her breath. The canvas lifted slightly. A single shaft of torch light pierced through the gap in the wagon bed. The two women huddled, compressed behind burlap sacks and wooden crates. The light vanished. "Move on." The carriage began moving again. Hoofbeats returned to their regular rhythm. Aria remained motionless for a while. Beatrice was trembling faintly. Yet she made no sound. *Well endured,* Aria thought—but did not say it aloud. They were not yet in a safe place since departing. They had not yet reached Breznitza. **** Breznitza's night was noisier than expected. The clamor peculiar to a waystation—a somewhat prickly vitality where mercenaries, smugglers, and travelers mingled—filled the stone-paved streets. Smoke from a vendor selling roasted pork skewers, the mixed stench of horse dung, mud, and alcohol, drunken laughter leaking from some window. Aria pulled her coat's hood deep and walked with her gaze lowered. The environment that would have been unthinkable in the palace stimulated all her senses simultaneously. The Three-Horned Tavern—a drinking establishment facing the intersection of roads, known among mercenaries as an unofficial hub for information trading—appeared at first glance to be an ordinary bar. Kolin would later explain that the sign's three horns came from the old proprietor once keeping a bull, but such details mattered little now. Aria pushed open the door. The smell of tobacco, rendered fat, and fermented grain came all at once. Before that, the scent of iron reached deep into her nostrils. A compound odor of rust and dried blood—the trace of mercenary equipment brought into this space over long years. Men sat around tables, playing cards. No one looked at Aria—or rather, they looked while pretending not to. The seat Kolin had indicated was in the back corner against the wall. Aria directed her gaze toward the rear of the tavern. There he was. Sitting alone. Elbows on the table, both hands cradling a ceramic cup. Black hair with reddish streaks mixed through it, catching the torch light like tarnished metal. A deep vertical scar on his left cheek cut the right half of his face into sharp angles. Silver-gray eyes remained fixed on a single point on the table even as Aria approached, never lifting. The face of a man in his early thirties, yet exhaustion seeped from beneath the skin. The kind of fatigue that accumulated through dozens of completed jobs, etched into the face by a body that had endured it all. One hundred eighty-five centimeters of frame, even seated in the chair, was substantial. Yet not oppressively so—rather, there was a quietness to it, as if everything unnecessary had been stripped away. *(Ivan the Raven-Hunter. A mercenary without a surname.)* Aria confirmed the information she'd heard from Kolin in her mind. Dozens of completed contracts. Moves for money, moves for nothing else, or so he was said to be. Aria stood beside the table. Ivan did not look up. The court of her father had taught Aria the steps of negotiation. First, establish superiority. Next, present the other's interests. Then, nail down the terms. Aria assembled this sequence in her mind while simultaneously—unable to intuitively gauge whether it would work on this man. With an ordinary negotiating partner, showing the queen's seal would change their demeanor. But whether this man would change, she could not determine. That uncertainty made Aria's palm grip tighter. Rather than placing the seal on the table, she showed it while keeping it in her palm. "Mercenary Ivan. I have a contract for you." Ivan brought the cup to his lips. He drank slowly. Silence came. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Aria waited. She tried to analyze what this silence was. Not anger. Not refusal. Not calculation, it seemed. Something else—a kind of stillness where something without words had settled. Aria tried to grasp its nature and failed. She grew quietly frustrated at her own inability. At last, Ivan looked up. Silver-gray eyes reflected Aria for a single moment. Just one. No more, no less. Then his gaze fell again. "I'm listening." Brief. That was all. Aria withdrew a document from inside her coat and outlined the contract. West from Aldia—through Garesta Trade Federation territory, over the Klentz Mountains, to Eldenhag, the capital of Ruthilia. Escort and guidance along the way. Two to three months' duration. Payment: six hundred silver fartzs. Ivan's expression did not change. He set down the cup. His fingers tapped the table's wood grain once. "I have three conditions." His voice was low, without waste. He treated speaking as something necessary only when required. "I decide the route. Information is disclosed to me in advance. Those who fall behind are not waited for." At the third condition, Aria's words caught for a moment. Those who fall behind are not waited for. That meant Kolin and Beatrice would be left behind if they collapsed. In the palace's logic, that was unthinkable. Yet no immediate objection came from Aria's mouth. This man's "those who fall behind" included the possibility of Aria herself—she understood this. Not emotionally, but logically. "...I accept." **** As proof of the contract's conclusion, a handshake was exchanged. Ivan extended his hand. Aria took it. It was hard. Dry. The sensation of a palm deformed by sword calluses transmitted to Aria's slender hand. At that moment, Aria's gaze—for reasons she couldn't explain—shifted away. Not to Ivan's face, not to the contract, but her eyes averted from the single point where their hands met. Why she did so, even Aria herself didn't know. Ivan stood. "One more thing." The tone of his voice changed slightly. Or rather, as if the direction of a blade had shifted. "On this journey, follow the escort's orders, not the queen's. If you cannot, we dissolve the contract here and now." Three things moved simultaneously within Aria. Humiliation. Anger. Reason. Humiliation came first. The emotion of *how dare he speak to a queen in that tone.* Anger followed. *Who does this man think he is?* And reason suppressed both. —This is not the moment to act on emotion. Without accepting this man's conditions, there is no way forward. No path to Ruthilia. No path to the kingdom's restoration. Reason was right. Right, but the corner of her mouth hardened. "...I consent." Anger's hardness remained in her voice. She could hear it herself. Ivan must have noticed too. Yet Ivan said nothing. **** As night deepened, Aria stood with her elbows on the windowsill of the inn "The Raven's Nest," second floor. The courtyard was visible below. The moon had risen. Though waning, tonight was cloudless, and thin white light spread across the stone pavement. A figure appeared below. Ivan. Standing beside the well in the courtyard's corner, washing his hands with bucket water. He had removed his coat. The sleeves of his black leather vest were rolled up, and in the moonlight, his left arm was visible. Scars ran across it. Not just one. Many. New and old intermingled, etched from the outer to inner surface of his arm like contour lines on a map. Written in flesh by years of work. Aria did not turn from the window. *(I am seeing something I should not see.)* Even thinking this, she could not leave. It was not the scars she was watching—to be precise. It was not his body in the moonlight either, strictly speaking. Only—from inside his coat, Ivan withdrew something. Something small. Something that fit in his palm, reflecting light. For several seconds, he stared at it intently, then quietly tucked it away at his chest. There was no explanation for the gesture. Would a man who moved only for money make such a motion? A question caught in Aria's mind like a splinter. But no answer came. Because Aria knew nothing of Ivan. Aria withdrew from the window. Still holding her coat, she sat on the floor. The stone inn's floor was cold, chill rising from her knees. She remembered the night they left Farnese. That night too had been cold. Shoulder to shoulder with Beatrice, they had waited for dawn in the shadow of withered wheat. The situation should be more settled now than then. There was a roof, walls, and a guide for tomorrow's journey. Yet somehow, her chest remained unsettled. When she realized Ivan's palm's sensation still lingered, Aria noticed she had been thinking of something. What, she could not determine. Only the hard, dry sen