The wind scraped through the cracks in the rocks as it passed.
Rina tugged once at the edge of her cloak and drew it closed.
The cloth was thin,
and the wind was persistent.
Even so, she did not stop walking.
At her waist hung a single sword.
A slender sword.
It was neither conspicuously ornate,
nor heavy and imposing.
And yet her hand kept drifting toward it.
Even without gripping it,
the mere fact that it was there made her feel as though her body had found its balance.
Rina raised her head.
At the end of the road stood a village.
It was not large.
A low stone wall surrounded it,
and thin smoke seeped out between the fences.
Several roofs were slanted,
and many windows had been patched over and blocked.
There were not many people.
Still, it was not completely empty.
A child squatted by the roadside, rolling a stone.
An adult passed by indifferently and stroked the child’s head once.
A thin-looking dog wagged its tail,
then, seeing Rina, quickly turned its head away.
It was poor.
But it did not look like a battlefield.
There was smoke and footprints,
hands carrying water pails, and the smell of straw bundles.
Up to this point, it was the scenery of an ordinary village.
The problem was the gazes.
When Rina entered the village,
several people lifted their heads, then soon lowered their eyes.
They did not look for long.
But neither did they completely ignore her.
There was caution, but no hostility.
It was because she wore no knight’s silver armor.
Rina knew that as well.
If she had been wearing silver armor—
the gazes in a place like this would have hardened much faster.
Doors would have closed,
conversations would have stopped,
and children would have hidden.
Rina slowly drew in a breath.
Today, she would ask again.
Today, too, there might be no answer.
She had grown used to that thought.
She put strength into the tips of her feet
and headed toward the center of the village.
Her footsteps were not loud.
Her pace was even.
She looked like a traveler,
but her steps did not scatter like a traveler’s.
She would have to rest here for a day.
And—
if possible, today had to be more than a wasted trip.
Rina walked a few more steps into the village.
She said the same thing to several people.
“Excuse me. Do you know of the Silver Moon Order…?”
The answers that came back were always similar.
“Hard to say.”
“I don’t know.”
“Why… are you asking about that?”
Their words were short,
and their eyes closed even faster.
Rina did not ask further.
She bowed her head and withdrew.
It was something she was used to.
Then she looked for a place where people gathered.
A little ways off,
she saw a building that people were entering and leaving.
An old sign hung beside the door.
The letters had peeled away here and there,
but she could still tell it was an inn.
Rina stopped briefly before the door.
Today might be another wasted trip.
Still, she could not stop asking.
She quietly pushed the door open and went inside.
When she pushed the door,
warm air brushed her face first.
The inside was not large.
A low ceiling,
an old, worn wooden floor,
barrels and small bundles of luggage leaning against the wall.
There were not many people.
It seemed there was still quite some time before the evening business began.
A few sat with cups of liquor before them, talking quietly,
and in a corner, someone was tearing off pieces of bread to eat.
Their gazes gathered for a moment.
An unfamiliar face.
A sword at her waist.
Dressed as a traveler.
There was clear wariness, but it did not last long.
Once they judged her to be a traveler,
their interest folded away with it.
When Rina did not meet those gazes,
the people did not bother to look any longer.
The innkeeper standing behind the counter wiped a cup with a cloth and looked Rina over.
From top to bottom,
then from bottom to top again.
It was a quick, practiced glance.
Rina bowed her head in front of the counter.
“Excuse me.”
The innkeeper asked in a voice that was neither blunt
nor overly friendly.
“Will you be staying?”
“Yes. Do you have a room for tonight?”
The innkeeper glanced briefly toward the door in the back, then nodded.
“There is one. It’s small.”
“That’s fine.”
Rina took a silver coin from her pouch and continued.
“Could I trouble you for a meal as well? And… something to drink.”
The innkeeper took the silver coin, rolled it in his palm, and said shortly,
“Sit down for a moment.”
Rina nodded, stepped back from the counter, and quietly sat at an empty table to one side.
She did not take off her cloak.
Instead, she only adjusted the position of her slender sword’s scabbard so it would not get in the way.
Even in that small movement,
it was clear that her body had been trained.
