A Month of Dust and Ash
Chapter 38 – A Month of Dust and Ash
Part 1: The Noose She Wove Herself
The days passed slowly in Ziraka.
Sunlight bled over red rooftops each morning, and the air turned gold before fading back into smoke. Life returned to its rhythm—drunks stumbled through alleys, merchants argued over caravan taxes, and the cathedral bells rang like nothing had ever burned in Almaarad.
And Ashern was always there, behind the bar.
Filling glasses. Cleaning tables. Listening.
No one asked questions anymore.
He wasn't memorable. Not even interesting.
Even Seréya stopped looking at him like she was testing him.
Two weeks in, she came less often.
Three weeks in, she didn't come at all.
But he knew where she went.
She still entered the cathedral's west gate every other day. Still met with the same unsanctified priest. Still visited the lower levels of the reliquary.
She just didn't notice that every time she did, he rewrote a piece of her story.
The first adjustment was small.
A borrowed ledger.
A signature forged in her hand.
A requisition form for null-oil from the vault's security division.
Stamped. Logged. Unnoticed.
Under her name.
The second was deeper.
Ashern rewired the perimeter glyphs at the northern exit—just enough that her personal clearance code would be the only one logged if a breach occurred.
Not a single rune out of place.
But the Church's internal registry would record it as: Access Violation: Seréya [#8932-Lux]
The third was surgical.
He swapped out one of the Divine Seal Crystals used to reinforce the vault's primary restraint glyphs—replaced it with a nearly identical fragment he'd scavenged from the Almaarad ruins.
Corrupted.
It would unravel the binding seal after 27 days.
And when it failed?
All fingers would point to the last person logged into that exact chamber.
Her.
[System Notification: Operation Layering – 73% Complete]
Frame Cascade Stable
➤ Null-Oil Trail: Assigned
➤ Guard Registry: Altered
➤ Seal Overload Clock: 6 Days Remaining
"The guilty never know they've been sentenced… until the trap closes behind them."
Inside the Red Lantern, the barkeep started calling him "Quiet."
"You don't talk unless paid. You don't drink unless bribed. You're either the best worker I've had or a ghost with debts to pay."
Ashern had just smiled.
Outside, the whispers began to change.
"Where's Seréya these days?"
"Thought she was Cathedral-affiliated."
"Heard she had an argument with the vault warden."
"Maybe she's in trouble…"
But Ashern said nothing.
He cleaned a glass slowly and waited.
Every word spoken was a nail.
Every silence was a hammer.
"Why?"
The System asked once.
Not audibly—but in the stillness between breaths.
"Why her?"
And he answered it only in thought:
"Because she tried to test me."
"Because she wanted to see if I was dangerous."
"Now she will make them believe I was never there at all."
One more week.
Then the vault would break.
The seals would fail.
The reliquary would burn.
And Seréya…
Would simply vanish.