The emberfields of Sector Twelve glowed with quiet life.
Here, Spark-bearers who had fled from the western sectors tended modest gardens of heat-berries and hollowleaf. Children chalked glyphs on broken walls while sentries walked slow patrols beneath makeshift flame-lanterns. This was the calmest the rebellion had known in weeks.
And it would not last.
Jassa watched from the edge of the barricade, hammer across her back, jaw tight. Every rhythm in her blood warned her something was coming—not fire or fury. Something too still.
"Sector Eleven fell yesterday," said Tyren, emerging beside her. His slatepad glowed faintly in the gloom. "No explosions. No battles. Just… silence. We sent a runner. He came back without Spark. Empty. Like they drained it out of him."
"Saints?" Jassa asked.
Tyren nodded. "Their mark was left on the wall. A spiral of hands. All turned inward."
Jassa spit into the ash.
"They're not soldiers. They're sermons."
By dusk, it had begun.
A figure appeared at the far perimeter—no sound, no threat. Just presence. It wore robes of ashen grey, stitched with flame-thread symbols that glowed only when no one was looking. Its face was obscured by a blank, silver mask. It held no weapon.
And still—people stopped what they were doing.
Children fell quiet. Mothers went still. One of the Sparked healers, an elder named Marene, dropped her herbs and walked toward the gate like she'd forgotten what pain was.
"Do not engage," Jassa growled, voice sharp as iron.
But already the Saint was raising a hand.
Open-palmed. Inviting.
No sound passed from its mouth.
But in the minds of those watching… a feeling settled.
You don't have to fight anymore.
You don't have to burn.
Surrender Without Blood
They came one by one.
Marene first—kneeling before the Saint, weeping and silent.
Then a young man from the patrol unit, shaking, dropping his staff like it weighed too much.
Then another.
Five. Ten. Fifteen.
None of them were forced. None were touched.
Each one chose.
By the time the sun dipped below the skyshaft, a quarter of the camp was gone—walked willingly into the Saint's reach. As the first vanished into the fog, a mark appeared on the barricade.
A spiral of hands.
Jassa stood still as the last of the surrendering Spark-bearers passed through the barricade. She didn't blink. Didn't breathe.
"Why?" she finally whispered, to no one in particular.
Tyren answered.
"Because they're tired. Because fighting costs. And because… maybe they believe the Saints offer something better than this."
"Better than survival?" Her voice cracked like stone. "Better than choice?"
He looked away.
"No. But maybe quieter."
She stepped off the barricade and walked toward the Saint.
She stopped six feet away.
The Saint tilted its head.
Jassa looked up into that blank, silver face—not reflective, but absorbing. She didn't see herself. She saw… nothing.
"Say something," she growled. "Speak."
Nothing.
"Speak!" she screamed.
Stillness.
But in her mind:
You carry fire like a burden. Let it go.
She reached for her hammer.
The Saint raised its hand again—open-palmed, slow.
And Jassa felt it: a tug in her chest, like her soul was loosening from her bones. Not pain. Not fear. Just… permission.
Permission to stop.
To sleep.
To surrender.
Her fingers tightened on the hammer's grip.
She remembered Marene's smile. Her son's first glyph. The fire of Sector Nine. The oath she made when her sister was taken.
Flame is not peace. Flame is memory.
She roared and brought the hammer down—
Not on the Saint.
But on the ground.
The force shattered the glyph beneath her. The dream-thread holding the emotion in place cracked. The pull weakened.
The Saint recoiled—just slightly. The robe fluttered as if caught in windless silence.
Jassa stared at it, breathing hard.
"You want me quiet?" she hissed. "You'll have to kill me."
Behind her, the Ember Guard stirred.
Some looked shaken. Some inspired. But many—too many—looked torn.
Tyren approached, cautious.
"You know what they'll say," he said quietly. "You attacked a peacekeeper. You denied them their choice."
She didn't answer.
"You broke the spiral."
Now she did.
"I'd rather burn in my own name than be extinguished in someone else's."
She looked past him to the others.
"Get them ready. If the Saints come back with more, we fight. If they send faith, we answer with flame."
Tyren turned, but his silence lingered.
Night came, but rest didn't.
Jassa sat by the ash brazier in the center of the camp, sharpening the edge of her war hammer, though it didn't need sharpening. Sparks danced across her knuckles like restless thoughts. She hadn't said a word since she'd broken the spiral.
Tyren watched her from across the fire. Not with suspicion. Not with anger. With something closer to grief.
"I think," he finally said, "that Veil wouldn't have shattered the glyph."
She didn't look up. "Veil isn't here."
"He will be."
"He's not the one who lost two sectors while chasing myths."
That struck deep. Tyren sat down anyway.
"We're not just losing ground, Jassa. We're losing faith."
She sheathed her hammer with a hard click.
"Then we remind them what flame is for."
At dawn, a child returned.
One of the Spark-born who had walked away the day before—maybe ten years old, bare feet dusted with glowing chalk.
He held something in his hand.
A page.
No blood. No wounds. Just emptiness in his eyes.
Jassa knelt. "Where did you get this?"
The child blinked. His lips moved, but no sound came.
The paper was sealed with a Skyborne mark—a half-sun burned into the vellum with precision that only upper-sector tools could produce.
Tyren took it and read aloud:
"No gods, no flames. Only the silence we choose. The Voiceless do not convert. They inherit."
"You may join us, or be left behind in a world still clinging to pain."
"This is your invitation."
A second page fell from the child's hand.
It bore Tyren's name.
Jassa froze.
Tyren stared at the page, unmoving.
The others looked between them—uncertain now.
Tyren's fingers curled.
"This… this means nothing."
Jassa stood. "It means they've already spoken to you."
"No."
She took a step forward. "Then why your name, Tyren?"
He met her gaze—pained, defensive.
"Because I listened," he admitted. "Because I wondered. Not acted. Not surrendered. Wondered if maybe—maybe Veil's visions and the Saints' silence aren't that different."
"You think they're the same?" she asked, voice rising.
"I think they're both asking us to follow blind. And I'm tired of being told which god to die for."
Silence stretched.
No one moved.
Jassa took a long breath.
Then she stepped back.
"No one's going to force you, Tyren. Not me. Not them."
She turned to the others. "But hear me now. We fight for flame not because it makes us powerful. But because it means we burn by our own will."
She looked at Tyren again.
"If you want silence, go. But don't carry our names with you when you vanish into it."
Tyren held her gaze.
Then he dropped the page.
And walked into the fog.
That night, the Ember Guard did not sleep.
They rotated watches in triple shifts. Wards were reinforced. Every sentry walked with a second, and every second whispered old Spark songs beneath their breath—not for power, but for remembrance.
Still, something pressed at the edges of the barricades. Not footsteps. Not shapes. Just expectation.
Jassa stood on the outer watchtower as the ash wind shifted.
Behind her, the firelight flickered.
Then—movement.
A shape on the ridge, tall, robed, familiar.
A Saint.
But it wasn't alone.
Beside it stood a figure… burning.
Not screaming. Not consumed. Just… afire.
A Spark-bearer, standing willingly in flame, glyphs scorched into their skin—Jassa's glyphs.
And the Saint watched.
Learning.
Miles away, Veil stood in the ruins of an old tunnel mouth, Lyra beside him.
The Core of Aurelian pulsed once, then went silent.
He froze.
Lyra looked up. "What is it?"
"They've touched something new," Veil murmured.
"Aurelian?"
"No," he said. "Us."
He closed his eyes.
And in the darkness behind his lids, he saw a spiral of hands—no longer turned inward.
Now, open. Reaching. Burning.