Of equal note to the confirmed authenticity of these memories and dreams is a fact that many of the early researchers failed to take into account. While there is little doubt that what our subjects experience are the true memories of those who lived and died before our world was as it is, these memories often contradict each other in strange ways. For instance, two of our subjects inherited the memories of two acquaintances. However, this was not immediately apparent because the remembered appearance and personality of each acquaintance differed between our two subjects’ recollections. This is not, however, an implication of the authenticity of the memories – only their accuracy to real events. The broad strokes and important details are mostly the same – the “unimportant” details, those that so often serve as reference points for researchers, differ, as memories do.

-From “Inherited Memories: A treatise on the old world’s legacy and its connection to magical mechanics” by Ahbrim Pallacce. Dated 104 YT

On the road to Kivv: 243 YT, Autumn. Eleven days after the execution of Marga Zelenko

As they walked, Hilda leaned against her sister’s shoulder, and with her growing strength, each step was easier. Her legs felt so sore she thought they would shrivel up and fall off, yet she grew more steady as they walked. Kamila was a silent pillar beside her, hands encased in blood-flecked gauntlets. The plates of those gauntlets shifted slightly with the sisters’ movement, but did not ever slide away to reveal unclenched hands.

“Hey,” Hilda said, looking out at the landscape. Trees still covered most of the landscape, interrupted by the occasional hamlet in the distance, but those little villages were getting closer together and the trees thinner in the woods around them. The villages sat placidly – the other day, one villager had come out to wave at the passing travelers, and Hilda had waved back, but otherwise they passed through the land as though it were abandoned.

The sisters had moved on that day with some extra food in their pack, with a thermos of medicinal brew for Hilda, but they wouldn’t stop for the evening. They moved on, eyes fixed on their destination.

Today, the morning dew was still on the leaves of trees and the tips of grass blades. The memory of a dream still stuck in the front of her mind. In the dream, Hilda had watched the eyes of her rival as ash fell from the sky around them. The man in the dream had a soft, sad look to him, even as he spoke threateningly to Hilda: “Don’t get in my way again, Ofer. You’re trying to delay the inevitable, when all we can hope to do is survive and move on.”

A strange dream, yes – the ash in the sky was a foreboding sight. But Hilda felt secure this morning, safer than she’d felt in many days.

Kamila spoke distantly, more like a bodyguard than a sister. Hilda felt resentful and pleased at the same time, concern for her kin overridden by a vengeful sort of malice: Stew in your own guilt for a while. You deserve it.

As they passed under the boughs of a great oak, Kamila finally spoke so that Hilda could truly focus on the words. A warm mist hung over them, held down by the oak’s leaves. “After we save everyone,” Kamila began, and Hilda felt the depth of longing and even denial in that hopeful thought. “I’m going to get in contact with the Adma. Maybe there’s some way that I can help them from here, get them into Gaurlante.”

Hilda never paid as much attention to the news of distant lands as she thought she should, but Kamila had mentioned the Adma – always quietly, in private, a little ashamed of the thought – a few times in the past. In recent years the group had been agitating in the southern reaches of the Invictan Empire, those parts of the Crescent Land held under uneasy occupation but never quite incorporated. In the uneasy quiet after Kamila spoke, Hilda found herself falling back on what her mother used to say.

“You trust the Adma?” she asked, affecting incredulity. “They’re violent and vengeful.” She tried to muster up the energy for a dismissive snort. Couldn’t do it.

“Exactly, yes,” Kamila retorted quickly. “That’s what we need.”

Hilda did not respond. She tried to lean away from Kamila a bit, but her legs grew heavier as she did, and she nearly stumbled. Kamila’s arm tightened around Hilda’s shoulder and the two came together again, Hilda resting most of her weight against her sister. They walked like that until they passed the lightly babbling creek that bent around shimmering rocks. They stopped there for a few minutes, to rest and drink, refill their canteens and wash their faces. Kamila rolled up the legs of her trousers above her knees and submerged her feet till they touched the silt at the bottom of the water, buffeted by the current.

She turned, and river-water, warm under the autumn sun, ran down Hilda’s face. Kamila took in a deep, steadying breath, struggling to make her hands stop shaking. “What are you going to do?” she asked. Hilda didn’t respond, but only took another handful of water and threw it on top of her head. She scratched at her scalp with a fury of impatience. “After we get to Kivv, I mean,” Kamila said.

“Rest.” Hilda’s face was reddened, her lip curled under her front teeth. She would not meet Kamila’s eyes.

“You’ll go to the monastery, won’t you? They’ll have to name you a Reaper now.”

“Yeah,” Hilda said flatly. “That too.” She ran her fingers through her hair before replacing and adjusting her hat.

“You can’t just move on from this, can you?” Kamila asked, her tone almost accusatory. Hilda stiffened. “They killed Mom, and a lot of other people too.” The older sister leaned forward, thinking to push the question, to finally get through to her sister, to understand why she couldn’t feel anything from her anymore.

