As a child I was sold

For the glory and pride of the jewel of the North;

Comforting Shekhinah taking my hand from the East;

Vengeful spirit whispering remembrances from the West;

And the South behind me, bound by my will to forget.

I stood

And watched the sun rise

While the beautiful and kind Gardeners waited

For their Hunter to return with the fruit of sorrow

From the desolate garden my mother burned

From the abandoned city whose stone walls my father shook

For their Hunter to return, and abandon that brief bout of freedom again.

-“Hunter’s Lament”, author unknown, circa 11 YT

Kivv, 243 YT, Mid-Autumn. 14 days after the death of Marga Zelenko.

With the festival officially over, the market was much quieter than it had been for a while, but still - Kamila didn’t like how close the crowd felt. There were dozens of people in sight and she couldn’t possibly keep watch over all of them. In the discomfort, she flexed her fingers and let the sliding metal plates of her gauntlets cover her hands, retract, and cover her hands again. Across the open space of the market, she caught Devani’s eye – the Orrmisti woman tried not to show any reaction. But it was obvious to Kamila that she simply didn’t want to interact.

Kamila had an excuse now, though. Devani couldn’t turn her away a second time. In her mind she replayed her earlier conversation with Antonin Voloshko:

“I have told you before, and though I am sorry, the decision remains the same. Kamila Zelenko, you are not, and will not be, a Mirshal Reaper.” Standing in the garden at the base of the Reaper Monastery, Kamila set her jaw. A year ago, she might have hung her head in shame and disappointment, but now… looking at the Monastery, it didn’t seem so important. After all, it was just an edifice of stone, surrounded by cultivated plantlife. Pruned and controlled.

“I know. I understand,” Kamila said. “But I’m strong enough, aren’t I? I can still help. I want to help. I want to…” She flexed her fingers, her nails bit into her palms. “…make things better…”

“You can help.” Antonin nodded, a sly smile on his face. Kamila grew wary for a moment. He was holding something back… “But the Reaper’s path is not yours. However… There are those who join us who are neither Reaper nor Sower.”

“What do you mean? There isn’t a third monastery, is there?”

Down the street she walked, coins jingling in her pocket. Devani blinked in surprise at her approach, and Erik looked away from his force, raising his goggles for moment. His eyes were dilated from the intense light and he quickly lowered his goggles again after the brief moment of eye contact across the market. Kamila quickened her step and approached the stall.

Behind Devani and Erik, a metal rack stood with a cloth backing, holding blades and weapons of all descriptions. A large spear, feathers hanging from the point where tip melded with shaft, lay above the rest of the weapons. Finely-crafted repeating crossbows, wood reinforced with steel, sat in a row overlooking the sheafs of bolts laid out on a table. Under that table, a large chest sat. A set of kitchen knives, wrapped in leather, gleamed in the early-afternoon sun. Kamila glanced over all of them, and then her eyes caught on the sword she’d been looking over the previous time she’d come to the market.

For a festival dedicated to taking things slowly, it was odd to see a weapon shop operating right out in the open. But the festival was, after all, officially over. Besides, Kamila thought, Devani probably didn’t understand the significance of operating a weapon shop on a day like this. Nobody, especially in a time like this, would hold it against her.

Before Kamila had reached the stall or had the chance to say anything, Devani leaned forward and put her hands on the front table. “I already told you two days ago, we’re not selling to you, we don’t know you.” Kamila growled low in her throat – what, her money wasn’t good? – but calmed herself with the reminder that Devani and Erik probably distrusted her, as a stranger who hadn’t been seen around the market before. After all – it had been so long since Kamila was last in the city.

“You don’t know me, but you do know Antonin Voloshko, don’t you?” she said, and Devani’s eyes widened in surprise.

“No third monastery,” Antonin said with a light chuckle. “Nothing so plain as that. But listen, Kamila – you should know that just as there are gardeners in the world – Reapers and Sowers, for instance – there are hunters in the world. If you wish to be one of them, you have the strength for it, the resolve, the determination. Your sister is suited to be a Reaper and you are not – but what is good for one may not be good for another. Because, Kamila Zelenko,” and with her name on his lips Antonin smiled, “you are right – you are strong, stronger even than many Reapers.”

