The light of dawn still melted the outline of the bushes into gray. The opposite bank of the Volna River——the sound of water alone, unchanging, the voice of the great river flowing west at a constant pace——reached her ears along with the sensation of being pulled up from the depths of sleep. Aria opened her eyes. Lying on the grass, the first thing she confirmed was her left wrist. A thin silver bracelet——the ring that her father, King Ferdinand III, had placed on her the night of his coronation——lay without light in the dim darkness before dawn. Confirming it had become a habit since she began her flight. It was less an act of confirming existence and more a search for evidence that she was still here. Ivan was standing at a slight distance away. Looking outside. Beatrice was—— Aria pushed herself up. The grass beside her was disturbed. The impression of a human body lying there remained in the way the dew-wet grass was flattened. But the person who should have been there was nowhere to be seen. "Beatrice." The moment she spoke, she knew it was pointless. There was no human presence in the thicket. Only the sound of the Volna River answered. Ivan turned around. His silvery-gray eyes looked at Aria's face, then immediately at the grass impression. Three seconds. That was all it took for his gaze to sweep the surroundings and read the trampled marks on the ground. Aria could read nothing. She only saw one of the shoes Beatrice should have been wearing lying at the edge of the thicket. That was all. Whether she had left of her own will or been taken away, these marks would not tell. That was what made it most cruel. "Will you pursue?" "No." The answer fell before Aria's question was finished. "The traces are unreadable. Not worth the time." Not worth the time. Those words sank heavily once in Aria's chest. Beatrice was the woman who had been at her side as a lady's maid until the day before the Kingdom of Aldia fell. She had been with them for three days of flight. She was the second, after Corin. Aria stood up. Her legs felt heavy. There was no sensation of moving them by will——only the feeling of using her muscles to resist gravity, that kind of heaviness. "We move." Aria glanced back once. One shoe. Grass impressions. Traces that offered no answers. Then she turned forward. 　　　　　＊ The road through the abandoned village lay in morning mist. The path to the Crenza Mountains——the western road toward Varan Pass, cutting through the mountain range that ran north and south through the continent's center——had no travelers at this hour. Only the distant howl of a farm dog reached them from beyond the mist. The two walked on a packed dirt road, not stone pavement. Hoof prints of horses remained in the dried mud. Whether from yesterday or the day before, there was no way to tell. Aria walked in silence. Silence was bearable at first. She could concentrate on moving. She could look at her feet. That's what she told herself. But gradually, the silence began to exert pressure from within. Corin had vanished. Beatrice had vanished. Neither for any reason she understood. The incomprehensible accumulation of circumstances was beginning to point in a specific direction within Aria. A direction she should not go, Aria knew. There was no basis for it. Not even speculation. Only the fear of isolation and the accumulation of unanswered questions were trying to take shape, directed at the person closest to her. She knew this, and could not stop it. Ivan stopped walking. The road ahead split into two paths in the mist. "The patrol routes have changed. We take the north." Aria stopped. One step back. Then, as Ivan turned to face forward and began walking, she spoke toward his back. "Wait." Her voice was lower than she expected. There was a note of lack of control mixed in despite her attempt to maintain it. Ivan turned around. His expression was blank. Waiting. "Do you know why Corin disappeared?" Ivan did not answer. "It is the same with Beatrice. Both of them——I wonder if you know something but are not telling me——" "Do you have evidence?" His voice had no inflection. It was unclear whether he was questioning her or cutting her off. "I do not." Aria said it. She said it while aware of the injustice of her own question. Yet she could not stop. "I do not. But there are circumstances. You hold the most information, and you alone have freedom of action. The night Corin disappeared, the morning Beatrice disappeared——you were always moving alone." Ivan's eyes looked at the center of Aria's face for one second. Then his gaze shifted slightly——toward her forehead or into the mist behind her. That movement was neither denial nor affirmation. "I move by the logic of survival." His voice was low and quiet. "The disappearance of those two is not the result of my actions. But there is no way to prove it." With that, he turned away. Aria did not follow. Could not follow——perhaps it would be more accurate to say. The structure of a counterargument existed in her mind. But the ground to stand on to voice it was crumbling. She had no certainty that the man was lying——nor certainty that he was not——neither. Only the weight of the question remained. Ivan's back, perfectly shutting off all emotion, disappeared into the mist. Aria took one step and continued. 　　　　　