Wind brushed through the piles of stones.
The graveyard lay a little ways from the village.
At the end of a dirt path that could scarcely be called a road,
beneath the shadow of a low hill.
There were no walls, no gate.
Instead, traces of human hands remained there in silence.
Shallow-dug pits.
Small boundary lines made by gathering stones.
A few wooden stakes, their color washed pale by rain.
To one side, a shovel and pickaxe leaned together,
and in an old basket, dry grass and soil lay mixed.
Pieces of cord were scattered across the ground.
Likely remnants from a funeral.
One of those cords had been tied in an unusually neat knot,
but here, there was no way even to know whether that was anything special.
The fact that there were no gravestones
was the first thing that caught her eye.
This place was less a place to leave behind names
than a place to put in order what had disappeared.
On the old stakes, there were no letters—only grooves worn down by the wind.
Rina looked at those grooves and thought.
Here, even memory is buried quietly.
Rina stopped before them.
The ground was not damp.
Though sunlight did not reach it, it was strangely dry.
The soil, having been dug up and covered over again and again,
was hard, as if pressed flat.
One gravekeeper was there.
He was working with his back bent.
Each time the blade of his shovel bit into the earth, a small sound rose.
The sound of the ground splitting.
The sound of soil collapsing.
None of those sounds were exaggerated.
They were the sounds of labor without emotion.
Rina took one step closer,
then went no farther.
It was not proper to stand close behind someone at work.
She lowered her head.
“Excuse me.”
Her voice was low and courteous.
Clear only enough not to be scattered by the wind.
The shoveling did not stop.
The gravekeeper did not even lift his head.
Rina waited a moment.
As she waited, she did not raise her gaze.
She counted the number of times the shovel lifted the soil, then stopped counting.
Numbers only made the heart impatient.
What she had prepared was not a question, but a single sentence.
If she said it again, the path would close.
So Rina let her breath settle low and moistened her mouth once.
When the wait grew long,
only then did the shovel blade stop upon the earth.
The gravekeeper slowly straightened his back.
He did not turn his face fully.
Only his gaze moved sideways,
brushing once toward Rina.
A traveler’s attire.
A single sword at her waist.
That gaze was closer to “Why have you come?” than “Who are you?”
As if answering,
Rina bowed her head once more.
She had not yet spoken.
From here on,
a single word could open the path, or close it.
“What is it?”
The gravekeeper’s voice was low.
Neither rough nor kind.
It was simply the voice of a man who had stopped his work.
Even with her head raised, Rina kept her eyes lowered.
“I am looking for… the people of the moon.”
The words “people of the moon” did not sit easily in her mouth.
When she had heard them at the inn, they had slipped by like a drunken joke,
but now that she spoke them here, they felt heavy, as if she had thrown a stone.
Rina waited for the other person to deny it.
If denial came, she was ready to fold away her next words.
The gravekeeper’s eyes rested briefly on Rina’s face.
Then, naturally, they moved to her waist,
to her sword, then back to her hands.
The calluses on the backs of her hands.
The balance of her steps.
The breath with which she chose her words.
He asked a beat late.
“Where did you hear those words?”
“At an inn on the road toward Arku.”
“Why are you looking for them?”
Rina closed her lips,
then chose only what was true and spoke.
“There is someone I must find.”
The gravekeeper’s gaze did not deepen.
Instead, it became shallower.
“Do you know their name?”
“I do not.”
That one sentence came quickly.
It was not a lie.
Rina had not come because she wanted to know a name.
Only—
she was walking toward the one who bore that name.
The gravekeeper tilted his head by the slightest degree.
“Are you from the Empire?”
Rina drew in a breath.
Then she said clearly,
“I am not someone who acts under the Empire’s orders.”
With that answer,
the gravekeeper asked nothing more.
Taking up his shovel again,
he said shortly,
“Go back.”
Rina lowered her head.
“I understand.”
That one sentence could have been the end.
I will not ask more,
I will not cling any longer—
that was Rina’s way.
But before she turned away,
Rina steadied her breath once more and opened her mouth.
“May I ask… one favor of you?”
The gravekeeper’s shovel stopped.
He did not raise his head,
but that single pause conveyed, “Say it.”
Rina took a small envelope from inside her clothes.
The paper was not new.
It bore the firm creases of something folded so it would not tear easily, even if opened and closed several times.
A cord was wrapped around it.
Rina held out the envelope with both hands.
“If you are able to deliver it… this letter.”
Only then did the gravekeeper lift his head and look at the envelope.