“And what does it mean to be a hunter?”

Antonin’s mouth became a flat line and he said, “Firstly, you must never speak of your role to another soul – not even another in Mirshal, not even your own family. Officially, you are a free agent.”

“And unofficially?”

Devani grunted in undisguised distaste. “So Antonin sent you, did he? That man’s always sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. Trying to tell me who to sell my wares to…”

“So you do know him,” Kamila said, relieved.

“Yeah, I know him,” Devani said. “Now why don’t you tell me what you want before I change my mind about knowing him?”

“Antonin said you’d know what I need.”

The forge fell silent then, and it was only once the flame was no longer burning that Kamila realized she’d been raising her voice to speak above the noise. Erik turned toward Kamila, arms crossed, and Devani stepped away from the table. “Did he say that, now?” Devani asked, speaking slowly, emphasizing each syllable. Her lips were pursed, her eyes never quite meeting Kamila’s. “Alright, then. We have exactly what you need. Erik, get it.”

Erik bent down next to the table of bolts and began to undo the clasps on the large chest there. He reached inside, and Kamila heard the sound of more clasps coming undone. She heard the jangling of keys and the clicking of locks, and the entire time Devani stood, awkwardly looking at Kamila but never meeting her eyes.

Finally Erik finished whatever it was he was doing, and reached deep inside the chest – it looked like the entire upper half of Erik’s body disappeared inside, as though he were reaching under the ground itself. When he returned, he held a gleaming black sword, the light from the sun reflecting blue in points off of the blade’s flat. He held up the weapon to inspect it, and Kamila saw a scabbard in his other gloved hand. Erik sheathed the weapon – the scabbard looked ordinary despite the blade’s strikingly strange appearance – and carried it over to the table. To her faint surprise, Kamila saw a trickle of blood running from the glove in Erik’s right hand. Kamila almost imagined she could hear the blade singing out. Calling for her, too, for her flesh.

Erik returned to the chest, and came back again with a repeating crossbow like those hanging on the wall – only this one appeared to be reinforced with gold rather than steel. Kamila blinked in surprise – why reinforce a material like wood with such a soft metal? Erik set the crossbow next to the sword and said, “Tell Antonin this little favor had better be the last one, alright?”

Without thinking, Kamila nodded.

“A spy,” Antonin said by way of explanation or reply. “An assassin, when necessary. And in the era we find ourselves in now, with enemies at our doorstep, making their way toward our home, that is quite necessary. If you choose to join us it will not be an easy path you walk, Kamila. You have an extraordinarily difficult mission. You, and your fellow Hunters, acting alone or together, are to kill Emperor Aivor of the Invictans.”

Kamila laughed. “Kill the Emperor? So Zoe was right, was she?”

Antonin, confusion on his face, tilted his head toward Kamila. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We really are going to kill God.”

“So does this thing have… I don’t know, a name or something?”

“A name?” Devani asked. “That’s silly. It’s a sword, not a cat.”

“Actually…” Erik began.

“Why don’t you just get out of here and forget we talked?” said Devani. “Please. You’re going to scare off my other potential customers.”

“Why?” Kamila exclaimed, looking over both shoulders at the market around her. “I don’t see many other people coming here anyway. Why would it scare other customers off for me to buy something? Isn’t that the point of a shop like this?”

Erik held up a finger to his lips and said, “Please, Kamila… quiet. The blade’s name, if you want to know, is Wallshaker. It’s an old weapon, passed down since the Aether War. So do be careful with it.”

At the mention of the Aether War, Kamila stared down at the scabbard and bit her lip. “Well…” she began. “Wait. Does that mean this is Desert tech?”

“Sort of,” Erik replied. “But I wouldn’t worry about that, it doesn’t draw any power so it can’t cause any desiccation. It’s just a very special blade, that’s all.”

At Kamila’s remark, Antonin’s brows furrowed and he folded his hands together. “That thing, Primordial in human flesh, is not a god. It is an Emperor, yes, but what is there divine in Empire?”

