The flames had not yet reached the hills, but the sky already wore their color.
Kaelen Virelth sat astride a dapple-gray mare at the edge of the ridgeline, where the cracked earth gave way to ash-laced wind. Below, in the valley, the last free city of Haldrith burned — not in chaos, not in rebellion, but by the slow, deliberate hand of the Solar Dominion. Its gilded banners gleamed like molten coins in the firelight, fluttering above iron phalanxes of soldiers too disciplined to cheer, too devout to hesitate.
Kaelen watched in silence, his hand clenched around the reins until his knuckles went white. Haldrith had stood for three hundred years without walls, guarded only by its libraries and its treaties. He had studied there once. Fallen in love there, too.
Now its towers collapsed inward like kneeling priests.
"Don't look too long, brother," a voice said behind him. "It will hollow you out."
Kaelen turned. Maera, his younger sister, dismounted with the grace of a trained warrior. Ash streaked her cheeks, and a bloodstained scarf hung from her shoulder like a banner of her own. She carried no blade — she didn't need one. Maera had broken a man's spine with a hammer once and never talked about it again.
"They'll come for us next," Kaelen said. His voice was hoarse. "It's not just war anymore. It's purging."
Maera nodded, her face unreadable. "You're still not ready, are you?"
"For what?"
"To lead."
He let the words settle like dust. The wind shifted, and behind them, on the crest of the ridge, the rebel vanguard stirred: a few hundred soldiers, many just farmers with spears and stolen armor. Among them flew the torn sigil of House Virelth — a silver flame over an obsidian field — the symbol of a fallen house now resurrected by desperation.
"You want me to pretend I can command these people?" Kaelen said. "You should lead. You're the soldier."
"I'm a weapon," she said. "You're a symbol. They follow you because you still believe this world can be saved. I... don't."
He looked away. The light of burning Haldrith reflected in his eyes. "Then maybe I'm a fool."
Maera touched his shoulder. "Fools start revolutions. But martyrs finish them."
Across the valley, in the shadow of the Dominion encampment, a lone rider approached the rebel lines under a banner of truce — a black sun on white. Kaelen stiffened. The mare beneath him shivered.
"What is this?" he murmured. "They never parley."
Maera's hand dropped to the hilt of her knife. "Stay behind me."
The rider drew closer, pulling off her helmet.
A woman. Golden eyes like polished glass. Her long black braid marked her as a priestess. The sigil at her throat — a circle of flame with a spear through its heart — made Kaelen inhale sharply.
"Serenya Valir," he whispered.
"You know her?"
"We studied in Haldrith. Before the war. She... she used to believe in mercy."
Maera narrowed her eyes. "No one who wears that flame believes in mercy anymore."