The Poet's Hesitation
The rain had been falling for three days, turning Dominion's stone avenues into rivers of gray light.
Serenya stood beneath the overhang of a crumbling archway, her cloak heavy with water. Her eyes locked on the square, where Teylan—the printer who had once given her words their first fragile home—was surrounded by debt-collectors.
His voice cracked through the storm:
"Please—just one more week, I'll have it! Serenya, tell them—I've stood with you!"
Every nerve in her body screamed to defend him, as she always had. She took a step forward… until she felt the crowd's eyes. Cold. Measuring.
A woman near the front spat the words that gutted her:
"Her words won't feed anyone. Let the debtor drown."
Serenya froze.
If she spoke, she would inherit his debts, his downfall, his rot. If she stayed silent, she betrayed the one man who once risked everything to print her poems.
Her whisper disappeared into the folds of her sleeve, as if confessing to her own ghost:
"Do I hold him… and fall beside him? Or let him drown… and learn to swim alone?"
Teylan's cries sharpened, then vanished into the jeers. Serenya's heart felt like parchment burning, and she could smell the ash of her own hesitation.
The Engineer's Defiance
South of the plaza, Kaelen Veyra knelt in the mud of a broken relay station, his hands raw, blood streaked against corroded metal. Engineers bickered around him.
"Why bother?" one spat, tossing down his wrench. "The people spit on us now. They cheer Ashira, not you."
"They cheer whoever feeds them," Kaelen growled, tightening a wire until it snapped in his hand. His jaw clenched. "We are not here for their cheers. We are here to fix the city."
But even as he spoke, he felt the truth choking him: his refusal to cut away the lazy, the fearful, the corrupt had left him drowning.
A boy stumbled close, eyes hollow with hunger. "Mister Kaelen… is it true you can't help us anymore?"
Kaelen froze. His throat locked.
The truth sat heavy, unspeakable: Not enough. Not fast enough. Not ruthless enough.
The child's mother yanked him back, her voice sharp as a blade:
"Mercy won't save us. Not here."
The words clung to Kaelen's ribs like rust that would never wash out.
Ashira's Judgment
In the Council's lower chamber, torches hissed against damp stone.
Ashira stood before a chained guild leader—one who had betrayed her by diverting grain shipments to the black market. The chamber buzzed with competing voices:
"Spare him," one Councilor urged. "Mercy will show your strength."
"Exile him!" another barked. "Make an example."
The man's voice cracked, desperation pouring through:
"Lady Ashira, I was desperate! Spare me, and I'll serve you faithfully. Mercy is strength—the people will see it!"
Ashira's pulse thundered. She thought of hollow-eyed children, of the whispers of her name swelling in alleys, of her survival clawed from a city that devoured hesitation.
She stepped close enough that her shadow swallowed him whole. Her voice was ice:
"Mercy is a blade that cuts its master first. And I have bled enough."
She gave the order.
Dragged into the square, his betrayal was shouted to the crowd before he was cast beyond Dominion's walls. No quiet forgiveness, no execution to martyr him—just public cutting away.
The crowd shivered, torn between awe and fear.
Ashira raised her chin, voice ringing like steel against rain:
"I do not cut all. I cut only what rots. And I will not let rot poison this city."
And for the first time, they cheered not from relief—
but from reverence.
The Shadow of Malrik
The cheer faltered as a figure stepped into the gallery above.
Tall. Silent. A coat black as stormclouds. His eyes burned like coals untouched by time.
Malrik Draeven.
Even the Councilors stopped breathing. Torches bent toward him, their flames guttering low.
He said nothing at first—just watched Ashira with a gaze that pierced bone. Then, softly, like a knife slipping between ribs:
"You've finally learned to bleed others before they bleed you. Dominion may yet keep you."
The chamber froze.
No one dared reply.
And just as suddenly, he turned and vanished into the storm, his presence lingering like the echo of thunder.
Ashira trembled. For once, the cheers of the people below meant nothing. His single sentence weighed heavier than all the Council's decrees.
Serenya, watching from the shadows, felt her stomach twist. Memories unbidden. A face she had once known too closely. The storm outside wasn't half as violent as the silence between them.
The Poet's Collapse
That night, Serenya returned to her room, rain dripping from her hair. Her fingers shook as she picked up a pen. She wrote Teylan's name again and again, ink bleeding across her hands—until she tore the page to shreds.
Her whisper cracked the silence:
"If power means abandoning everyone I love… then perhaps I was never meant for it."
Her tears mingled with the ink until neither could be told apart.
The Engineer's Silence
Kaelen sat alone beside the darkened relay, tools scattered uselessly around him.
He opened his journal and wrote one line:
I will not betray myself to survive.
Then he slammed it shut.
No applause. No cheering. No loyalty. Only the city's endless hunger answering him back.
Ashira's Balcony
That night, Ashira stood on her balcony, storm lashing her skin. Below, Dominion whispered her name. Triumph pulsed in her chest—but unease knotted in her stomach.
She whispered to the rain:
"I survived. But what am I becoming?"
Her own voice trembled, sounding less like victory, and more like a requiem.
The Oracle's Whisper
The night deepened. Somewhere unseen, the Oracle's voice slid through the rain like smoke:
"The city does not reward the kind. It remembers only those who choose what to cut… and what to keep.
But beware, Ashira. Those you abandon may not stay buried. Some crawl through the dirt with eyes of fire.
And they remember."
The words coiled around her heart. She looked into the storm—
and felt, for the first time, truly watched.