Kamila laughed aloud and grinned. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”

Antonin started to turn away. “You’ll be approached soon enough. For now, live. And take care of yourself. And, Kamila?”

Kamila had begun to turn away herself, to walk away from the Reaper Monastery she need never enter. She knew her sister was now being housed there, and a part of her wanted to run up the stairs to join her. Yet…

She looked over her shoulder. “Yes?”

And Antonin continued, “Don’t forget why you’re here. I know you made your decision to fight instead of giving in, to betray the ones who would have used you. I know that wasn’t an easy decision for you to make. Try to remember that strength.”

“That strength came at an awful cost,” Kamila said. “I don’t think you know it all.”

“Some costs are worth paying, Kamila. Even when you aren’t the one paying them.”

Without another word, Kamila turned away.

“How much?” Kamila asked, and Devani held out a hand, but Erik shook his head. Devani scowled toward Erik.

“Antonin is paying us for our services,” Erik said.

“And she should pay us for the weapon,” replied Devani.

The two began to bicker quietly between themselves, so Kamila simply left a handful of shining coins on the table and left, buckling the sword to her belt and slinging the repeating crossbow over her shoulder. As she held the hilt of the blade, she felt lighter, as though her steps were guided by a dancer’s instinct. The blade still called out for her flesh, but… she pushed that thought down. It was Karla, wasn’t it? The manifestation of those inherited memories, a manifestation which had grown to hate her –

She couldn’t blame it, but she couldn’t abide it either.

Kamila’s apartment was not far from the marketplace – a series of rooms in one of the old watchtowers overlooking the Rust Gates. It was Voloshko’s doing that she had the use of these rooms, for which she was of course grateful to him, but there was no denying that it was a rather cramped space. The tower’s interior was perhaps twenty feet in diameter (Kamila had no instrument with which to measure it), imposing stone stairs spiraling around central chambers which stacked upon one another.

Standing the doorway, she looked down at the floor, down at the hilt of the blade protruding from its slot on her belt. “Don’t forget…” she whispered to herself. When she put her hand on the blade she thought it sang out again for flesh, but really it was the other way around. She grimaced, but her movements were again practiced and dancelike with her hand held there as she stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. Testing her range of motion, she kept her left hand by her side, gripping the sword hilt, and lightly stepped through the rooms of the apartment. It almost made her want to laugh, how easy it was to move, but at the same time there was something in it that made her a little scared. Her movements were too easy.

Inside the apartment was a small kitchenette on the lower floor. Next to the door sat a row of several pairs of boots. Some were built for walking, some for distance running, some for combat. A block hung over the kitchen sink, a row of gleaming knives attached to it. there was a tiny table with only a single chair in the middle of the room, which Kamila danced and swayed around on her way up to the stairs. In the next room was the apartment’s electricity connection – an outlet in the wall which led to the thickly insulated wire running out from the tower and into the ground. Attached to this was a synthesizer keyboard. Kamila continued up the stairs to the next room, dominated by a thin bed. On either side, tinted windows looked out over the town. Kamila’s view of the marketplace was clear, her view of the common field was clear, her view of the gates was clear. But without standing atop the walls none would be able to see her.

On the bed, a small, fluffy cat stood up and stretched, meowed loudly at her. She groaned in the direction of the cat. One of the blankets on her bed was thrown askew; its corner made a convenient throwing weapon. She tossed the blanket at the cat, who, unfazed, simply allowed the sheet to land atop it. it collapsed into a sitting position, a lump near Kamila’s pillow, and purred contentedly.

“Stupid thing,” Kamila muttered, and made her way to the desk by the west window. On it sat a book, thick-leather-bound with cloth trimmings and a paper note resting atop the face. Don’t open until you’re ready, the note said. She crumpled it up, shoved it in her pocket, and picked up the book. The title was embossed lightly in the book’s cover – History of

She blinked, staring at the cover. It said

On the original arrangement of

Kamila, growling low in her throat, turned the book to look at its spine. It said

Don’t forget why

“What is this book,” she started, setting it on the desk in front of her and opening it. Inside the front cover, among lines of publication information she couldn’t be bothered to read, there was a