Whispering Ashes

our o

rked the beginning of something the slaves avoided naming. No one said "execution" out loud. They s

: her body understood before her mind. A shiver ran down her spine, her muscles tensed. She raised her

you will be

her broom, surreptitiously wiped the ash from her hands, an

the Courtyard of

ptions that no one dared translate aloud. In the center, a large slab

slab, a man

e straight ahead. He wasn't crying. He wasn't screaming. He was... still. A

small staircase, where only the Custodian

led of incense

n threshold, Kae

same particles of the ritual. His black robes shone

ld her

records: an Essence Collector, an ancient artifact into which the a

en Empire: "The soul is not

n lowered his he

arranged themselves with a sigh. A thread of reddish light r

named Silias Kaern commits his soul to the keeping of the ashes.

t ges

n it ha

scream suppressed for centuries, escaped her throat. From her back, spirals of burning ash

orward, a fragile sc

le particl

third priest murmured a chant in an ancient language. Then, a

ouldn'

Her father's, those of sick neighbors. But this was different. Here, death wa

what her mother had whispered when sh

Behind

disperse, Kael steppe

f the Keepers. He walke

tend, as before. But something inside her-perhaps a

tood

mask. His eyes were darker than she remembered. Not

why I broug

silence was her only defense... and

r of his lips. A flee

Though fear somet

eld it in the air. Inside, a particle of

as Kaern. Traitor, thief of memory

t was as if it reacted to the memory. As if the very

event you from one day becoming somet

That if she didn't, she would lose a part of herself. But sh

sphere. His eye

not everything that dies disappears. An

he l

ground. The obsidian slab was

t time, she didn

red for