The cold of the ruined fortress's stone wall still seemed to linger on her back. Aria walked along the westbound road, watching Ivan's back ahead of her. The dawn air was still chilly, and morning dew glistened across the grasslands spreading on both sides of the path. Since leaving the fortress, the two of them had exchanged almost no words. About last night—about the time they'd sat with shoulders nearly touching, their backs against the stone wall—about how the quality of that silence had been different from any other night—Aria still couldn't quite sort it out. She had decided to continue walking with the question held in abeyance. That had been her own will last night. And yet, something lingered, seeping slowly. In the center of her chest, something that hadn't become words yet, but held heat and remained there. "I can see Bleza." Ivan stopped walking. Beyond the rolling hills ahead on the road, several wooden building roofs overlapped into view. Bleza—the waystation town at the entrance to Galesta Trade Federation territory, a small crossroads where travelers, mercenaries, and smugglers gathered—was less than half an hour away. Ivan had stopped moving. There was a brief pause as he looked at the city's outline. Aria saw that pause. It was different by just one beat from a normal scout's confirmation. He wasn't reading the surroundings—he was measuring something inside himself. Five days of shared memory told her eyes that much. "We head to the Three-Horned Tavern. This is a place where my face is known." There was no elaboration. No reason. With just that, Ivan started walking again. Aria rolled the words around in her mouth and swallowed them. 　　　　　＊ The Three-Horned Tavern stood on a side street one block away from Bleza's main thoroughfare. The moment the door swung open, smoke, tallow, and the smell of fermented grain rushed in all at once. Despite the hour being before noon, several tables were already occupied—a man in leather armor, two figures speaking in low voices in a corner, an old man hunched over his ale at the counter. The atmosphere of a waystation where people flowed from one end of the continent to the other was condensed beneath the low ceiling. The man standing behind the counter stopped wiping his glass. One beat. That single beat caught Aria's eye. The movement froze for only an instant before resuming with a bitter smile. But in that one beat, Aria saw the man's faded green eyes recognize Ivan, calculate something, and select his expression based on the result of that calculation. Gray-streaked short hair, a thin silver earring in his right ear, a build of about 175 centimeters—Danilo Petrik. The proprietor of the Three-Horned Tavern, a former mercenary, a man with information routes in the underworld. When Ivan had said they were heading here, she'd heard only that name. "You're alive." His voice was low and carefree. Neither welcoming nor reproachful. Simply the tone of someone confirming a fact. Ivan didn't answer. He indicated the back private room with only his gaze. Danilo set down his glass and unfastened the latch beneath the counter. "This way," he indicated with his hand. The private room was cramped. One table, three chairs. A thin shelf on the wall, an old map rolled up and placed on top of it. When Danilo closed the door, the noise from outside fell away further. "The Raven Hunter as the Queen's escort." Danilo murmured as he sat down. Raven Hunter—Ivan's epithet. It carried no mockery, no welcome, but the color of complex calculation. The gaze he turned toward Aria was observing. Not appraisal, not hostility—a gaze measuring what kind of person this woman was in this very moment. "I need information. The current position of the Gray Hunt and movement predictions." "I know." Danilo looked at Aria. "Before that, one thing." His tone of voice changed. Low, quiet. "About Ivan—has Your Majesty the Queen ever considered why this man continues to serve as your escort to this extent?" Aria didn't answer. "We discussed compensation. You know the amount. For this man's skill and danger level, it's a figure that doesn't match the job." "Danilo." Ivan spoke. The quality of his voice caught Aria's attention. Not the voice he used to cut off conversation. A voice that was—like covering a wound—protecting something. The sound of defense, heard for the first time in this narrative. "I have no intention of telling old stories." "That's true." Danilo accepted Ivan's restraint. Yet the words continued to drift in the air even after they stopped. Aria watched the two of them in silence. What Danilo had been about to say—that Ivan had once failed to protect someone he should have protected. That he still carried that failure as something. The words never completed. But their shape already remained in the air. The night in the abandoned house of the third day. The coat thrown back without turning around. The arm grasped in dark water during the river crossing. The time sitting side by side against the stone wall of the ruined fortress—five days of memories realigned themselves as a single structure within Aria. Not a rational addition to the compensation. A different motive existed. Not doubt, but certainty took shape in her chest. 　　　　　