Boreas 3, Imperial Year 1642
Borderlands of Mercia, Central Mesos
The fire had burned down to embers, and the night was cold enough that Elara Greenhill could see her breath. She pulled her wool cloak tighter and stared into the orange glow, watching the patterns shift. Roderick sat across from her, sharpening a knife with slow, deliberate strokes. Rosalind was curled against a saddle, her eyes closed, though Elara knew she was not asleep.
"He is not going to thank us," Roderick said. His voice was a low rumble, like stones grinding together. Orc tusks framed his mouth, and in the firelight his green skin looked almost black. "Takeshi. Gregor. Whatever he calls himself now."
"I know," Elara said.
"He was always the silent one. Never wanted to be found."
"I know, Haruki."
Roderick's hand paused on the knife. "Do not call me that."
Elara looked at him. They had known each other for less than a year in their past lives – classmates, not friends. Haruki had been popular, athletic, a bit arrogant. Roderick was none of those things. The bombing had changed him, or perhaps the orc body had, or perhaps the twenty years of growing up as a green‑skinned outcast in a human‑dominated town. He was not the boy she remembered. None of them were.
"Sorry," she said. "Roderick."
He resumed sharpening. The sound was a soft shing every few seconds, rhythmic, almost meditative.
Rosalind opened her eyes. "My informant says he is serving a baron named Ethelred. Some petty lord in the eastern marches. Gregor is his sworn sword – a knight in full armor, the whole thing." She sat up, brushing straw from her red hair. "He has a reputation. Efficient. Cold. Does not drink, does not whore, does not laugh."
"That sounds like Takeshi," Elara murmured.
"Does it?" Rosalind's green eyes were hard. "Takeshi was quiet, but he wasn't cold. He lent me his notes when I failed that history exam. He helped Yuto carry his books when Yuto broke his arm. He was kind." She paused. "This man – this Gregor – he put down a peasant revolt last summer. Killed twelve people. No mercy, no hesitation."
Elara said nothing. She had heard the rumor.
"Maybe he had no choice," Roderick said. "A knight obeys his lord. That is how this world works."
"That is how feudalism works," Rosalind snapped. "We are not from this world. Or have you forgotten?"
Roderick looked at her. His red eyes were unreadable. "I have forgotten nothing. But I have learned to survive."
The fire crackled. Elara watched the embers and thought about the journal hidden in her pack – the one written in Japanese, the one she still added to when the memories came. She had been fourteen when the last piece clicked into place. The classroom. The explosion. The boy with the backpack. The faces of twenty‑eight other students and a teacher. She had wept for three days.
Now, at twenty, the grief was quieter. It did not go away. It just learned to sit in the corner of her chest, patient as a cat.
"We will find him," she said. "We will talk to him. If he wants to stay, we let him stay. But he deserves to know he is not alone."
Rosalind nodded. Roderick said nothing.
They slept in shifts, and in the morning they rode east.
Boreas 8, Imperial Year 1642
Castle Ethelred, Eastern Marches
Gregor Eisenhardt stood at the window of his quarters and watched the rain fall.
He was twenty years old, broad‑shouldered, clean‑shaven, with brown hair cropped short and gray eyes that had not shown warmth in years. He wore a padded jack under a mail shirt, and a longsword hung at his hip. His spurs were brass, his boots scuffed, his cloak plain wool. He looked exactly like a knight in service to a minor baron – unremarkable, efficient, forgettable.
Inside, he felt nothing.
That was not entirely true. He felt the rain on his face. He felt the weight of the sword. He felt the hunger in his stomach, the ache in his knees from kneeling in the chapel for three hours. But the things that had once mattered – joy, grief, anger, hope – those had faded years ago, like paint stripped from wood.
He remembered the bombing. He remembered his name – Takeshi Mori – and his face, and his mother's voice. He remembered the classroom, the flash, the blood. He remembered that he had died.
He had decided, at fourteen, when the memories fully returned, that he would not let them rule him. He would not become like the others – searching, longing, trying to rebuild something that was gone. He would live this life as Gregor Eisenhardt, knight of Castle Ethelred. He would serve his lord. He would fight his lord's enemies. He would die, eventually, and that would be the end.
