In the lantern-lit alleys of Lyris Port, the night never truly slept. Banners of scarlet and violet fluttered over the crowded square where the city's poorest came to trade scraps and secrets. And at the heart of it all, standing atop a half-broken crate, was Sylvia Everhart—her voice rising clear and fearless above the murmur of the crowd.
"…and so long as we stay silent, the governors will never heed us!" she declared, her gloved hand cutting the air. "They will keep taxing our bread, conscripting our children, and choking this port for their profit!"
Faces lifted toward her—dockworkers with calloused palms, old fishmongers, even wide-eyed orphans with dirt on their cheeks. When she spoke, it was as though something bright flickered behind her eyes, and each listener felt it ignite in their own chest.
A burly stevedore cupped his hands around his mouth. "But what can we do, Miss Everhart? We've petitioned—"
"And been ignored," she finished for him. "We've pleaded—and been mocked. But together?" She swept her arm over the square. "Together, we are more than they fear. We are the voice they can't drown out."
A roar rose up in answer. Even she was startled by its force. For one breathless moment, Sylvia felt the world poised on the brink of change—and knew that she was the one pushing it forward.
After the gathering dispersed, she hopped down from her makeshift platform. The adrenaline ebbed, replaced by the ache of exhaustion. She was only seventeen—too young, her tutors had said, to lead any movement. But her father's death in the tax riots had taught her that injustice didn't care how old you were.
A hand tugged at her sleeve. She turned to see a little girl clutching a tattered ribbon.
"Miss Sylvia," the child whispered shyly, "you dropped this."
Sylvia took the ribbon, the same one her mother had tied in her hair the day their home was seized. She smiled and knelt so their eyes were level.
"Thank you," she said. "You keep it. For luck."
The girl's eyes shone as she accepted it. As Sylvia rose, she felt the familiar certainty that no matter how many nights she spent rallying the forgotten, no matter how many threats were carved into her door, she would not waver.
Because some voices were born to sing for justice, and hers would echo until the old order fell—and a better world stood in its place.
Would you like me to continue to Chapter 12: Harriet—Emberheart?