SZ – Aleks – good to hear from you again. Things here are going pretty much as they were before. How is everyone?

AZ – Fine. Hilda wanted me to tell you she’s doing well and learning a lot. And Kamila’s been working with the militia. I think she’s researching something going on in the south but I don’t have any more details than that.

SZ – Oh, is it a secret?

AZ – Apparently. I don’t know. Are you alright?

SZ – Luca’s in the east. The militia’s out here. It seems like the village is safe.

AZ – You told me that. Are you alright?

SZ – Everyone is fine. We’ve been rebuilding well. There’s no sign of any further problems in the area. Even some of the nearer villages are free of Invictan holdouts for now. I hear that some of those who fled to Kivv might even be able to return soon.

AZ – I know. I’ve been working in the camp a little bit, so I hear the rumors. Are you alright?

AZ – Dad?

SZ – I’ll be alright. You worry about yourself.

AZ – Dad?

-Message-wire log from the 2nd and 3rd weeks of Spring, 244 YT.

244 YT, Spring: Kivv. Outside the Sower Monastery.

Purple iridacaea petals drooped under the light rain outside, springing back up after each drop ran along the length of the petal and fell to the dirt. A light cake of mud spotted Aleks’ palms and back, the seat of his pants, the ends of his long coat. His fingers worked the dirt around each flower as he probed for the starts of weeds, grass, or insect eggs. Surrounded by the waves of purple, of white crocus and yellow sunflower, Aleks sat bent. His hood was pulled up over the top of his sandy hair, the vest underneath tight against his back.

Outside there were a few people walking the streets – enjoying the first rainfall and the early warmth of spring. It would soon grow even warmer – though the air still had a little chill to it, none would freeze out here. Even the birds and insects were coming back, though Aleks could not bring himself to be thankful for that.

The insects and crawling things were only natural, Arien had said when he’d first seen Aleks tending the garden. Aleks paid that no mind. Natural they might be, but the garden was his – his refuge, his place to protect against the world. Natural had nothing to do with it. Natural had no right to impose upon his little garden. After all, it was just a little place. A few feet of earth behind the wall of the Sower Monastery, cultivated and peaceful. Was that so much to ask?

When Aleks placed his fingers in the earth he called upon the Sower’s Gift. It was over him already, but he directed it – shifted it – channeled its power into the earth. Tendrils of distant awareness snaked into the earth and spread, searching for roots. When he encountered the underground root system of one of his precious flowers, Aleks coaxed it, Cultivated it, made it to grow out from its source earth so that it could soak up the soil and become one with the soil. He guarded against transplant shock and hardened the sheaths of the roots. He made the flowers unfurl and grow proudly against the rain above.

After a time, Aleks removed his fingers and let the Sower’s Gift fall off of him. He looked up at the rain above. A coldness took hold of him for a moment, far deeper than his rain-chilled skin.

He heard a voice from nearby, a familiar and welcome voice. “Hey, Aleks, can I ask you about something?”

When Hilda sat beside him, Aleks immediately noticed the smile on his sister’s face. She seemed brighter and happier than usual. He wasn’t sure if it was just because he wasn’t using the Gift, but Hilda’s smile was infectious. Aleks grinned back and moved to sit back against the stone wall, his knees pulled up toward his chest. He watched Hilda watching the flowers bloom. On a whim, Aleks pushed his fingers into the dirt again, sent out his tendrils, and set the flowers to swaying lightly. There was little enough breeze in the air, but the petals and leaves began to wave, gently, while standing tall in the rain. When Aleks put his Cultivation into the plants, their colors seemed a little brighter, a little warmer.

“Go ahead,” Aleks said.

“Do you think about the past a lot?” Her voice was low and quiet.

“Sure I do,” Aleks said, pulling his fingertips from the earth and taking a deep, slow breath to calm himself. “Every day.”

“And…” She watched the flowers sway, and Aleks glanced over toward her again. Hilda’s expressions were often difficult to read but today she seemed all over the place – smiling now and then, yet her eyes looked as though she were staring into the middle distance, blankly, her mind unfocused.

“Why are you asking this now?” he said quietly. “Are you… did something happen?”

“I was just thinking about what happened,” Hilda said. “And I realized we never really talked about… I mean, not since we got back here…”

Aleks nodded. Far off to his left a young man walked down the street, his long coat whipping around him. The hood hung back, instead of sheltering his head from the rain, but he seemed unbothered by it. The man glanced toward Aleks and Hilda briefly, seemed to stop for a sliver of a moment, then turned and carried on down the street.

