CHAPTER 12 — THE GATHERING FIRE

> "They called it a summit. But it wasn't a summit. It was a reckoning pretending to wear diplomacy's clothes." — Zhen, private memoir, uncirculated

Capitol Core — Thirty-One Days After Ashar's Departure

The dome they met under used to be called the Observation Chamber. In a previous era, it housed projections of planetary models, Council economic forecasts, starpath simulations. Now, it was stripped bare, cleared of all pretense. Just a circular room of polished bone-white stone, with natural light filtering through fractured glass and a silence so sharp it cut breath.

Selis Arra stood near the rear wall, arms crossed, not because she was cold—but because she didn't know what else to do with her hands. Across from her sat delegates in various states of exhaustion and disillusionment: cloaks pinned with rusted sigils, suits stained with transit grime, ceremonial beads worn more out of memory than faith.

They had come from what remained of the Arctic Kinships. The Wind-Bound Clans. The Martian Demilitarized Outposts. Eastern Archipelago Collectives. From belowground cryo-vaults and off-grid solar communes. From rusted coastal states whose names were only remembered in lullabies. All drawn not by invitation—but by what Ashar had left behind.

> "If you've come together, make it matter."

Selis had listened to that line maybe twenty times. Maybe more. It still made her jaw tighten.

Because it wasn't a command.

It was a dare.

Sector 9 — Four Days Earlier

Zhen adjusted the signal cone atop the makeshift relay tower, trying not to drop the coil driver while perched on a stack of fusion drums. Below him, Mara was barking orders at two kids who couldn't have been more than seventeen but moved like they'd fought off collapse with their teeth.

"Three millirads north," Zhen called.

"Already rotated," Mara snapped. "Your calibration's off."

Zhen muttered and twisted the base again.

From the hill ridge, Eli watched silently, leaning on a scavenged steel rod, the start of a new structure's skeleton.

"You think they'll make room for each other?" he asked without looking.

Selis stood beside him.

"Not at first," she said. "But they'll remember what dying alone felt like."

They watched the lights flicker to life.

One row of solar-fed LEDs.

A heartbeat in the dark.

Flashback — Year 2480, Sector 7 Undergrid

Before Ashar's first broadcast, before Selis burned her credentials, there was the checkpoint. The one where Council guards pulled families out of food lines for 'routine DNA confirmation.'

Selis had asked one too many questions.

They cuffed her.

Dragged her toward the wall.

It was Ashar who intervened.

Not by force.

Just by stepping forward.

"Heads of state don't stop this," he said, loud enough for the bystanders to hear. "But eyes do."

The guards hesitated. Then backed off.

Selis never forgot it.

Because he didn't order them to stand down.

He made them choose.

The Great Gathering — Day 1

When the doors closed, silence reigned. The delegates looked to Selis as if she had answers. She had prepared none.

So she told them the truth.

"I'm not here because I won something," she said. "I'm here because too many of us lost everything and refused to stay dead."

Jonan Reth, from the Pacific Remainders, spoke next. Quiet. Measured. "We've survived collapse before. But never together."

He placed a dented metal cup on the center table. "One artifact from the last war. We melted surveillance drones into this. Use it. Speak into it. Pass it. No one holds it long. No one owns the floor."

And so they did.

The Warden of Andel-Cairn recited a pact of water sharing.

The Matron of New Maru offered her translator crew without charge.

The Martian emissary simply said: "We are watching. We have long memories."

It wasn't peace.

But it was motion.

Sector 9 — Day 3 of the Gathering

Mara read out loud from a parchment Selis handed her.

> HORIZON ACCORD DRAFT One system. Rotating custodianship. Shared supply chain overseen by decentralized AI. No paramilitary enforcement. Global communication transparency. No rulers. Only roles.

Zhen asked, "What stops them from breaking it?"

Selis replied, "Nothing. That's the point."

Capitol — Nightfall

The delegates sat around fire drums. No cameras. No feeds. Just the smell of copper and ozone and stories told in smoke.

One woman spoke of her son who never made it out of the flood zones. One man admitted he sabotaged refugee transports under order.

No judgment.

Only the weight of being witnessed.

When Selis stood, she didn't quote Ashar.

She didn't need to.

"Governments fall," she said. "But people remember who let them stand again."

Then she walked away.

Far North — Unnamed Ridge

A child asked the old man with the limp if he had a name.

He smiled.

"No," he said. "But I remember one."

He placed a folded slip of paper into the fire.

On it:

> "Begin."