“To act is to have a goal. To act for action’s sake is to become a monster.”

-The Abrist Sixth Law

Kivv, the Wanderer’s Vale. 241 YT, Mid-Autumn. Two years before the death of Marga Zelenko.

“And I think those leaves there are just now starting to turn. So it wouldn’t be right to neglect that tree. Right? That’s why Zil-Antonin gave us this task.”

Aleks Zelenko beamed, taking a moment to adjust his grip on the massive bucket of water held in his grip. He looked over at his younger sister, who pulled her coat tighter around herself by way of a response and sighed. Hilda tried to smile back at Aleks, not to disappoint her eager kin, but she was tired and she missed the familiar, comforting sensation of a mug of slowly cooling tea cradled between her hands. The melody of reed and string and voice still rang in her mind, although the festival was so far away now. Aleks saw Hilda’s expression, and he grew dour and downcast. Hilda chuckled at that, just a little.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you need help with the bucket?”

“I’m fine,” Aleks said, continuing to walk. Hilda felt a tickling sensation from her side, but beyond her own body, as though something were causing her hair to stand on end. She blinked at Aleks, watching his movements. Sure enough, there it was, the Sower magic – with each step he took, the earth seemed to mold around his feet, balancing him, supporting him. His face reddened as he picked up the pace, and Hilda jogged to keep up.

“Careful, you’ll spill the water!” Hilda laughed as she passed Aleks, and turned around to face him.

She heard a splash as the liquid in the bucket fell over the rim. She looked down. The liquid was red-brown and sticky, staining Aleks’s hands as he struggled to keep a hold of the bucket. His expression of joy was a fixed mask, as though painted onto him. In his eyes, Hilda saw the reflection of fire.

She screamed and blinked, and the blood was water and the fire was only an old tree, its leaves reddening in the mid-autumn as it prepared to hibernate for the winter. Of course there was no fire – it was so cold. She was just imagining things. Hilda chuckled. Silly. I’m just…

Aleks scowled at Hilda. “You startled me,” he said. “You made me spill the water.”

“Well, maybe Voloshko shouldn’t be making us –“

“—Me, you mean –”

“—maybe Voloshko shouldn’t be making you carry a bucket of water halfway around the city. As if we don’t have irrigants to take care of these trees. What is the point?”

“You should know better than me, Hilda. Zil-Antonin wants you to remember this lesson, I’m sure. One day you’ll be asked to walk to the end of the world, isn’t that right?”

“That’s…” Hilda sighed. She stepped forward, and Aleks stopped just in front of Hilda. Hilda reached out and wrapped her hands around the water-slick, cold metal of the bucket’s handle. “I’ll take it,” she said quietly, and Aleks released it without a word. “I’m sorry for making you do it.”

The bucket was heavier than she had imagined. Aleks was small – smaller than her, though he was older – but he was stocky and strong, strong like Kamila. Hilda turned and slowly, gingerly, began to carry the bucket.

They came to the base of the chestnut tree, and Hilda bent down next to it with the bucket. She tilted it lightly forward until it struck the trunk, and the water sloshed over the edge in waves, shaken by the uneven impact, her unsteady motions. The pulses of water drained down the side of the tree trunk and darkened the earth into which its roots dug.

“Don’t worry about it, Hilda,” Aleks said from behind. “I’m here for you. And hey – after this, we’ll go back to the street and we’ll drink tea and watch the birds, and you can show me those new songs you say you’ve been learning.”

Hilda smiled, a smile she felt in her cheeks and ears, and returned the bucket to an upright position. She rose to her feet, turning around toward Aleks. She’d give herself just a moment to catch her breath, then pick up the bucket.

When she turned, she found herself face-to-face with her mother.

No – I don’t --

Her mother hung upside down, her eyes bulging and wide and dry and blank. Her mouth hung open, swollen tongue grown blue inside as the flesh around it began to rot. Streams of blood ran down her face and through stringy, salt-ringed, soaked hair. Hilda fell back, clapped her hands to her face, and looked up. A spear, red and black and silver iron, ran through both of her mother’s legs, fastening her to the treebranch. “Mom!” she screamed, and she glanced over to Aleks, but it wasn’t Aleks. Zoe Bari loomed over her, laughing, and bent down until their eyes were even. Then she was Plato Arap, the detached soldier who chuckled drily as he pronounced death.

This isn’t --

Then Plato Arap was gone, and it was Kamila instead, and her gauntleted fist was screaming toward Hilda’s face. She wrenched her eyes shut, turned her head away, and tried to raise her hands to defend herself. She tried to speak the Words in her mind, to fray the Veil, to reach beyond and retrieve her weapon, or just to redirect Kamila’s strike, but the Words failed her. It was as though everything she had learned was erased from her mind – only the knowledge that she was supposed to know.

But Kamila’s fist never struck Hilda, and when she opened her eyes it was Aleks who wrapped his arms around Hilda’s shoulders, whispering “What’s wrong? What’s happening? Hilda… please talk to me…” Hilda looked up over Aleks’s shoulder, choking, desperate to see her mother’s face again but –

This isn’t real –

She was gone. Aleks was in a panic, practically babbling at this point, as Hilda struggled to order her thoughts. She allowed herself to be dragged up to her feet, and noticed idly that the bucket was upturned, all the water within poured out. Voloshko – no, Zil-Antonin – would be so disappointed, wouldn’t he?