Aleks shook his head vigorously and looked back to Hilda. “I’d like to tell myself ‘there’s no point in dwelling on what we’ve lost, we just have to move forward.’ It’s what I try to do – it’s why I focus so much on my work these days.” He gestured toward the flowers in the garden in front of him. “And this – it keeps my mind off of things.” Aleks shrugged, and in Hilda’s face he saw the beginnings of what could have been reproach. “I just… I don’t want tot hink about it, I don’t want to think about the Invictans or their war either, I just want…”

“But we can’t do that, can we?” Hilda’s voice cut him off, gently, yet it still made his heart stick in his throat. Again, Aleks shook his head, droplets of the light rain leaping from his hair onto the grass and the flowers and the small brim of Hilda’s cap.

“No,” Aleks said, because he knew it was the truth even if he did not feel it. “I’m realizing it more and more.” It was obvious even when he talked to Doctor Amire, when he stood next to the growing camp and looked out over the walls and remembered that the storm was not truly over. It might never be. “We can’t just ignore bad things because they’re too painful for us to face.”

Hilda nodded, and then she blinked and cast her eyes to the ground. Her face became serious when she looked Aleks in the eyes again. “Do you think it’s a responsibility, or is it in our nature?”

“What?” Aleks blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Facing down the bad,” Hilda said. “Is it just that we have to do it? Because of our responsibilities? Because Reapers and Sowers have duties to the city? Or do you think…” She broke eye contact and glanced at the flowers. “Do you think there’s something in our natures which makes us this way?”

“It’s a responsibility,” Aleks said. “No question. I… thought that I could just hide myself away from the world, isolate myself, and stay ignorant. And I could. I really could.” He said it stubbornly, repeating himself as though that could make it more true. The Sower’s Gift was right there over him, a cloak he could have pulled tight over himself in a moment if he wished. Even when it was just beyond his grasp it was there, tempting him, warm, so warm. “I could ignore the people who are hurting around me.” He sighed. “But… I am a Sower, Hilda. That means something. What would it do, for anyone, if I hid? What would it do for myself or others? I…”

He thought of Arien, waiting inside the Monastery. For as long as they’d known each other, Aleks had thought of Arien as an open book – the kind of person who truly wanted to be a part of the world, who tried to make every moment of his life count. The way he talked, it seemed like he had so much energy. Yet Aleks, the one who just wanted to stay away from the harrowing conflicts of the world, knew that he was doing more, contributing more. Who interpreted and relayed the Adma’s messages to Voloshko, to Kamila, to other agents in the city and beyond? And who had taken the initiative to work with Doctor Amire?

Aleks sighed. “No, I have to try. It is my responsibility. But there’s no nature in it. If nothing pushed me to act, then I wouldn’t. I’d shut myself off from the world.”

The flowers swayed still under the light rain.

After a few seconds of silence, filled only by the pattering of water against the stones, Hilda spoke. “I feel like even if I wanted to shut myself off from the world, I couldn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“It haunts me,” Hilda said. “The world haunts me, I mean. Look at what’s happening all over the Vale, Aleks.” She held out a hand, gesturing toward the wall to their right. The camp stood under that wall, overlooked by its long shadow. “That’s not something we just need to think about, it’s something we can’t not think about. Can you imagine what would happen if I tried to ignore it, Aleks? There’s… I…” Her eyes were wide, her breath suddenly heavier.

“That sounds like something Kamila would say,” Aleks said quietly.

Hilda’s eyes narrowed. “And she’s probably follow it up with a bit about revenge, wouldn’t she?”

Aleks chuckled. “Ha, yeah.”

“Well I’m not Kamila. You… aren’t you haunted by what you saw, still? Didn’t you use your Scrying back in Etyslund? I know you can’t forget what you see that way.”

“I try not to think too much about it,” Aleks said. “I saw a vision, and inside the vision the Emperor of the Invictans… it was as though he knew I was there, in the memory. It’s just like a bad dream, Hilda. Just because you’re hearing someone else’s thoughts doesn’t mean they’re right.”

“I know that,” Hilda hissed. “You know sometimes I hear him, too?”

Aleks didn’t have to ask who ‘he’ was. The Aether-Touched. Plato Arap.

The first and only person Hilda ever Banished. By the look in her eyes it must have taken a great toll on her.

“It’s not as much as it used to be, back in the winter,” Hilda said. “But… I still hear him from time to time. In my dreams.”

Aleks glanced at the ground, and sighed. “So…”he began. “Do you ever –“

“When you sleep –“

A pause. Brother and sister chuckled nervously.

“You first…” Hilda said, pulling on the brim of her cap so it pushed her hair down a little. Solitary wavy strands hung in front of her eyes.

“Do you ever remember her in your dreams?”

“Yeah,” Hilda said. “A lot.” There was a soft smile on her lips, and Aleks couldn’t help but feel his heart warm a little bit. Hadn’t he told her that one day the memory of their mother would be a comfort and not a curse? “But more recently I just remember… other things.”

