The Echo of Lakshmi
Kimara stared at the book in her hands, golden letters faded but still visible against worn cover. Her father's blood still clung beneath her fingernails from cleaning his corpse yesterday.
Tomorrow she would turn eighteen.
Tomorrow the silver collar around her neck would begin its poison song.
Good.
She pressed harder against the binding, trying to force it open. Her thumb went white from the pressure.
Nothing.
The book remained sealed, just like everything else the masters kept from them.
"Worthless."
She spat the word like venom, but whether it was meant for the book or her dead father, even she didn't know.
He'd hidden this thing. Wrapped it in shame and old cloth, buried beneath work rags that reeked of submission. Never fought back. Never even raised his voice when the Surveillants spat on him.
Coward.
The thin walls of her hovel carried every sound from the neighboring quarters. Mrs. Kelyn's sobs filtered through—mourning her son before he'd even entered the domes.
"My Jorik... my sweet boy..."
The woman's voice cracked on each word.
Jorik would probably last a week in the domes. Maybe two if he kept his head down and got lucky.
Kimara had no intention of keeping her head down.
She touched the emerald feathers that grew along her scalp. Around her, other Phisotians bore different colors—blue, violet, brown, pale white. But they all shared the same eyes. Blue like the winter sky, blue like submission, blue souls crushed into powder by a hundred years of slavery.
But her eyes?
Emerald filled with flecks of gold that caught light like trapped stars.
The only one. In all the district, in all the quarters she'd seen, every single Phisotian had blue eyes.
Except her.
Freak, they called her.
Let them.
Her gaze drifted to the cracked window where the city sprawled beyond. Titan fortresses floated between Elven spires, both races' architecture consuming what had once been purely Phisotian crystal towers.
The Awakening Chamber waited somewhere in that maze of conquered stone.
Tomorrow, she would stand before the Crystal of Resonance. Tomorrow, an Echo would choose her—or she would die.
Then straight to the domes.
No training. No preparation. Just raw instinct and whatever power decided she was worth claiming.
CRACK!
Thunder split the sky, but it wasn't natural.
Through her window, she saw a Judge descending from the clouds, phantom titans writhing around him like living storms. He carried something—no, someone. Another Phisotian, bleeding and broken.
Failed in the domes, probably.
The Judge dropped the body in the street like garbage before ascending again.
No one went to check if the Phisotian still lived.
This was their world now.
"You are more than they tell you."
Her father's last words echoed in her mind. Spoken through bloody lips as poison ate him from the inside out.
Wrong about most things. But maybe...
She remembered watching him return from the domes year after year. His Initial Resonance barely glowing on his hand—weak light for a weak man. The crystals he brought back were pathetic. Cloudy, small, worthless.
Just like the few dim shards he'd left her, hidden beneath the floorboards.
Just like him.
He'd died whispering apologies to the air while she held his head in her lap.
Kimara wouldn't die whispering.
She would die screaming defiance, if she died at all.
Her phone buzzed—an old model that only connected to the local grid, heavily monitored by Surveillants. The message was simple:
[Awakening Ceremony: Report at dawn. Absence equals termination.]
The same message every eighteen-year-old in the district would be getting tonight.
She swiped it away. No point checking for other messages. The masters controlled what information flowed through these devices. Local announcements, work assignments, death notices.
Nothing that mattered.
Nothing that could spark hope.
After tomorrow, if she survived, she'd earn crystals in the domes. Eighty percent would go to the masters. Twenty percent—if she was lucky—would keep her fed.
The same system that had killed her father.
The same system that would try to kill her.
Thunder cracked again, closer this time. Through the rain that had started to fall, she could see other eighteen-year-olds being dragged from their homes by Surveillants. Early collection for those who might run.
She wouldn't run.
Running meant you thought there was somewhere to go.
There wasn't.
There was only forward, through the Awakening, through the domes, through whatever hell they'd built for her people.
The book pulsed against her chest where she held it. Almost like a heartbeat. Almost like it was waiting.
For what?
She didn't know.
But tomorrow, everything would change.
Tomorrow, her war would begin.
The masters expected another blue-feathered slave to break against their machine.
Kimara smiled in the darkness, emerald eyes burning gold.
They were about to be disappointed.