Where she should have felt her sister’s presence, a comfortable warmth and an aura like the scratch of flannel wool, there was only a cold wall, the salt of the sea, silence and furtive distrustful glances. Finally Hilda leaned forward, herself, and looked straight into Kamila’s eyes. There she saw iron, iron she was used to seeing only in the mirror.

“You can’t move on,” Hilda said. “I have to. I’m never going to forget, but you’re the one who doesn’t ever want to move on.” She chuckled. “It’s because you don’t know how to mourn properly. You couldn’t think of any way to move on besides turning your back on everything. And you couldn’t manage that, so instead…”

Hilda looked away, and the iron was gone. “It’s still a week to Kivv at this rate, isn’t it?”

“Right,” Kamila said. “I think so. Look there.” She pointed to the west. “That’s Lake Zabir on the horizon. The rust gates should be just another week’s walk now, even if we don’t speed up much more.”

“Good.” Hilda smiled, and Kamila saw but did not feel the warmth there. “It’s been a difficult journey, of course, but we’re going to be okay, Kamila. We’re going to survive and make it home again.”

Kamila nodded, pulled her feet from the water, and turned to the northeast. As she was lacing up her boots, Hilda suddenly spoke behind her. Kamila felt a cold wind grow suddenly hot.

“We’re being followed,” Hilda said. As Kamila looked up toward her, she inhaled slowly, her arms stretched out to either side and toward the ground, fingers splayed out. The tips of her fingers tingled in the sudden warmth around her, and even when she closed her eyes she thought she could see a distant figure, short and human-like, but indistinct, making its way down the road towards the two sisters. Hilda opened her eyes, and through the wind beginning to whistle in her ears, Kamila spoke.

“Maybe Zoe followed us. Or one of the other Invictans. But…” a pause. “I can’t see anyone out there, even –” another pause as Kamila stood up and struggled onto the tips of her toes. “No. Nobody. Can you tell me anything about them?”

“They’re a bit short?” Hilda ventured. “And… there’s something familiar about this person. Like I know this presence, but…” There was a memory there. Hilda stood on the edge of a great expanse of sand at the edge of a glass expanse, adjusted her sweat-soaked shirt-cuffs, and turned to smile reassuringly at a woman in a dark green jacket. She brushed a curl of hair out of her face and stared intensely out at the sand.

The memory cut off suddenly, and Hilda blinked. “Who…?” She shook her head to clear it of the fog. “I can’t tell who exactly is following us, but they’re familiar. And more than that…” She spoke without thinking much. “I feel like I’ve known them for centuries. But… who?” She turned to Kamila. “We should pick up the pace for a while. Maybe once we get into more open terrain, we can take a look back and see if we can figure out who’s following us. But until then…”

“It could be Invictan.” Kamila’s fist clenched. “If it is they could shoot us down with their rifles before we get the chance to do anything, so we can’t let them get close enough for their weapons.”

“Right,” Hilda said.

As the sisters continued walking, still supporting each other’s weight (though Hilda pulled away from time to time to take a few steps on her own), the sun finally reached its peak in the warm autumn sky. And the one who followed them passed by the river where they’d rested, and looked out at the road ahead, and glanced down at the well-trodden earth. In the distance, far behind, the one who followed could hear the faint thrumming of a storm or a machine, sending up eddies in the air. A gift of peace hung over the follower, who glanced over one shoulder then back toward the way the Zelenko sisters had gone. Tight-laced boots raised tiny clouds of dirt along the path.

Far ahead, Hilda’s fingers began to itch as the silence of a vast open stretch of land deepened around the two sisters. “When we get to Kivv…” Hilda said.

“Yeah?” Kamila perked up a bit. “Something you want to do?”

“I’ll go to the accordion shop. Maybe they’ll let me borrow one…”

Kamila sighed. “We don’t have any money, but we have information that could save everyone.” She placed a hand on Hilda’s shoulder, and Hilda flinched away, grabbing at the spot wit her opposite arm. Kamila took a miniscule step away, silently, still letting Hilda lean against her. “The least they can do is let you have a damn accordion,” Kamila said. “You deserve that much. And when we go back to Etyslund, we’re going to get everything back.”

“How much of it is left?” Hilda glanced over at Kamila, a sad smile on her lips. “We still don’t know what they did after we left. And it’s been…” Hilda paused, and groaned quietly. “How long has it been?”

“A week, two days, and about nine hours.” Kamila slowly reached to wrap an arm around her sister, and this time, Hilda did not shrink away, though she shook almost violently. “There’s no point in wondering what happened to the people back home. We’re going to get back there and we’re going to kill the Invictans. That’s the same whether everyone is fine or whether the soldiers killed them all. What we do from here… it’s the same.”

“I don’t want that,” Hilda said. “Not knowing, just moving forward the same no matter what really happened…”

“It’s the only way we have.” Kamila picked up the pace, and to her surprised satisfaction, Hilda kept up without trouble. The two sisters made their way down the worn path to Kivv.