Aleks nodded. “The memories.”

“Yeah. Are you still talking to Doctor Amire?”

Aleks nodded. He thought of their long talks, almost weekly at this point, sometimes multiple times a week. Amire was convinced it was possible for Aleks to activate all of the dormant memories within his mind, if only he could find the right technique to draw them out. And to some small extent it was working, Aleks had to admit. He found that he could remember more and more of Raz’s memories with the passing of the weeks.

And…

There was more than memories there. There was knowledge. He pictured himself running through the ancient wiring and cables of the old world. All the centuries-dead machinery responded to his touch, in dreams.

“Yeah,” Aleks said. “Are you still talking to him?”

Hilda nodded. “Yep. And Kamila?”

Aleks shook his head. “She’s not willing to, I think. Doesn’t want to open up. I wonder if Amire scares her…”

“I told him what I know based on our… whatever they are. The…” Hilda’s hands made circles in the air as she tried to think of the words. “The encounters between our memories, I don’t know how to describe them properly…”

“Intersection of old minds,” Aleks said, recalling a passage from Inherited Memories, the book Amire had shown him.

“Right. They’re important, somehow.”

“They might hold the key to helping Kamila, I think,” Aleks said. “Helping her with whatever it is she’s going through.”

“Good,” Hilda said.

And…

“Does she talk to you often?”

“She’s been closed off ever since Etyslund,” Aleks said. “But I talk to her pretty often. These days she’s all business. She’s been training hard, tired all the time but won’t stop working…” He shrugged and pushed himself up to a standing position. The subject filled him with a looming dread he couldn’t describe. He glanced at the street, then across, to the Reaper Monastery standing tall and proud. “Has your magic learning been going well?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Hilda said, standing up slowly. She seemed a little unsteady on her feet, or at least hesitant. “I’ve been working on the precognition, the decision-reading, and tracking practice. In fact…” She flashed a smile, closed her eyes, and stood on the tips of her toes, hands stretched down and out. Her fingertips fanned out and Aleks felt a faint heat emanating from his sister. After a moment, she spoke again. “I can tell you where Zil-Antonin is… Amire… Kamila… Lucian…”

“Lucian?”

“I can feel their auras,” Hilda said quickly, brushing over Aleks’ question. “And of course, that’s just dealing with humans. If there were any Aether-Touched in the city I’d know immediately. But the more I practice on people, the wider my range will get. I’ll be able to pinpoint their locations instead of just knowing they’re there. That’s what Zil-Antonin says.”

“So ever since they made you a full Reaper you’ve been lear –“

Hilda cut Aleks off again. “It’s about precision,” she said. “Precision and range and detail.” She nodded. “And the more I practice, the better I’ll get at it. It’s like I’m learning entirely new senses I didn’t have before.”

Aleks nodded, glancing toward the flowers. “Yeah. Exactly.”

“I…”

“Are you going to…”

Hilda and Aleks laughed as they stumbled over each other’s words, and finally Hilda said, “I should go.” Her head was held higher and there was a smile on her face as she turned. “Places to be, you know.” She gave an energetic wave at Aleks, and he waved back slowly, hesitantly, as Hilda left the garden and set off down the street. There was a spring in her step that Aleks didn’t know what to make of.

He looked past the peaks of his garden’s flowers and to the camp to his east and south. The distant sound drifted to him – there were still structures going up every day. They could use his help, he imagined.

The rain picked up a little as Aleks made his way through the town, and by the time he passed by Amire’s office it was starting to pour a little. He pulled the hood of his cloak up over his head, let the long front-flaps hang down alongside him. He glanced up at the window of Amire’s office – inside, he could see the shadow of the man dancing on the wall as he paced. He strained, changed his angle, but couldn’t get a direct look at the doctor.

Aleks went on to the camp, and was stopped at a distance of a hundred yards from the entrance by a militia member. She held out a staying hand in the night-universal gesture of come no further. “Aleks, is it?” the guard said.

“Yeah,” Aleks replied, looking up and not recognizing her. “Where’s the other guy?”

“On leave,” the guard replied. “He mentioned you though. You’re here to help with the construction?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, as you can see –“ she jerked a thumb over her shoulder – “the crew is working over there.” Aleks looked in the direction she indicated and saw a cluster of men and women carrying sheets of metal, pieces of the buildings to be constructed. The materials were probably shipped all the way from Nie-Wyspa or perhaps Steriat. He couldn’t remember, was Almaydase known for its metalworks?

“I said they’re working over there,” the guard groused. “Are you going or not?”

“Oh, yes, of course.” Aleks nodded quickly and rushed off to join the crew. The work went by quickly, and it kept his mind focused, even when he let the Gift slip from his shoulders fully, when he faced the world without himself.