The Resonance carried faintly through the tunnels—distant, fragile, like the heartbeat of something trying to survive. Mira felt it before she heard it. A pulse under the stone, subtle, but real.
"Kael's alive," she said quietly.
The rebels looked at her as though she'd just broken gravity. The small chamber buzzed with tension—tired faces, blood-streaked armor, and eyes that no longer trusted easily.
Daren folded his arms. "You don't know that for sure."
"I do." Mira's voice didn't rise, but it carried. "You've heard it too, haven't you? The hum under your feet. That's him. The shard must have responded."
Silence. Then a murmur rippled through the group. Some nodded. Others looked away, afraid to hope.
She stepped forward, her ribs aching, but her stance steady. "The Accord's tightening its patrols. If Kael escaped, he's on the move—and they'll hunt him down. So we hunt louder. We make enough noise to blind them."
Daren studied her for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "You're saying we turn the city into a distraction."
Mira's lips curved into the faintest hint of a smile. "Exactly. If the Accord wants silence, we'll give them the opposite."
Above, Kael sprinted across the broken bridge. The wind roared through the chasm, cold and merciless. The bridge groaned beneath his boots, pieces falling into the abyss below.
Halfway across, the metal snapped.
He leapt.
For a heartbeat, time shattered—air rushing, shard blazing in his palm, the Resonance screaming in his ears. His fingers caught a ledge, metal biting deep into his skin. He hung there, suspended between survival and oblivion.
The shard pulsed once—strong, guiding—and he dragged himself upward with every shred of strength left. When he finally rolled onto the other side, his vision swam. His chest heaved, his hands slick with blood and sweat.
He looked back only once. The bridge was gone.
There was no going back now.
Deep below, the rebels moved like shadows through the old city tunnels. Mira led them through forgotten routes mapped only in whispers. She carried no weapon—just the device Kael had built before the mission went wrong, a small transmitter pulsing faintly blue.
At each sector, she stopped, placed it against the wall, and pressed a button. The devices hummed to life, linking to one another like threads weaving a web beneath the Accord's feet.
"What are they?" one rebel whispered.
Mira smiled faintly. "Noise. Beautiful, dangerous noise."
As the last one clicked active, a low vibration spread through the ground. The walls trembled. In the city above, alarms began to flicker uncertainly, distorted by static.
The Accord's perfect silence was breaking.
Kael stumbled through a side corridor, the shard dim now but still pulsing. Ahead, he could hear the muffled roar of collapsing systems—security grids failing, power flickering. The rebels were moving. He knew it.
He pressed his hand against the wall and felt the vibration of the Resonance echoing back to him—faint, but familiar. Mira's energy. Her defiance.
He smiled through the exhaustion. "You're still there," he whispered.
Behind him, distant shouts rose—Guards closing in again. He straightened, gripping the shard tighter. "Then so am I."
He started running toward the sound.
In the tunnels, Mira crouched as the final explosion rocked the ceiling. Dust rained down, lights flickering. Rebels cheered quietly, the sound echoing through the stone like a promise.
Daren turned to her, face smeared with soot but eyes bright. "You did it. The city's theirs no more."
Mira looked up at the trembling ceiling. "No," she said softly. "Not yet. But the silence is breaking."
For a moment, she swore she could hear Kael's heartbeat inside the Resonance.
Alive. Moving. Fighting.
And somewhere in the Accord's fortress, a mask cracked.