My Name Reaches First
It was only as the sun began to sink that the first relay station came into view.
A small defensive outpost raised along the northeastern trunk road. Low stone walls, a single watchtower, and, attached to the inner side, a round stone chamber that sheltered the relay barrier stone.
Normally, by dusk, the lanterns and signal lights should have been the first things visible. Yet today, strangely, they were not. One of the lanterns atop the watchtower had gone out.
I felt my grip tighten on the reins. Beside me, the lady seemed to have noticed it as well.
"Your Highness."
The knight riding in the Imperial Princess's place lifted his head. The lady pointed to the top of the tower.
"One of the signal lights is dead."
The Imperial Princess raised her head in answer. Beneath the darkening sky, the light atop the tower was clearly one short.
This was not good.
As we drew closer to the relay station, the picture grew sharper. Too many horses were tethered outside. Two merchant carts stood at a slant, and several people who looked like refugees crouched against the outer wall without even a fire.
A station of this size did not normally stop passersby. That so many had halted meant either the road ahead was blocked or the rear had grown dangerous.
The lead knight shouted.
"Imperial inspection unit! Open the gate!"
Tension spiked along the top of the wall. A moment later the gate cracked open a fraction, and spearpoints appeared first.
"I-I'll need to verify your identities!"
The voice was rough, but a tremor ran through it—the voice of a man already worn thin.
The Imperial Princess reined in. One of the knights held up the imperial seal, yet the soldier above still could not bring himself to throw the gate wide. That alone said how bad things were.
Then a shadow stepped forward from inside the gate. A young adjutant in a leather coat, the northeastern defense mark fixed to his chest. Half his face was caked with dust and exhaustion, but the moment he saw me his eyes went wide.
"…Sir Rion?"
I knew that face.
"Dein."
Almost by reflex he shoved the spearpoints aside and barked at the men within.
"Open the gate! Sir Elverhart has returned!"
In an instant the atmosphere inside the gate changed. Soldiers who had hesitated even before the imperial seal now scrambled to free the bar the moment my name was spoken. With a heavy thud the gate swung open.
The Imperial Princess saw it. The lady saw it too. I pretended not to notice and rode inside.
The yard beyond was worse. Three wounded. A crushed wooden crate. Supply sacks hastily shifted. In front of the stone chamber, water buckets and shovels lay scattered.
An old soldier who looked to be the station master came running out, ready to drop to one knee before the Imperial Princess—then froze solid at the sight of me.
"…S-Sir Elverhart. Is it truly you?"
"That question can wait."
I jerked my chin toward the tower.
"Why is that lantern dead?"
The old soldier answered through cracked lips.
"Four hours ago the western relay stone rang out hard once. After that, one of the signal lines on the tower burned through."
The lady asked in a low voice.
"Was there an external attack?"
"Not yet. But…"
He trailed off, glancing at the refugees outside.
"An entire village ahead has emptied out."
The Imperial Princess's gaze darkened.
"What do you mean, emptied?"
This time Dein answered for him.
"The people left first. The well on the village outskirts turned black, and the livestock screamed all night like they were mad. At dawn today one of the barrier stones cracked."
The more I heard, the worse every possibility looked. I swung down from the saddle at once. The bandaged hand throbbed the moment it released the reins, but there was no time to care.
"I'll see the relay stone first."
The old soldier nodded on pure instinct.
"Yes, Sir Elverhart."
The Imperial Princess's brow shifted by the barest fraction. She said nothing, yet what she had just witnessed was plain.
This was not the capital. This was a place where my name reached faster than the imperial seal.
The stone chamber was cold. In the center of the round room stood a relay barrier stone the height of a man, circular magic patterns spreading across the floor. At a glance it still looked intact. But when I stepped closer, a hairline fracture showed through from the inside.
I steadied my breath and reached toward the stone.
Cold. Hollow within. The surface was holding, yet the core was already being eaten away—like a worm inside fruit.
"…Sir Rion."
Dein asked quietly from behind me.
"How is it?"
I kept my hand on the stone.
"It's holding."
I could not finish the rest. It was holding, but it would not last long. This was not the same grain as the black thorns I had seen in the palace. Broader. Deeper. Not a single point someone had stabbed, but an entire surrounding line that had been shaken for a long time already.
The Imperial Princess spoke from the chamber entrance.
"You're being careful with your words."
I did not look up.
"Because they aren't pleasant ones."