It was simpler that way.
A knock at the door. "Sir Gregor? The baron requests your presence in the great hall."
Gregor turned from the window. "I will come."
The great hall was drafty and smelled of woodsmoke and old rushes. Baron Ethelred sat on a raised dais, a fat man with a thin beard and small, clever eyes. He was not a cruel lord – not intentionally – but he was weak, and weakness in a feudal lord bred cruelty in his knights. Gregor had learned that quickly.
"Ah, Gregor." The baron waved him forward. "I have a task for you. Sir Aldous has been causing trouble in the town again. You know how he gets."
Gregor knew. Sir Aldous was a knight of forty years, broad as a bull and twice as mean. He drank too much, gambled too much, and had a habit of visiting the brothels in the lower town. The women there feared him. The innkeepers feared him. Even the other knights feared him, because Aldous had the baron's ear and was not above using it to destroy a rival.
"What did he do?" Gregor asked.
"Beat a woman nearly to death. One of the whores." The baron said it flatly, as if discussing the weather. "Her pimp complained. I need you to talk to Aldous. Calm him down."
Gregor felt a flicker – not anger, not disgust, but something close. A memory of a peasant child crying, her face streaked with mud and tears, her father's body cooling in the dirt behind her. He had spared that child. His lord had not been pleased.
"I will speak with him," Gregor said.
"Good. He is at the Silver Tankard, most like. Do not be too harsh. He is valuable."
Gregor bowed and left the hall.
The Silver Tankard was a low tavern in the shadow of the castle wall, frequented by off‑duty soldiers and those who served them. Gregor pushed through the door and found Sir Aldous in a corner, a mug of ale in one hand and a serving girl pinned against the wall with the other. The girl was crying. Aldous was laughing.
"Aldous." Gregor's voice was flat. "Let her go."
Aldous turned. He was a large man, balding, with a red face and yellow teeth. His eyes were bloodshot. "Eisenhardt. Come to preach at me? The baron sent you, I'll wager." He released the girl, who fled through a back door. "I was just having fun. No harm done."
"You beat a woman last night. Nearly killed her."
Aldous waved a hand. "She was a whore. They're used to it."
Gregor felt the flicker again. He pushed it down. "The baron wants you to be more discreet. That is all."
"Discreet." Aldous laughed. "You are a strange one, Eisenhardt. No blood in you. No fire. I heard you killed twelve peasants last summer and did not even smile. What are you, a golem?"
Gregor said nothing.
"Get out of my sight," Aldous muttered. "I am tired of looking at your dead face."
Gregor turned and left. He did not look back.
Boreas 9, Imperial Year 1642
The Hills Above Castle Ethelred
Vladislav Eisenberg had been watching Sir Aldous for three days.
He lay prone on a rocky outcrop two kilometers from the castle – closer than he preferred, but the terrain offered no better vantage. The rifle was cool against his shoulder, the scope's crosshairs steady on the door of the Silver Tankard. He had learned Aldous's habits: the knight drank from the sixth hour until the tenth, then staggered into the alley behind the tavern to relieve himself, then returned to his quarters in the castle's outer bailey.
The alley was the kill zone. Dark, secluded, with a clear line of sight from the hillside.
Vlad had weighed the consequences. Aldous was a cancer: he had beaten three women to death in the past two years, crippled a serving boy, and extorted protection money from half the merchants in the lower town. His removal would save lives. The baron would mourn him briefly, then appoint another knight – but that knight would be warned by Aldous's fate. Fear was a useful tool.
The nightmare came. The classroom. The flash. The screaming. Vlad saw Aldous's victims – not their faces, but their absence, the holes they left in the world. He saw the women who would not be beaten, the children who would not be orphaned.
The balance is clear, he thought. This death brings more good than harm.
He settled the crosshairs on the tavern door and waited.
An hour passed. Two.
Then the door opened, and Sir Aldous stumbled out, belching, his tunic stained with ale. He turned into the alley, unbuttoned his breeches, and began to urinate against the wall.
Vlad breathed out. His finger found the trigger.
He did not fire immediately. He waited for Aldous to finish, to turn, to face the castle – because Vlad wanted the body to be found quickly. A lesson.
Aldous finished. He turned.