Rina carefully added one final sentence.
“Could you deliver it… to the White Weasel?”
The gravekeeper’s eyebrows moved by the smallest amount.
It was difficult to say his expression had changed.
His gaze lowered to the cord.
The knot.
One rounded loop overlapped,
with a half knot laid beneath it.
A shape like a crescent moon.
The gravekeeper pressed the knot once with his fingertip, as if to confirm it.
Then, without a word, he accepted the envelope.
The gravekeeper quietly set the envelope beside his workbench,
in a place where soil and dust would not touch it.
There was neither hesitation nor promise in the motion.
Rina accepted that silence.
“Please.”
She bowed deeply.
She said nothing more.
The gravekeeper took up his shovel again.
Rina stepped back.
The tip of her foot brushed a stone with a small sound.
So small a sound that it seemed too loud,
for the graveyard was silent.
She turned away.
Whether it would be delivered, or not—
that was no longer something for her to hold on to.
Only to keep walking.
That was all she could do.
Rina began descending the hill.
The hem of her cloak fluttered once in the wind.
She did not look back.
As she descended the hill,
Rina hid her hand inside her cloak.
From the place where the envelope had left her, emptiness rose first.
She did not hold on to that emptiness.
The moment she held on to it, her steps would slow.
Rina stepped on the small stones of the dirt path and made her pace even.
—
After Rina vanished, at the graveyard.
As the sun began to tilt,
the gravekeeper took out the envelope he had set beside his workbench.
The cord, the knot overlapped like a crescent moon.
He did not untie it.
He did not read it.
From beyond the stone piles, footsteps approached.
The sound of treading on soil.
The sound of stopping.
Without lifting his head, the gravekeeper held out the envelope.
The receiving hand slightly pulled back the edge of a glove, revealing fingertips.
The pressure that pressed the knot was brief and precise.
The judgment that “this is enough” came first,
and only afterward did the envelope slip into the breast of his clothes.
The wind swept through the stone piles and left behind the scent of earth.
The gravekeeper never lifted his head to the end.
Because that was the rule.
The footsteps grew distant again.
With that brief exchange, today’s work was done.
After confirming the position of the envelope once more,
the man moved into the darkness.
He stepped only on dry stones and roots, leaving no footprints behind.
Each time he exhaled, a white puff of breath rose briefly, then vanished.
He stopped twice to check behind him.
Only after confirming that no one was there
did he press once more against the place where the envelope rested inside his clothes.
A letter is light, but the weight of its contents cannot be measured.
And so he did not quicken his pace.
—
At first, the wall was a wall.
The grain of the cave stone was rough as ever,
and the air before it was cold.
The man came to a stop.
The man swallowed once the wind from the entrance.
The cold outside and the chill within were of different natures.
Standing before the stone wall, his pulse rose all the way to his ears.
If sweat seeped into his palm, the sound of knocking would change.
So he wiped his hand once on his sleeve,
then shifted the tip of his foot half a step to find a place where the resonance was weaker.
Only after breathing out did he strike the wall.
Briefly.
And then, at the agreed intervals.
The surface of the stone trembled faintly,
and from somewhere, a low sound of friction brushed past.
It did not feel as though the wall had split,
but as though a gap had “opened.”
A thin thread of torchlight leaked out through the darkness.
From beyond the gap, someone appeared.
It was a gatekeeper.
Without a word, the man took an envelope from inside his clothes.
A small letter.
A cord was tightly wrapped around it.
The gatekeeper accepted the envelope and asked,
“A letter?”
The man nodded.
“They asked me to deliver it. To Lady Miryeong.”
The gatekeeper’s gaze lowered to the cord.
The knot overlapped like a crescent moon.
He did not open the envelope.
Instead, he pressed the knot once with his fingertip.
As if confirming it, as if weighing it.
“Hmm.”
The gatekeeper put the envelope inside his clothes.
Then he spoke in a low voice to the other gatekeeper beside him.
“I’ll take it.”
The other gatekeeper only nodded.
There were no further questions.
The gatekeeper walked toward the inner passage.
The passage did not continue straight.
The gatekeeper passed familiarly along the path that bent twice,
and did not take out the envelope again beneath the torchlight.
Instead, he pressed the knot once more with his fingertips.
Confirmation.
If it was not this knot, it would not be allowed inside.
He spoke quietly to the shadow waiting at the end.
“I’ll go see Lady Miryeong.”
The shadow only nodded instead of answering,
and only then did the gatekeeper let out a long breath.