The lady came to stand at my side at once. She scanned the surface of the barrier stone with her eyes and said quietly,
"The surface cracks are shallow. So why that grave expression?"
Only then did I take my hand from the stone and turn.
"Because the crack didn't start here."
Dein's face hardened.
"What do you mean?"
"It didn't split from above. The shock came through from another connected line. This stone wasn't the first to break."
The Imperial Princess asked slowly.
"From where?"
I fell silent for a moment. The network of lines across this whole region rose naturally in my mind—the maps I had studied in the palace, the border roads I had ridden countless times as a boy, the intervals between stations, the ridges and river courses.
It was bad. Truly bad.
"Inside the Third Line."
The chamber went quiet. The lady repeated,
"…Toward the Elverhart Viscounty?"
I gave a short nod.
"Yes."
The moment the words left me, Dein's color changed visibly. The station master clenched his teeth. The Imperial Princess said nothing for a beat, then asked with perfect calm at the end of that silence,
"…And your conclusion?"
I answered in a dry voice.
"If what we've been chasing is a problem on the northeastern Third Line, we may already be too late."
In that instant a short scream burst from outside. Everyone in the chamber looked up at once. Dein bolted out first; the lady, the Imperial Princess, and I followed hard on his heels.
It was not the gate. Behind the station, near the stables where the refugees had been gathered for the night, people were clustered in a knot. As we approached the crowd parted.
At the center lay a child of about ten. The face was bloodless; clenched in one hand was a wet, black-stained scrap of cloth and some unidentifiable lump.
A woman who looked to be the mother sobbed,
"All of a sudden… it got on his hand and he collapsed…!"
I looked at the child's hand by instinct. Something black was crawling thinly up the back of it—fine cracks like the ones that had remained on Leo's wrist the night before. Only weaker, and faster.
"Don't touch him!"
My voice made the circle flinch. The mother stared at me through tears.
"C-can he be saved…?"
I could not answer at once. The Imperial Princess stepped forward.
"Lady Rubenheim."
The lady was already on her knees. Pale blue-white mana wrapped thinly around the child's wrist. An ice-cold barrier bound the advance of the black cracks.
"As a stopgap… I believe I can hold it."
"A stopgap."
When the Imperial Princess asked, the lady answered without taking her eyes from the wrist.
"The source isn't inside him. This is external resonance. As long as the connected line lives, it will rise again whenever it chooses."
I looked down at the wet cloth in the child's hand. Black dregs clung to it, as if scooped from the bottom of a well.
One of the refugees spoke in a shaking voice.
"The village well was like this… That's why we ran. But here too…"
Before the words finished, an alarm bell rang somewhere inside the station.
Clang—clang—clang—!
Not once. Three times. The barrier-stone alarm.
Dein shouted, face gone white.
"It's not the western auxiliary line! It's the inner line!"
I stopped breathing. The Imperial Princess turned toward me. I already knew. The direction the bell had rung, the hollow vibration I had felt inside the stone chamber earlier, and the fine cracks now climbing the child's hand—all of them pointed to the same place.
"…The Viscounty."
My voice was so low it carried all the more clearly. The air inside the station froze for a heartbeat. The Imperial Princess did not waste a second.
"Prepare the horses. We leave now."
The lady rose at once. The pale blue-white mana at her fingertips faded, leaving only a thin ice line around the child's wrist.
Dein asked in a rush.
"Your Highness, the station—"
The Imperial Princess cut him off.
"Divide those who stay from those who follow. Keep the refugees here and hold the perimeter as best you can. The main force moves."
Without a word I turned toward the horses. The place I was returning to was now both my territory and the scene of the incident. And the moment that thought settled, strangely, the hesitation vanished. Instead my mind went cold and clear.
"Your Highness."
The Imperial Princess was already turning her own mount.
"What is it?"
"From here we take the shortcut."
Her eyes narrowed sharply.
"…Is it safe? This shortcut of yours."
I looked toward the northeast, under a sky growing steadily darker.
"There is no safe road."
Then I continued, slowly.
"But it is the fastest way to arrive."
At those words the lady swung her horse's head toward me at once. The Imperial Princess regarded me a moment, then gave a very short nod.
"Good."
Her voice settled cold.
"Then I'll trust you. The one who knows this region best."
Hoofbeats rose again. The station's alarm still had not stopped, and the refugees' stifled weeping mixed with the wind. Leaving that sound at our backs, we drove our horses into the darker northeast.