This –

“Hilda, please talk to me,” Aleks said, clearly trying not to break into an incomprehensible blubbering. “I don’t know what’s wrong but you can’t tell me nothing’s wrong, you can’t, you just –”

“I… I’m fine, Aleks, I think I just imagined something awful. But it wasn’t there.”

“What? What did you imagine, Hilda?” Aleks took a step back, his hands still on Hilda’s shoulders. “What are you seeing that I’m not?”

She looked over his shoulder at the city burning around them.

I’ve never seen a city on fire –

This is not real – wrong place, wrong time –

“Please, Aleks, don’t worry so much.” Hilda tried to give a soft smile, what she imagined would set Aleks at ease. A little self-deprecating, a little self-pitying perhaps, but not too much. “I’m just stressed out, and I’m imagining things. That’s all there is to it. you don’t need to worry yourself so much.”

“Hilda, I’m your brother. It’s my right to worry.”

“And it’s my right to tell you not to worry. At least not so much, okay? I think I just need some tea.”

Aleks nodded quickly, eager to go along with anything. “Okay, that’s fine. I’m sure Zil-Antonin will understand. We’ll go back to the street and we’ll get you some tea, and you can just relax for a while. It is a festival day after all. Come on, let’s –”

As Hilda reached out to take the outstretched hand, its fingers convulsed and folded in on themselves, and Hilda’s face was spattered with blood. Aleks fell forward, his body leaking hot blood onto Hilda as he landed heavily atop her. Zoe Bari, her spear slick and dripping, readjusted her stance and took a step forward. “Don’t forget why you’re here,” she said. “I let you go. It’s about time I finished the job,” she said, grinning, and her speartip dove for Hilda’s throat.

Three youths arrived in Kivv today with news. Two are Mirshal. Will convene council after the Sixth Festival is over.

-Warden’s logbook, Autumn 243 YT, Kivv’s Rust Gates.

Outside Kivv. 243 YT, Mid-Autumn. 12 days after M—

After –

Hilda lay on her side, staring over her own hand, fingers curled up. At the edge of sleep, she barely noticed the glowing of the moon above. To her eyes, the makeshift cairn -- shoddily constructed from smooth river stones by unpracticed hands unused to grief – had its own light. It was the only light in her whole world. It…

Her eyelids were heavy flecked with salt tired. So tired. She stretched out her hand, reaching toward the cairn, but otherwise lay still. It was cold and dark, and the wind was in the trees, rustling leaves. Hilda wished the leaves would stop rustling, that she could hear every movement out there in the woods. It would have been comforting to hear it all…

Hilda closed her eyes and tried to force herself back to sleep. Don’t think about

Don’t think about

Don’t think

Some time later she growled in frustration and scrambled up to her feet, walking away from the cairn and toward the trees. As the wind grew louder in her ears she felt the presence, Marga’s presence, dim behind her, distant, distant…

Don’t think

Don’t forget why you’re

“What am I going to do…” she whispered, sparing a glance over her shoulder for Kamila and Aleks where they lay asleep on the ground. Hilda looked toward the city – the Rust Gates were not far, perhaps an hour’s walk. As soon as the morning came they would enter through those gates and they would raise the city against the threat from the south. At least that was what Kamila said. Hilda just wanted to disappear rest.

Surely when they came to the city…

She could just…

“A city which survived the destruction of the old humanity. Its ancient gates now rusted to deep orange, blocks of stone overgrown with vines, Kivv still stands as the stronghold of the northern Vale, the social and cultural center of the Wanderer’s Vale, the largest city in the region, and home to the Mirshal orders.

And it will be the newest prize, the newest gem in Aivor’s crown, when the Vale becomes Invictan – Gesgin Vadis.”

-Declaration of the priest Zhiren to his private honor guard

Outside Kivv. 243 YT, Mid-Autumn. 12 days after the death of Marga Zelenko.

Passing under the rust gates, Kamila felt a light chill come over her, and she shivered. The wind was strong at her back still. The sounds of strings and reeds came from the street ahead, as festivalgoers and musicians and shop stalls lined both sides of the cobblestones. Behind them stood the cairn they had built for their mother the night before. Aleks’ words still stung: “We’ll be okay. Someday the memory will be a comfort, and not a curse.” What right had he to say such a callous thing? When they came to the gate, she couldn’t look Aleks in the eyes, and Hilda wouldn’t make eye contact with her either. Head forward, her jaw clenched and painfully tight, she walked with her family at her side into the city.

The gates stood open and Kamila passed through, the first of the three to cross that uncertain threshold from the “wilderness” to the “city.” She stood for a moment at the edge of the shadow the gates cast. The sun was high above in the late morning, and the shadows were still long, so by the time she crossed she was already well into the city. But still she lingered at the edge, staring down at her feet and at the line the shadow formed in front of her. Aleks stepped heedlessly over the barrier, shaking Kamila from her reverie. Hilda stopped beside her, glancing up at her in clear confusion. She thought of the sounds she’d heard last night, Hilda sobbing as she stared at the cairn. Kamila’s fingers curled and she stared down at her clenched fist.

“It’s okay,” Kamila said. “We’re safe now.”

Hilda chuckled and shook her head. “You don’t know that.”

Hilda stepped over the threshold before Kamila did, and Kamila followed.