Vlad fired.
The rifle made a soft thump, muffled by the suppressor. Two kilometers away, the bullet struck Sir Aldous in the center of the chest, just below the sternum. The kinetic energy transferred instantly. The ribcage shattered. The heart – what remained of it – vaporized. Blood sprayed the stone wall in a fan of red and gray.
Aldous looked down at the hole in his chest. He had time to open his mouth, to draw a single, surprised breath. Then his legs buckled, and he collapsed face‑first into the mud.
Vlad cycled the bolt. The spent casing spun through the air, landing on the canvas beside him. He watched through the scope as a serving girl screamed, as guards ran into the alley, as a knight in mail knelt beside the body and shook his head.
Then he saw another figure push through the crowd.
Gregor Eisenhardt.
Vlad had not expected that. He watched the young knight – broad shoulders, cropped hair, gray eyes – examine the body without touching it. Gregor looked up at the hillside, directly at Vlad's position, as if he sensed something. But he could not see two kilometers. No one could.
Vlad lowered the rifle. He waited.
Gregor turned away. He spoke to the guards, his voice too distant to hear. Then he knelt beside Aldous's body and closed the dead man's eyes.
Vlad smiled. It was not a warm expression.
He reached into his pack and pulled out a small brass horn – not for signaling, but for speaking. He had designed it to amplify his voice over distance, a trick of acoustics and alchemy. He raised it to his lips and spoke, his voice carrying across the valley, echoing off the castle walls.
"Hark, thou who callest thyself a knight."
Every head in the courtyard turned. Gregor stood slowly, his hand going to his sword.
"A knight is not a knight when he becomes a pig. Thou beatest women. Thou crushed the weak. Thou sold thy honor for ale and a whore's tears."
The guards were drawing weapons now, looking around in confusion. The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
"I have rendered my judgment. Let this be a lesson to all who wear spurs: the sword of justice is longer than thou knowest."
Vlad lowered the horn. He packed the rifle, dismantled the blind, and walked away into the hills.
Behind him, Gregor Eisenhardt stood in the alley, staring at the empty sky.
Boreas 12, Imperial Year 1642
Castle Ethelred, Guest Quarters
Elara Greenhill had expected many things. A cold reception. A locked door. Perhaps even violence.
She had not expected Gregor Eisenhardt to look at her as if she were a ghost.
They sat in a small chamber on the second floor of the castle's guest wing. Rosalind had bribed a steward for access – fifty silver marks, a fortune to a commoner, a trifle to a merchant's daughter. Roderick stood by the door, his arms crossed, his tusks prominent. Elara sat across from Gregor, a small table between them.
He was thinner than she remembered. Not weak – his arms were corded with muscle, his hands calloused – but his face had a gauntness that spoke of sleepless nights. His gray eyes were flat, empty, like two stones at the bottom of a well.
"You should not have come," he said.
"We came because we remembered you," Elara said.
"I do not want to be remembered."
"Takeshi—"
"That name is dead." His voice was flat, too. No anger. No sadness. Just a statement of fact, like a merchant announcing the price of grain. "I am Gregor Eisenhardt, knight of Castle Ethelred. I serve Baron Ethelred. I fight his enemies. That is my life."
Rosalind leaned forward. "You were a human being once. You had friends. You had a mother. You—"
"I had a mother who died in the bombing." Gregor's eyes flickered – the first sign of life Elara had seen. "I saw her body in the darkness between lives. She did not reincarnate. She is gone. Forever."
The room went silent.
Elara felt her throat tighten. She had not known that. In the darkness, Mrs. Yamashita's light had been the brightest – and then gone. She had assumed the teacher had reincarnated like the rest. But the teacher was a different person. Mrs. Yamashita had not been in the classroom. She had been elsewhere in the school.
"I am sorry," Elara whispered.
"Sorry does not bring her back." Gregor stood. "I have given you my answer. Leave this place. Do not return."
He walked to the door. Roderick did not move to block him. Gregor paused with his hand on the latch.
"The voice in the hills," he said, not turning. "Three days ago. A man spoke from nowhere and killed Sir Aldous. He said he was justice. Do you know who he is?"
