"Heroes are remembered only until the smoke clears.
After that, it's the survivors who decide what the truth was."
Guild Archivist Seren Althrae
The Guildhall, Dawn After
The first light of morning reached the Hall of Twelve through broken stained glass, painting the council table in shards of color. Where the night before had echoed with the rhythm of orders and the roar of flame, now there was only the quiet hiss of rain seeping through the roof.
Seren Althrae stood alone before the memorial wall.
Twelve new sigils glowed faintly where names had been burned away. One of them still smoked: Thomas Veyne.
Her fingers hovered over the inscription. She could still hear his voice - hesitant, idealistic, unbearably earnest. He had believed the Guild could cleanse the world's corruption if only they fought hard enough. She used to believe that too.
Footsteps broke the silence.
"Commander Rheis requests your presence," said a young scribe, his expression carved from fear. "He says the report must be sealed before midday."
Seren didn't answer. Outside, the city smoldered. The campaign had been called a success. The commoners were already hanging banners that read Victory for the Twelve.
But in the alleys beneath those banners, people were whispering about the choir a sound that had come from the earth when the last heretic died. A sound that had made mirrors weep and children forget their names.
Seren closed her ledger and walked toward the council chamber.
Rheis
Commander Rheis sat at the center seat, armor immaculate, quill moving with mechanical precision. He recorded each loss as a line of numbers, not names.
When Seren entered, he didn't look up.
"The mission is concluded," he said. "The containment held. The remaining contamination was purged."
She stopped beside him. "And Thomas?"
"A regrettable casualty."
Her hands tightened at her sides. "You mean execution."
Rheis set the quill down at last. "You of all people know what containment requires. He crossed the perimeter."
Seren stared at him. There was something beneath his calm - fatigue, maybe, or the thin edge of guilt - but it vanished behind the discipline of command.
"The public will need a martyr," he continued. "Veyne will serve. The Guild survives on stories, not apologies."
Outside, thunder rolled again - though the storm had passed hours ago.
Elsewhere beneath the ruined district, deep in the hollow veins of the city, something stirred. The air there was neither warm nor cold; it pulsed. A single drop of rainwater fell from the surface and landed on a fragment of armor - blackened, twisted. The metal shivered. For an instant, a heartbeat echoed through the stone.
Not a human one. Older. Vast. Curious.
It remembered a name: Thomas.
Then it began to sing.
Seren (POV)
By nightfall, the reports were sealed. The Guild's bells rang again - this time in celebration. Seren stood on the terrace overlooking the city, watching torchlight ripple through the streets like veins of fire.
She should have felt relief. Instead she felt the weight of the ledger in her arms, the smell of ink and ash.
"May you find peace, Thomas," she whispered. "Or whatever comes after peace."
A tremor answered her from the far quarter of the city - faint, like distant thunder. The torches flickered, and for an instant she thought she heard music rising from below, a low harmonic hum that made her bones ache.
She told herself it was the wind. But the melody lingered long after the night went still.