＊ Danilo took paper from the shelf and spread it on the table. The ledger's eye—the unofficial information network operated by the Galesta Trade Federation, with approximately 200 information agents disguised as merchants said to be stationed across the continent—was the source, Danilo explained briefly. The numbers and symbols written on the sheepskin looked like cipher to an untrained eye, but the content Danilo described as he deciphered it was clear. The Gray Hunt was currently positioned approximately 80 kilometers west of the Volna River crossing point. Based on their movement speed and trajectory, there was a possibility they could reach Bleza within two days. "There are two routes across the Crenza Mountains." Danilo tapped the map with his finger. "The southern route takes time. Lutilia's Bicameral Council—a system where even the king cannot form alliances without the consent of both the Aristocratic Chamber and the Merchant Chamber—requires time for maneuvering. The southern route would consume that margin." "What about Varan Pass?" Aria spoke. Varan Pass—the main pass through the Crenza Mountains, 2,100 meters elevation, the shortest route. "It's the shortest. But—if Nadia Brenok sees through the route, there's terrain ideal for an ambush. A place called the Rift, a difficult stretch along cliffs where several people fall to their deaths every year." "Is there a third option?" "No." A brief declaration. Ivan stood before the map and fell silent. His silver-gray eyes moved across the map, and Aria became aware that she was standing beside Ivan. Until now, the position of the one showing the map and the one being drawn in had been separate. Ivan facing forward, Aria following. That positional relationship was different in this moment. The two of them were looking down at the same point from the same angle, at shoulder distance. Her finger pointing to Varan Pass came within centimeters of Ivan's finger. "I will choose Varan Pass." Aria spoke. Not as an emotional surge, but as her own judgment. "To preserve the margin for council maneuvering, the shortest route is the only option. Even accepting the risk of ambush from the Gray Hunt, Varan Pass remains the rational choice." Ivan continued looking at the map for several seconds. "The same conclusion." It was neither objection nor agreement. A confirmation of the fact that the same answer existed in two places. Just that one word. Yet something inexplicable was born in the center of Aria's chest. The shoulder distance was close. For the first time with this man, she was looking in the same direction at the same time. That fact touched something in Aria, separate from tactical judgment. (What am I thinking?) Aria looked away from the map. Danilo glanced between the two of them for a moment and said nothing before standing. 　　　　　＊ That night, in the second floor of the "Raven's Nest," adjacent to the Three-Horned Tavern, Danilo had arranged two rooms. A lodging house at 10 Faltz per night—managed by the proprietress Martha, a standard inn in this area. Aria couldn't sleep. She looked down at the alley from the window. The stone pavement was wet. Not from rain, but from night dew. There were no figures on the street, only the outlines of the building across the way floating in the thin moonlight. The heat that had settled in her chest since the night at the ruined fortress took on even greater presence in the dark room. The words Danilo had spoken—someone he should have protected, whom he failed to protect—those words remained as a blank space. Something that hadn't become words existed within Ivan. She wanted to know it. Did she want to know? The question chased the question, and Aria turned from the window. She had the impulse to step into the hallway and was startled by her own impulse. Before thinking of a reason, she had already opened the door. The hallway was dimly lit. A single candle sconce on the wall cast weak orange light. In that light, there was a figure. It was Ivan. His feet, which had been heading toward the end of the hallway, stopped at the sound of the door. The two faced each other. Aria stood in the hallway in thin clothing close to sleepwear. The inn's fabric was thin, and her silhouette, backlit, might be transparent. Ivan's gaze caught Aria's entire form for an instant—then returned straight ahead. That instant made Aria's cheeks burn. The hallway's air, from a direction entirely separate from the content of the question, was raising her body temperature. The darkness, the closeness, the quiet of night accelerated it. "Can't you sleep?" His voice was low, without inflection. Not consideration, but confirmation of fact. "A little." Aria answered. Then, after a pause, she searched for the words she wanted to say. Not tactical confirmation. Not the situation with pursuers. A question about what Danilo had spoken of—but not directly. "What Danilo was saying. About the person you couldn't protect—are you still..." The words stopped midway. Ivan's expression changed. Changed, or rather—something on the surface peeled away for just an instant. In that instant, Aria saw something. Then it returned. But that instant was certainly there. "It's not relevant." "Perhaps not." Aria spoke. Taking up the question as her own. Ivan moved to head further down the hallway. Just before his foot stepped forward, Aria spoke. "Ivan." Just a name. Not a surname, not a title, not a mercenary or an escort—just a name alone. Ivan's feet stopped. In the hallway's thin darkness, the two fell silent. The orange candlelight flickered. Ivan kept his back to Aria, yet didn't move. Aria looked at that back. The black leather back, the seams of a repair on the left shoulder, the reddish-black hair swaying faintly in the night air. Several seconds. Then Ivan walked toward the outside. Aria closed the door. In the dark room, the heat in the center of her chest had become a slightly different temperature than before. Not doubt. Not loneliness. Not fear. What it was, Aria had not yet put into words—had not put into words, but held that heat without being able to. 　　　　　＊ When the morning light began to illuminate the stone pavement, Danilo was waiting in front of the Three-Horned Tavern. "Take this." He handed over a folded piece of paper and a small cloth pouch—part of travel funds. The paper contained the final confirmed information about the Gray Hunt collected by the ledger's eye. A terrain map before Varan Pass and marks indicating possible ambush points around the Rift. Aria took it. Danilo looked at Ivan. In a voice low and quiet, the oppo