"Ashes Don't Forget"
Months passed before the city learned to breathe again.
Corvane's skyline was no longer marked by the fire that had devoured its heart, yet every night when the rain fell, the scent of smoke still clung to the air. Neon returned to the streets — flickering blues, electric reds — but the shadows had grown longer, quieter, more cautious.
In a small neighborhood near the eastern docks, a woman rented a workshop under a false name.
Her neighbors knew her as Ria. She fixed engines, patched old security drones, and never asked questions. She lived simply — cash only, no past, no family.
But at night, when the generators died down and the rain started its soft percussion on the roof, she'd sit by the window and open a tin box. Inside: a worn photograph of two women — one laughing, one pretending not to. Luciana and Rhea, in a moment before everything burned.
Sometimes she'd speak to it, voice low and cracked.
"I told you I'd stop fighting. But the city still talks about you. They still make you a story."
And sometimes she'd smile. Not the kind that reached her eyes, but the kind that acknowledged ghosts and let them linger anyway.
---
One evening, a letter arrived — hand-delivered, sealed with red wax. No address. Just a single word: "Corvane."
Rhea hesitated before opening it. Inside was a page torn from an old newspaper — an article about a new councilwoman rising fast through the ranks of Corvane's politics. Her name: Mira Vance.
At the bottom, scrawled in pen, were three words:
"It's starting again."
Rhea folded the paper and stared at it for a long time.
Then she stood, slipped the pendant around her neck, and looked out through the window toward the distant glow of Corvane's skyline.
The rain had returned.
The city was calling.
And though her heart was tired, she couldn't ignore it — not yet.
She picked up her coat, her pistol, and the ghost of a promise she'd never kept.
Outside, the streets were slick with light, the kind of night that made legends out of liars.
As she walked away, her shadow blended into the rain, into the hum of traffic and the heartbeat of a city that never truly forgave its sinners.
---
Some fires die.
Others just change their color.
– End of The Price of Her Fire
Author ... Only1praise