“My beloved son, my beloved daughters, I am old and tired. I am so sorry I could not be there with you, and soon the road will no longer be safe, and I am warned to stay away from the city. I want to come and join you, to be with you even if it is dangerous for all of us. I’d keep you safe out there, if I could. But the truth is, in those walls, you’re as safe as you’ll ever be. Maybe I’m of no use to anyone at all, but better here than there. There’s danger here in the south, danger to our east, and the outriders say that the Invictans are starting to move. This can’t continue forever.”

-From the letters of Stepan Zelenko

244 YT, Late Spring: Etyslund

“Antonin, I can’t just stay here.” Stepan leaned against the radio apparatus at the center of his half-ruined library. Even after all these weeks he hadn’t bothered to clean up the floor of the old office, discarded books lying about his feet.

As he waited for the delay to pass, he tapped his fingers against the wall, his feet shifting. Self-consciously he glanced down at the floor. For the first time in weeks, waiting there by the radio, Stepan bent down and picked up a book. It was a newer one, a volume bound in paper instead of cloth, parts of the cover ripped away. the title was scuffed away from the front, though when he turned the book on his side Stepan could read the book’s name. Modern heroes. The part of the front cover that was still readable depicted a semicircular table in the background, while the lower half of someone’s legs appears in the bottom of the foreground. The rest of the print – lower-quality ink-on-paper shipped in from Corod – was impossible to decipher.

“You can and you must,” Antonin’s voice said over the radio after a long pause. “You are needed in the south.”

“But I haven’t been doing anything in the south,” Stepan said. He was self-conscious when he spoke, he knew his protest sounded almost like a child’s whining. “I’m not needed in the south. I’m a relic, waiting around in an old building until the war finally comes past. And you know that. I’d…” Stepan sighed quietly, glancing over his shoulder at the table. Dust and pieces of ripped paper gathered under that table. On top, there was a single stack of papers, loose and uneven.

“Yes?” came the reply. Stepan blinked, not realizing how long he’d zoned out for. It must have been minutes if the message had gone through already, all the way to Kivv.

“Perhaps it’s time I paid a visit to the Well. I’ve certainly been avoiding it for long enough.”

While he waited, Stepan’s heart pounded in his chest uncomfortably. His breath was broken by nervous coughs. Finally, the voice on the radio said: “If you wish it. Obviously you will have to take the long way around, so as not to pass through Invictan territory, if you go. But if that is what you think is best, and if it keeps you away from the north…”

“Why do I need to stay away from the north anyway? You said I was ‘needed in the south’, but that can’t be true if you think –“

“Listen, Stepan, my old friend. Please, I need you to trust me here. It’s important. I…” Antonin’s voice sounded strangely pained. It was odd, unfamiliar, to Stepan’s ears. He hadn’t heard Antonin uncertain, or pained, or showing anything less than complete confidence, in so many years. “I need you to stay away from Kivv. Please.”

“My children are –“

“Stepan.” No delay. Stepan took a step back from the radio apparatus. He couldn’t have lost count of time that thoroughly. There was so little delay in the message! “I’m sorry. But You can’t come up here. Things are very… delicate in the North. I know you want to help, and I know you’re worried about your family. But they’re in safe hands.” Stepan clutched a hand to his chest, taking in a slow, deep, and steadying breath. “You can trust me. But I can’t trust that your presence in the north will be a positive one. It may… go awry. There may be those who…”

“I get the message,” Stepan said, monotone, trying not to let the surge of rage come through in his voice. “I get it. I’ll stay away. But you’d better be right about this, Antonin. If I lose them because of you, you know I’ll never forgive you.”

“I wouldn’t forgive myself,” came Antonin’s reply. Stepan reached for the Sower’s Gift, and a clarity came over him. Antonin’s voice carried notes of regret, and worry, and… he wasn’t lying. Stepan was sure of that. But he wasn’t certain of himself, either. Doubt, doubt plagued Antonin Voloshko. Even from so many miles away Stepan could hear the doubt in Antonin’s voice.

“I have to sign off,” Antonin said, and the radio fell to static. Stepan nodded slowly and stepped away from the radio. He stepped over the discarded books, moving quickly through the twisted hallways of the library. There were stones missing from their places, material lost during the battle and never recovered to be re-incorporated. He’d tried to put everything back the way it was, as close as possible, but some things were lost and couldn’t just be brought back.

Past the haphazardly-stacked shelves, past the piles of books shoved into corners, to the great double-doors that opened onto the setting sun. Stepan looked to the east. The mist was thick around the hills today, but he didn’t need to see to know. Out there in the distance… through the ground, through the roots and stones, through the wisps of his own breath on the air he felt the traces of the path to the east. To the south. Carakhte. It waited for him.