But Rina did not try to hide that fact.
There was no reason to hide it, and no reason to flaunt it.
A short while later,
the innkeeper brought over simple bread and warm soup.
He also set down a cup of liquor.
“Here.”
“Thank you.”
Before lifting her spoon, Rina opened her mouth.
“Um… there is one thing I would like to ask.”
The innkeeper looked at Rina.
“What is it?”
Rina lowered her voice.
She recalled the expressions she had seen outside just moments before.
Those expressions usually
began with a single word.
“Have you ever heard the name… the Silver Moon Order?”
The innkeeper’s hand stopped for an instant.
The owner looked Rina over once more.
This time, not at her sword—
but at her expression and tone.
“The Silver Moon Order…”
He muttered the name as though rolling it around in his mouth,
then tilted his head.
“Let me think.”
After thinking for a moment, the innkeeper carefully changed his words.
“Ah. Do you mean the people of the moon?”
Rina lifted her eyes.
“The people of the moon… They’re called that as well?”
The innkeeper shrugged.
“I think I heard it from people passing through.”
“There have been some, from time to time. People who asked about that phrase.”
Rina nodded.
“Then… may I ask just one more thing?”
“Go ahead.”
“That phrase, the people of the moon… what sort of people mainly used it?”
The innkeeper looked at Rina for a moment,
then exhaled a long breath through his mouth.
“Mostly… people who had run away.”
“Whether from the Empire’s side, or from the battlefield. People who had lost something somewhere, who had been driven out from somewhere.”
He lightly tapped the table with his hand.
“People like that don’t stay here long.”
“They gather a bit of food, ask for the road, then leave again. Toward the road that goes down to Arku.”
Rina’s eyes trembled ever so slightly.
Rather than a tremor,
it was closer to the feeling of a direction being found.
“To Arku…”
“Yes. I suppose there’s something there if they go. I don’t know. Nothing more than that.”
The innkeeper cut off his words.
He seemed to know himself that going any further would be troublesome.
Rina did not ask further.
“I understand. Thank you for answering me.”
The innkeeper started to say, “It’s nothing,”
but in the end, he merely nodded.
Then he began wiping cups at the counter again.
It was a sign that the conversation was over.
Rina quietly set her cup down.
The Silver Moon Order.
That name closed doors here.
Instead, another name remained in her hand.
The people of the moon.
Rina repeated those words once more in her heart.
Tomorrow, once she drew closer to Arku—
those words might open a door.
She slowly swallowed the food that remained.
Not hurriedly.
But without stopping.
—
Rina went up to her room.
The stairs creaked,
and the corridor was narrow.
The door was only a thin wooden plank,
but once she closed it, the sounds outside fell one layer farther away.
Inside the room were a single bed, a small table,
and a basin stained with water marks. That was all.
Rina took off her cloak and hung it up,
then laid her slender sword beside the bed.
The sound of the scabbard touching the floor rang out softly.
For a while, she stood still.
The people of the moon.
The words that had come from the innkeeper’s mouth
returned again and again in her mind.
Rina raised a hand and touched her chest once,
then soon lowered it.
The place where metal had once hung was no longer there.
Her fingertips groped through empty air,
then fell without grasping anything.
She sat on the bed and let out a long breath.
Tomorrow, she could reach the vicinity of Arku.
That thought brought both relief and burden with it.
Once she entered Arku, she might see the Empire’s banners.
She had no armor, but there were eyes.
Eyes that divided people by nothing more than tone of voice and gait.
Rina told herself,
“I was a knight, but I am not one now.”
That sentence was not a lie.
That was why it was all the firmer.
When she put out the light and lay down,
a faint smell descended from the ceiling.
The smell of old wood,
the smell of damp cloth.
Rina closed her eyes.
Sleep did not come easily.
Instead, other things rose to mind.
A white weasel.
And—
the sensation of metal being torn away.
The place where the fibula had hung.
She knew that losing a mark did not simply mean losing a single ornament.
Rina raised a hand beneath the blanket,
felt once more at her chest, then stopped.
There was nothing there.
She exhaled.