Elara exchanged a glance with Rosalind. They had heard the rumor – a mysterious assassin, a voice like thunder, a knight dead in an alley. They had assumed it was local politics.
"No," Elara said. "We do not."
Gregor nodded. He opened the door and left.
That night, Elara sat alone in the chamber, her journal open on her lap. She had written the date, the location, and a single line: Gregor refused. Mark him as a maybe.
She stared at the words for a long time. Then she added: He is grieving. We did not know about his mother. We should have known.
She closed the journal and hid it beneath her cloak.
Rosalind entered, carrying two cups of mulled wine. "He is a wall," she said, handing one to Elara. "I have seen walls with more emotion."
"He is hurting."
"We are all hurting." Rosalind sat on the bed. "That does not give him the right to push us away."
Elara took a sip of the wine. It was sweet and spiced, and it warmed her chest. "We cannot force him. We can only leave the door open."
"And if he never walks through?"
"Then he never walks through." Elara looked out the window at the stars. "But we will keep looking for the others. And maybe one day, he will change his mind."
Rosalind was quiet for a moment. "My informant has a new lead. A halfling innkeeper's daughter in the town of Millford. She has been asking strange questions – about people who remember another world, another life. The locals think she is mad."
Elara's heart beat faster. "Margot Larkspur."
"Miku Fujiwara, yes."
"How far?"
"Three weeks, if the weather holds."
Elara finished her wine. "We leave at dawn."
Boreas 15, Imperial Year 1642
Thornreach, Northern Boreas
Vladislav Eisenberg sat in his workshop, cleaning the rifle.
The bore was spotless. The bolt moved like silk. The scope's lenses were clear. He had no immediate need to fire it again – but maintenance was a discipline, and discipline was survival.
He thought about the knight he had killed. Aldous. The man had not suffered – the bullet had destroyed his heart before his nerves could register the impact. It was a cleaner death than Aldous deserved, but Vlad was not in the business of punishment. He was in the business of solutions.
He thought about the other knight – the young one with the gray eyes. Gregor. There had been something familiar about him. Not a face Vlad recognized, but a presence. A weight. As if the young man carried a burden that was not entirely his own.
Another reincarnator, perhaps, Vlad mused. One of the late arrivals.
He did not care. They were not his concern. He had lived a hundred and twenty years in this world, and he had learned that caring was a trap. It led to attachments. Attachments led to risks. Risks led to death.
He set the rifle on its rack and stood.
The nightmare came – not a vision of the bombing, but a memory of the classroom. The faces of the students. The teacher at the back. The boy with the heavy backpack.
Vlad closed his eyes and let it pass.
They are nothing to me, he told himself. They are strangers.
But as he walked to his workbench to begin a new project – a smaller rifle, lighter, for closer ranges – he found himself wondering where they were. Whether they had found each other. Whether they remembered.
He pushed the thought aside.
It was not his problem.
Boreas 16, Imperial Year 1642
The Road to Millford
Elara Greenhill rode at the head of the small column, her halfling pony sturdy beneath her. Roderick rode a massive draft horse, his feet nearly dragging the ground. Rosalind had a fine mare, a gift from her father, and she sat it with the easy grace of someone who had grown up in the saddle.
The road wound through forests and fallow fields, past villages where smoke rose from chimneys and children played in the mud. It was a peaceful landscape – green, gentle, utterly unlike the world they had left behind.
"Do you ever miss it?" Rosalind asked, drawing alongside Elara.
"Every day," Elara said.
"I miss convenience stores. And hot showers. And not having to worry about dysentery."
Elara laughed – a short, surprised sound. "I miss my mother. My real mother. The one in Japan."
Rosalind was quiet. "I miss my little brother. He was six. He was not in the school that day." She paused. "I wonder what he thinks happened to me. A missing person. A mystery."
Elara had no answer. She rode in silence, her eyes on the horizon.
Somewhere ahead, Margot Larkspur was waiting. And after her, others. Twenty‑three more students. One teacher. All scattered across a world that did not know they existed.
We will find them, Elara thought. All of them.
She did not know, yet, that one of them was watching from the shadows – not a classmate, but something older and colder. A vampire with a rifle and a century of solitude.
She did not know that their paths would cross.
But they would.
End of Chapter One