Your wolf will have become another wolf, your sister a different sister, your battle other battles, on your return from Euphemia, the city where memory is traded at every solstice and at every equinox.
Note
Merchants of seven nations gather in Euphemia at every solstice and every equinox. Boats arrive laden with ginger and cotton, caravans with nutmeg and raisins. But people do not come only to buy and sell: at night, around the fires of the market, seated on sacks and barrels, at every word someone says, wolf, sister, hidden treasure, battle, the others tell their own stories of wolves, sisters, treasures.
The scene is the crossroads where the river meets the caravan road, the market’s fires laid out in rings. At dusk each fire burns a colour of its own, pure. Through the night sparks (the words) cross slowly from fire to fire, and each fire takes on a little of every colour it receives. By dawn no fire has the colour it had; then the caravans leave along the road and along the river, each a light carrying away a mixed colour.
Touch a fire: it says a word, and the spark goes to a neighbouring fire. One comes back from Euphemia with a memory that was someone else’s.
Quotations are brief excerpts for the purpose of commentary. The full text is available in published editions. The Cities of Ottavia, Valdrada & the soundtrack are inspired by "Monument Valley" from ustwo games.