＊ When the lingering heat of midday still remained on the road's stones, they took a brief rest at the edge of the abandoned village. In the shadow of a stone wall——what had once been a farmhouse, now collapsed, with only stone piling remaining to waist height——the two leaned their backs. Ivan confirmed the surrounding atmosphere and announced a five-minute rest. No more, no less. Aria leaned her back against the stone wall and closed her eyes. The heaviness from morning had accumulated somewhere in her body. Not in her legs, but deeper inside——somewhere was heavy. A rustling sound of cloth. Opening her eyes, Ivan was standing beside her. In his hand, a leather pouch. The pouch containing the map and seal——the one Aria had been carefully carrying for three days. "I return it." He said only that and held it out. Aria looked at the pouch. The night they crossed the Volna River——the night they crossed the swift-flowing great river in a dark ferry——Ivan had taken it without a word. There was no phrase like "to protect it from water." Just, moments before the crossing, a hand extended silently, and Aria reflexively handed it over. That was all. It had remained inside Ivan's jacket until this morning, and Aria had not realized it until this very moment. She took it. Her fingertips touched Ivan's hand. Just for a moment. Not through leather gloves, but directly, on dry skin. Ivan's gaze lingered on Aria's face for one second. Then it returned to the road ahead. A small space existed there. Something different in kind from the tension of interrogation——something that took on a small but definite shape inside Aria's chest. The moment she became aware of it, she was bewildered by the very fact of that awareness. (Now is not the time to think about this.) She drew the pouch close to her chest. The surface of the leather held warmth. The heat that had remained inside Ivan's jacket for a long time. Aria turned forward. 　　　　　＊ They arrived at the ruined fortress as the sun set and the sky turned purple. Stone piling from a small skirmish thirty years ago——a brief clash between small nations over a relay route of the Garesta Trading Confederation——remained half-collapsed at the edge of a hill. The roof had completely fallen, and only three stone walls remained. The floor was covered in gravel and weathered stone dust, and footsteps made faint sounds. Ivan quickly confirmed the entrances and sightlines. He read the angles visible from each of the two collapsed openings, the directions they faced, and the blind spots, all in a short time. Aria was beginning to understand the order of that reading, bit by bit. First, the angles visible from high positions; next, from low positions; finally, the reverse sightlines from inside to outside. It was one of the things she had learned in three days. "We cannot make a fire." Before Aria could open her mouth to say "a campfire," he had already spoken. "Smoke is visible. Use an oil lamp if we have one." He pulled a small oil lamp from the supplies. The wick was short. It might only last a few more hours, but without it, there would be complete darkness. The small flame of the oil lamp made the inside of the stone walls flicker in orange. The words from the daytime interrogation floated and faded in that light. Aria leaned her back against the stone wall and hugged her knees. She knew immediately that she could not sleep. Sleep was difficult now. Releasing consciousness felt like a confession of weakness. She had not yet processed the words of the daytime interrogation within herself. Had that interrogation been justified? Had she made a baseless accusation? Yet Aria could not have swallowed those words in silence either. Ivan faced outward at the fortress entrance. His profile was caught at the edge of the oil lamp's light. The vertical scar on his left cheek——deep, long——sank into shadow. He was expressionless. Not angry, not thinking. Simply there. Aria thought that his face had been the same on the night of the third story. That night before the dying fire in the abandoned house. That figure sitting alone. ——She had been trying not to remember that. Deep night came. Something moved outside. Wind, or an animal. Ivan quickly moved to the corner of the fortress. A shift in surveillance position. During that moment, the inside of the fortress was briefly empty of Ivan. He sat back down, leaning against the wall. He must have judged the outside sound to be wind. His body's tension relaxed slightly from just before the movement. Then a hand reached toward his chest. It was an unconscious gesture, as far as Aria could tell. Not a deliberate action, but something that had become a habit over a long time. He took something small from inside his jacket. It glinted silver in the weak light of the oil lamp. A small ring. Aria held her breath. It was the same as what she had seen on the night of the third story. What Ivan had held alone before the dying fire. The small silver ring he had kept in his fingertips without prayer, without confirmation, just holding it. Tonight was the same. With distant, hollow eyes, he held it in his fingertips. Not to show anyone, not to use it. Just an act for him alone, to touch something that was there. A mercenary who moves only for money has something he takes out every night and holds alone. That fact quietly accumulated in Aria's chest. (What is this man carrying as he takes on this work?) The direction of the question had changed. Not a question of whether to believe or not, but a different question was born. Aria had no idea what that ring was. Was it someone's? Was it for someone? Or was it a form given to someone's memory? Not knowing carried weight in reverse. Ivan's presence changed. It was subtle. Only his neck angle shifted slightly. He had turned toward Aria——not quite to that degree of movement. Just a gesture of sensing something in his field of vision. The ring returned inside his jacket. Silence fell within the fortress's stone walls. Ivan said nothing. Aria said nothing. The oil lamp's flame flickered softly. The time between them was of a completely different kind from the daytime interrogation. 　　　　　＊ Past midnight, cold air began to crawl up through the stone piling. The chill of the night at this time of year, past the height of summer, completely betrayed the heat of the day. From the cold that came from the core of her body, Aria's shoulders began to tremble finely. She had no blanket. She thought: do not speak. After the daytime interrogation, saying sh