LightReader

Chapter 9 - Those Who Watch

Just Days Before the Resistance Began

When they say the city is sleeping, they don't mean it's resting.

They mean that it's concealing things that it cannot be shown.

The wind barely reaches the streets, as if it knows this land has no room for anything that is free. Tall walls encroach upon each other in alleyways as narrow as gagged mouths, and above, the sky is a dull gray—the color of ash that used to shroud the hills after the first breach in the heavens.

No one says "Good morning."

Only a passing look, a nod, and a mute walk.

The market is open twice weekly. No one ever announces when, but everyone always knows. At the break of day, under a sun too feeble to illuminate any face, stone tables are laid out. Sellers display black fungus, blocks of dried broth, and bread as hard as stone but that tastes like it was baked in the past.

Meat is never sold—it's distributed, once every two weeks. And when it appears, no one asks where it came from.

The currency is called Sareef—a thin copper disc, marked by a single diagonal line. No one remembers who first minted it. But it's the only thing anyone accepts.

Beside the well, an old woman muttered:

"Three Sareefs for a clean bucket. Two, if you've got a sack of ash."

She didn't smile.

In the cellar of a derelict, ancient tavern, a man sat selling words. It was not his authorized trade, but it was what he was renowned for.

"The man who dwelled by the southerly wall has vanished. No message from him since last evening."

"They say the Crack harmonizes—but only to those close to cracking can they be heard."

"I passed a woman who possessed three shadows."

A Sareef whispered for one.

Words were bought, because they were worth more than food—and far more dangerous than thirst.

But that day, a stranger appeared in the market—someone no one had seen before.

His face, forgettable.

His clothes, too fine.

His fabric, too clean.

And his eyes—they didn't avoid anyone.

He stopped at the copper stall and bought three needless needles and four chipped glass cups.

"Looking for something?" the vendor asked.

"I'm collecting sounds," the man replied.

They thought him to be insane and therefore left him alone.

He was not insane.

He walked down a narrow alley that bordered the eastern quarter from the clay tombs after sundown. He went in through the back entrance of a crumbling house, descended to the cellar, and lit a solitary candle on the table—its light barely reaching the middle of an ash ring.

In the middle were placed the three needles, the cups, and a strip of animal hide.

The man uttered words no one could hear.

Not incantations.

Not names.

Not prayers.

Only an unceasing rhythm, once, twice—like the sound itself were trying to recreate the world, not by power, but by endurance.

Then he placed a folded piece of paper in one of the cups.

Up on the roof, a person stood behind a broken window.

They did not move.

Said nothing.

They simply wrote something in a small notebook, and then vanished into the night.

By morning, the clean-eyed man was gone.

But something had begun.

Across the city, strangers started to notice odd symbols on walls. Not the slashing cuts of the Crack, but circular symbols—each with thirteen curling marks. They were like ripples in tea in a cup.

On a storage room used by the Naiv team as a temporary emergency headquarters, a piece of paper had been placed tastefully on top of a weapons box.

It read:

"Every time you think you're pulling out the thread,

you find it sewing your shroud instead."

Rumors spread.

Some said it was due to the First Spirits having returned, which had been misplaced in a Crack.

Others called it hysteria—a symptom of long years with too much tension.

The truth?

No one was certain.

Outside of a couple of eyes, watching everything from a broken window up in an abandoned tower.

Eyes that memorized everything.

And one heart—somewhere—had begun to beat to the rhythm carved into the ash

More Chapters