The Road to the Capital
The highway to the capital was overflowing with swordsmen. The words Martial God Festival had swept every road in the empire into a single current. Processions of territorial knight orders, wandering swordsmen, the last blades of fallen houses, mercenaries chasing a quick fortune. Every inn had swords lining an entire wall, and every night a quarrel erupted somewhere.
"There they go again. Third time today," Hugo said, jerking his chin toward the commotion in the inn yard. Two young swordsmen were grabbing each other by the collars, arguing about settling matters in the main bracket or ending them right here.
"Aren't you going to stop them?"
"They haven't drawn their swords. Grabbing collars isn't a duel—it's a greeting."
"...What kind of swordsman etiquette is that?"
The greeting arrived that same night. A wandering swordsman, cheeks flushed with drink, planted himself in front of Kael's table.
"Aren't you that Gray Swordsman? The one who broke one of the Seven Swords in Valk?"
"You have the wrong person."
"While wearing a Gray Fang squad badge?"
"I borrowed it from the squad."
The swordsman looked back and forth between Kael's worn iron sword and his expressionless face, then returned to his own table as if the spark had gone out of him. Hugo barely kept from spitting out his drink.
"...Hey, you lied so smoothly... I thought you didn't make jokes!"
"It wasn't a joke. It's procedure. Drawing your sword before the main tournament reveals your hand."
"That flow-reading thing of yours is scary enough, but even your lies are too precise."
In Dorothe's carriage, Finn unfolded the map every night. He measured the remaining distance to the capital with his fingers, circled the illustration of the Grand Arena, and bet on his entry number until he fell asleep.
"Seven-hundred block! Two copper coins!"
"Reason?"
"I registered late! Oh, right—Uncle, they'll sell roasted chestnuts in the capital too, right? Will they taste different from the southern ones?"
"If they're different, we can compare them."
"That means buying two bags!"
There were more things to argue about now, of a kind he had never taught.
Half the journey consisted of gathering rumors. Inns were the ears of the highway, and the rumors converging on the Martial God Festival came in every variety.
Four of the Seven Swords had confirmed their entry. Geralt of Steel had been the first to put his name down—they said he lost to a commoner in the south? That was exactly why he was coming. It was a grudge match. No, he was waiting for that commoner to appear. The western Sword Saint family was sending a direct descendant of the house head. Even the Order's paladin division was participating. And—
On the tenth night, at the inn, that rumor surfaced.
"The Northern Grand Duke's daughter is entering as well."
A merchant at the next table raised his voice, emboldened by wine. "The Star of the North. The youngest Aura User. That exalted lady has entered the Martial God Festival. And without her family name—they say she registered simply as Elise."
"Why would the Grand Duke's daughter bother? It's not as if she needs the title."
"Exactly. In society they're all saying the same things. That she's gone sword-mad after the broken engagement, or that it's a demonstration aimed at the imperial family—ah, and there's one theory that sounds most plausible."
The merchant lowered his voice. In an inn, a lowered voice only carried farther.
"You know that song, right? The one about the gray knight rejecting the princess—that gray swordsman was the Grand Duke's daughter's former escort knight, wasn't he? It's obvious he'll enter too, so the Grand Duke's daughter deliberately entered the same bracket... She's going to meet him with a sword in hand."
The crowd laughed and clinked their cups. The rumor became entertainment, and the two names at the center of that entertainment sat with their backs turned in the corner of a table.
Hugo glanced sideways at Kael.
"...Hey. What exactly did you write in that letter?"
"That it would be safer for the North not to move."
"Wasn't that the letter you sent a few days ago?"
"Six days ago."
"But the rumor about her registration is already flying up and down the highway. That means she registered before the letter even arrived... Hey, your letter wasn't late. Their side was simply faster."
Kael set down his cup and opened his flow. He could not understand it. A demonstration to check the imperial family—removing the family name made the gesture worthless. Heartbreak from the broken engagement—that person was not the sort to lift a sword out of emotion. To her the sword was the duty of a successor, never an outlet for feeling. If so, the only remaining interpretation—
She was coming to meet him with a sword.
The drunkard's joking words at the inn remained alone in the final column of his flow chart. The problem was that the joke sounded most plausible.
"...It's a dangerous board."
"Who? The Grand Duke's daughter? Hey, if she's the youngest Aura User she'll walk through the preliminaries."
"I'm not talking about the sword."
It was the crown prince's board. His former fiancée entering without her family name. How that fact would be recorded in the crown prince's eyes—the flow was not difficult to read, and because it was not difficult, it was ugly.
The imperial family assumes no responsibility for any deaths or injuries sustained during this competition.
* * *
The capital was different beginning with its outer walls. If Valk's walls were a fence, the capital's walls were a mountain range. The line before the gate stretched ten li, and Hugo craned his neck upward until it nearly broke before they had even entered the city.
"They say people built that? Stack a hundred slum alleys and it still wouldn't reach."
"They say alleys are the same everywhere."
"Correction. This isn't a spiderweb—it's a spider fortress."
The moment they passed the gate, Finn pressed his whole face against the carriage window.
"Uncle! The houses are piled up like mountains! What's that tower? What about the golden roof? Why are there so many people? Where is everyone going?"
"...Half to watch the Martial God Festival, half to sell to it."
Martial God Festival banners hung on every street—two crossed swords beneath a golden hawk. Street stalls sold portrait plaques of the participating swordsmen, and among them the plaque of the unknown swordsman holding a gray 'sword'—neither gray hair nor black coat—was said to be selling best of all.
