Ash fell from the sky.
It drifted in slow spirals, blanketing the broken earth in black powder. The air smelled faintly of smoke, as if the world itself still remembered the fires of its ruin. Lira pulled her cloak tighter around her thin shoulders and stared upward. Even now, after years of living beneath a sky that coughed cinders instead of rain, it still unsettled her.
In the alley, shadows clung to the stone walls like damp mold. Lira stayed hidden, pressed behind a crumbling crate, watching the nobleman's carriage roll past. Ornate. Polished. Unbothered by the ash.
Her eyes narrowed.
They lived above while the rest of them the skaa crawled in filth and silence. Her brother used to tell her stories about the Survivor, about how one man had escaped the Pits of Harom and returned to spark rebellion. A man named Darian.
No one spoke of Darian in public. To do so was treason.
A footstep scraped behind her.
Lira spun, her hand moving instinctively to the small dagger tucked beneath her sash. But the figure emerging from the deeper shadows didn't raise a weapon.
It was Ralen, lean-faced and always frowning. He wore the drab gray of a skaa servant but carried himself like someone with secrets in his pockets.
"Still watching carriages?" he asked, voice low and dry. "You planning to rob one or adopt it?"
She relaxed slightly, though not entirely. "Just looking," she murmured.
"You always are." Ralen stepped beside her, brushing ash off his sleeves with a grimace. "The city's rotting from the inside. You can smell it."
Lira didn't reply. They both knew what it felt like to live in a world ruled by fear, a world where the noble Houses feasted while the skaa starved in silence.
They left the alley together, slipping into the labyrinth of backstreets. Skaa moved like ghosts here silent, unacknowledged. Lira knew their names. She saw their fear.
She hated it.
That evening, the ash fell thicker.
Lira wandered to the northern quarter, where broken chimneys jutted from half-collapsed roofs like jagged teeth. An abandoned foundry stood among them forgotten by the noble Houses, claimed by the wind and rust.
But tonight, the old place breathed again.
Lanterns flickered behind its shattered windows. Voices stirred. The air buzzed with tension, with possibility.
Inside, beneath a canopy of rusted beams, a crowd waited. Skaa of all shapes and trades dockworkers, beggars, millhands. None spoke loudly. All watched the door.
Ralen stood near the back, arms crossed. His eyes found hers. He nodded.
A figure stepped onto the makeshift platform.
Tall. Cloaked. Confident.
He smiled as though the empire hadn't crushed a thousand men just like him.
Darian.
Lira had heard of him in whispers and half-muttered stories. A Mistborn, some said. A madman, others claimed. But when he entered the room, even the shadows seemed to make space for him.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.
"We were not made to live as insects," he began, pacing slowly. "We were not born to die in ash while the lords drink gold and feed their dogs better than our children."
The words hit Lira like sparks.
Darian's eyes passed over the crowd until they stopped on her.
"You," he said. "You're the one who doesn't flinch when ash falls."
Lira's throat tightened. The crowd turned.
She didn't step back.
"I've seen you," Darian continued. "Watching. Thinking. Waiting. For something."
He stepped off the platform and walked straight to her. His presence was magnetic, his confidence effortless.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Darian. Just Darian." He gave a half-bow. "And I'm putting together a crew."
"For what?"
He smiled. "To burn this empire to the ground."
The room held its breath.
Lira looked at him, truly looked. He wasn't just speaking in rebellion he believed it. And somehow, that belief was more dangerous than any sword.
Ralen stepped forward. "She's clever. Quiet. Has a good eye."
"I know," Darian said. "That's why I want her."
Lira hesitated.
Joining meant becoming a target. It meant becoming a flame in a world that punished light.
But something stirred in her chest a heat, small and defiant.
"I'm not a fighter," she said.
"You will be," Darian replied. "We all learn, eventually."
Later that night, Lira stood atop the roof of a burned-out building and watched the city sleep beneath a blanket of ash. Somewhere, a noble's party played string music. Somewhere else, a skaa child cried into silence.
The weight of the city pressed down like a physical thing stone, shadow, and sorrow.
Darian stepped beside her. She hadn't heard him approach.
"Regret it yet?" he asked.
"No," she said. "But I'm wondering how far this goes."
"All the way," he said without hesitation. "Until the Last Throne breaks and Varek the Eternal lies dead."
She glanced at him. "You really believe we can kill him?"
He turned to her, eyes bright beneath the ash.
"I believe we have to try."
A pause stretched between them. The air stirred, dry and bitter. Somewhere far off, bells rang out from the Ministry towers, signaling midnight.
"Why me?" she asked finally.
"Because you still see," he said. "Everyone else keeps their heads down. But you you look up."
Lira said nothing. She looked at the sky again. The ash continued to fall.
She remembered the nobleman's carriage, the children begging in the streets, her brother's stories.
She remembered the silence and how loud hope could be when someone dared to speak it.
Maybe Darian was mad.
Maybe they all were.
But madness, she decided, was better than fear.
And for the first time, she felt the world shift beneath her not with dread, but with motion.
The beginning of something.
"The silence around her wasn't peaceful it was forced. Every whisper, every step, carried the weight of watching eyes."
She didn't yet believe in rebellion.
She barely believed in herself.
But the empire had cracked
And she was the spark slipping through.