There was resentment.
As a human being, a very small amount.
But she did not let that emotion take the lead.
Defeat was defeat.
The duel had ended, and the result remained.
There was only one thing left.
She had to reclaim it.
Her honor.
Tomorrow, she would draw closer to Arku.
There would be the Empire’s eyes there.
The eyes of knights as well.
Even so, Rina would walk on.
Not down a base road, but an unblemished one.
In order to reclaim from the white weasel
what the white weasel had taken from her.
Rina repeated that thought once more, then slowly accepted sleep.
—
The next day.
The road before sunrise brought the cold back to her.
Once she left the village, the wind grew rougher.
Rina drew her cloak closed
and kept her pace even.
By the time midday drew near,
Rina reached a small village.
It was even smaller than the one from yesterday.
The houses were low,
and the fences were thin.
Instead, there were traces of people coming and going along the road.
A place to catch one’s breath for the last time before entering Arku—
that sort of place.
Rina hesitated for a moment.
Once she entered Arku,
it might become difficult to ask in this manner anymore.
So here, one more time,
she had to knock on a door.
The inn was easy to find.
There were few people,
but roadside inns always smelled similar.
Sweat and dust,
and the smell of warm soup.
Rina opened the door and went in.
This time as well, gazes gathered briefly, then scattered.
The owner standing at the counter looked at Rina.
His eyes went first to her sword,
then soon returned to her face.
Rina bowed her head.
“Excuse me. May I trouble you for a cup of something to drink?”
The owner nodded and held out a cup.
Rina took a sip
and set the cup down.
And this time,
she brought out words different from yesterday’s.
“There is one thing I would like to ask.”
The owner narrowed his eyes and said,
“What is it?”
Rina steadied her breath once,
then spoke politely.
“The people of the moon… have you heard of them?”
The owner’s expression was a little different from the innkeeper’s of yesterday.
It was not the face of someone who knew absolutely nothing.
It was the face of someone who knew where “those words” came from.
“The people of the moon…”
The owner swept a glance around him.
It was a look to check whether the customers were listening.
Then he lowered his voice by the slightest amount.
“It’s not good to bring up words like that carelessly.”
Rina nodded.
“I apologize. If I have made you uncomfortable, I will not ask further.”
The owner looked at Rina again.
That politeness—
if anything, seemed to trouble him more.
“Are you from the Empire?”
Rina did not choose her answer.
In a way that did not hide,
and did not mix in falsehood.
“Not now.”
The owner’s eyebrows rose slightly.
Rina added,
“I have not come to harm anyone. I only wish… to know the way.”
The owner hesitated for a long while,
then said in a very small voice,
“Then… there’s no use grabbing people in this village and asking them. We don’t know. But—”
He lightly tapped the underside of the counter with his finger.
“Go to Arku.”
The owner lowered his voice further.
“But if you open your mouth inside Arku saying you’re looking for ‘them,’ your head might fly off first.”
“So… there is only one path someone like you can take.”
Rina stopped breathing for a moment.
“What path is that?”
The owner turned his head for a moment
and looked at a cord hanging on the wall.
It was a cord for tying firewood.
It looked as though someone had tied it carelessly—
but the shape of the knot was strangely round.
One loop overlapped halfway,
forming something like a crescent moon.
The owner jerked his chin toward the cord.
“That knot. I’ve seen it from time to time. On bundles of medicinal herbs, and on cords used for funerals.”
Rina’s gaze fixed on the knot.
The owner added,
“If you go a little east, there is a small graveyard.”
“There is a gravekeeper there, and that person… often looks after refugees.”
“You may be able to hear more of those words there.”
At the end, his voice trailed off.
“More than that… I don’t know either.”
Rina set down her cup
and bowed her head deeply.
“Thank you.”
Instead of answering, the owner waved a hand once.
Whether it meant not to ask further,
or that he could say no more—
Rina rose from her seat.
The people of the moon.
In addition to that name,
now there was one more thing.
A crescent-shaped knot.
As Rina stepped out the door,
she touched the scabbard of the slender sword at her waist once with her fingertips.
East.
Rina began to walk.