The Grand Arena was a mountain laid on its side in the heart of the city. The gates closed for twenty-three years had opened, and the sound of stonemasons' hammers repairing the stands echoed across the entire slope. It was said to hold one hundred thousand. A stage where one drew a sword before one hundred thousand eyes. For a swordsman who had first learned how to live hidden, it was the most ill-fitting place in the world.
He had walked into it of his own accord.
The Martial God Festival registration office stood in the plaza before the Grand Arena. The line was long. The registrar asked for family name, teacher, and sword rank, offering a single snort when answered with "commoner," and repeated the process.
It was Kael's turn.
"Name."
"Kael."
"Family name."
"None."
The registrar's pen stopped; his nose prepared its snort.
"Teacher?"
"Wandering swordsman."
"Sword rank. Submit a certificate if you have one. If not, register as unranked—"
"I am registered as an Aura User. Southern Mercenary Guild certificate."
The registrar scanned the document, then froze at the affiliation column.
Gray Fang.
The hand holding the pen halted. His gaze rose slowly. The snort had already been forgotten.
"Gray... Could it be... the one from Valk."
"Will it be registered or not."
"It will! Of course it will!"
The registrar's voice rose half an octave. At that sound, half the line in the plaza turned. The word "gray" raced through the queue like lightning.
It's the Gray Swordsman. The one who defeated Geralt. He really came.
The eyes of every swordsman in line changed at once—curiosity, fighting spirit, wariness, hostility. A hundred flows drove into Kael's back simultaneously.
"...Hey, you've become a full-blown spectacle."
"I'm used to it."
"Sure, you would be. This is my first time standing next to you!"
The certificate emerged, entry number included.
Participant number 712. Kael. Unaffiliated. No family.
"Seven-hundred block! I win!"
While Finn pocketed his two copper coins, the registrar offered the regulation plaque and added an explanation.
"Preliminaries begin in five days. With so many participants, we'll filter them through group round-robin. Sixty-four advance to the main tournament. From the main bracket onward it is one-on-one single elimination. The matchups will be drawn and revealed at the opening ceremony. Also—from the main stage, real blades and aura are permitted, so please sign the oath."
The lodging was the second floor of a trading-company outpost Dorothe had rented. As they unpacked, the outpost master came upstairs with a note.
Arrival confirmed. I've already secured a front-row seat. By the way, there's a rumor my brother is personally examining your matchup. Don't put too much faith in the word "lottery."
— Collector
"...Hey, is that from the princess? What does it say?"
"Not to trust the lottery."
"What does that... Ah. Aah. Hey, does that mean you could face one of the Seven Swords from the very first round?"
"No matter who I face, what I must do remains the same."
Though the words left his mouth, Kael's flow pointed to a different square. If a hand was manipulating the draw, the most vicious matchup that hand could arrange was not one of the Seven Swords.
It was the name of a certain person from the North who had registered without a family name.
* * *
At the same time, in the North.
Elise received a dispatch envelope in her office. Origin: Southern Valk. The instant she saw the sender's name, the hand holding the envelope stopped.
Kael.
Walter, in the middle of his report, closed his mouth. Maid Lina, bringing tea, froze. Time in the office hung suspended on a single envelope.
"...Your Highness?"
"Leave us."
Even after the door closed, Elise could not open the envelope for a long while. It was the first time in ten years. That he had sent her something first—not a reply to an order, not a report, but writing his own name with his own hand.
The hand that broke the seal trembled, and this time she did not hide the tremor.
Three lines.
I am entering the Martial God Festival.
It is His Highness the Crown Prince's board.
It is safer for the North not to move.
Kael
Elise read the three lines, then read them again. It was a warning—dry, precise, without even an honorific. Yet on the third reading she found herself smiling, and on the fourth the corners of her eyes burned.
That person had lifted a pen to tell her it was dangerous. For ten years her safety had been his duty. Duty had ended with the letter of resignation. It had ended—yet these three lines were not duty. In a place without salary, without orders, without contract, he had for the first time written of her safety by his own will.
Whatever the warning contained, the fact that the warning had arrived touched her first.
"...I'm sorry."
She spoke the words aloud, then corrected the direction of her apology. She was not sorry for ignoring the warning. She was sorry for accepting it while knowing she would ignore it.
On the fifth reading she noticed one more thing. There was no honorific. It did not begin with "Your Highness—". Nor did it use anything else. The first line opened directly into the body. There were no visible traces of writing and erasing, yet she now knew how to read that empty space.
Someone who had crumpled five sheets of paper understood what kind of defeat an empty honorific represented. A person she did not wish to call by title, yet could not yet call by name—the answer chosen on the cliff between them had been silence.
"...That will do. For now."
Elise pressed the letter once to her chest, then placed it not in the drawer but inside her bosom. In the same place he kept his, without either of them knowing. From inside her collar came the faint sound of the wolf's fang brushing the paper's edge.
Then she opened the door.
"Walter."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Move the departure forward. Dawn after tomorrow—for the capital."
Walter's eyes moved between the envelope and her face.
"...May I ask what the letter said?"
"That the North should not move."
"...Yet you are going."
Elise picked up her sword belt and, for the first time in three months, laughed aloud.
"The North does not move. The Northern Grand Duke's daughter does not move."
The clear ring of a sword sliding home echoed.
"Elise moves."