The cell was quiet.
Not the kind of quiet that brings peace—
but the kind that follows a scream too loud to survive.
Stone walls curled around her like a fist.
The air tasted of ash, of rust, of memory gone sour.
Chains draped from her wrists like broken promises.
She didn't struggle.
She didn't blink.
She waited.
Outside the bars, a hush moved through the capital like fog through an orchard—low, heavy, expectant.
Crowds had gathered, drawn not by justice but by curiosity.
Even in a world where silence was law…
everyone came when a voice was about to die.
And this one?
This voice had once sung to the flame.
Three shadows crouched beneath the execution platform—
children, cloaked, breathing slow, hearts loud.
"Is that her?"
"Sarien…"
None of them said her title. Not aloud. Not here.
Not in front of the Hollow Choir's Cantor—
a figure draped in obsidian silk, lips stitched with Veilthread,
watching like a moon that had forgotten how to shine.
When Sarien was dragged forward, she did not scream.
She did not beg.
She simply looked to the sky—
as if asking whether it remembered her name.
And then she spoke.
"If you seek the truth…"
"If you want to remember…"
"If you want to live—"
"Find the Fracture."
That was all.
The Cantor moved a single finger.
The blade fell.
And the capital forgot her name again.
But one boy did not.
He crouched behind the others, fists clenched,
eyes glowing faint beneath the edge of a cloak too big for him.
He didn't cry.
He didn't speak.
But the hum inside his chest?
It didn't stop.
Not that day.
Not for six more years.
Not even when the fire came for him too.
And so begins the story of the one who returned.
The one who remembered.
The last echo the world tried to silence…
and the first flame to rise against it.
.