The city woke to fire.
By the time I reached the balcony, the smoke had already blackened the horizon. Shouts rose from the streets below—rage, fear, the kind of panic that spreads faster than flame.
It was no accident.
The resistance had struck without me. A storehouse burned, soldiers lay dead in the gutter, and across the quarter, walls were marked with words painted in ash:
NO MORE CHAINS.
The Veil's answer was immediate. Iron-masked priests descended from the towers, their chants a low, droning hum that made the stones themselves quiver. Soldiers marched through the smoke, dragging men and women into the open, silencing screams beneath their boots.
I stood above it all, my throat lined with frost.
The resistance had torn the silence apart. And now the city bled for it.
A boy no older than twelve was struck down for shouting the words. His body fell among the ashes, his voice carried away by the wind.
I wanted to close my eyes. I did not.
Instead, I descended into the streets, the iron-thorn crown pressing cold against my scalp. The crowd stilled when they saw me—faces soot-streaked, eyes wide, hope and horror warring in their gazes.
The soldiers paused, too. Just for a moment.
My silence cut sharper than any blade.
I walked past the ash-marked walls, past the corpses, past the fire still crackling in broken beams. I said nothing, but every step was a vow. Every glance a promise.
The city would remember this day not as the day the resistance faltered—
But the day the Veil learned fear.