Chapter 24: The Tree Must Not Burn Again
The sky cracked open.
Black wings spread above the island, wide as the storm itself. The Final Choir had arrived.
Ten aircraft.
Hundreds of enforcers in silver flame gear.
At the front stood Lior.
He wore no armor.
He needed none.
I see you found it, he said over the broadcast.
The Root.
The Seed.
The last mistake of history.
Abraham stepped forward, standing between the altar and the soldiers.
This is not a mistake, he said.
This is the beginning we lost.
The Ark beside Saral began to glow, pulsing like a heart about to wake. Roots stirred beneath the soil. The Tree was not yet reborn, but it was remembering itself.
Lior raised his hand.
Deploy Flame Singers.
The soldiers moved.
Reuel, hidden near the edge of the ruins, gripped the blade at his waist.
But Abraham raised his hand.
No.
We do not answer fire with fire.
We answer it with truth.
He turned to Saral.
Show them.
Saral opened the Ark.
The recording cube Reuel had given them spun in the air and activated.
A voice filled the sky.
It was the voice of Seraph Zero.
They burned the Tree because they feared freedom.
They sealed the saints because they feared memory.
And they trained children not to feel, but to obey.
Lior's face darkened.
That voice was erased.
Abraham stepped forward.
You erased it.
But truth does not forget.
The soldiers began to falter.
One by one, their visors flickered.
Some lowered their weapons.
Others looked around, unsure.
The Ark glowed brighter.
And then the Tree began to rise.
Not in full.
Not as before.
But as a young sapling, golden and soft, pushing through the broken altar.
The earth welcomed it.
The island breathed.
And Lior screamed.
Destroy it.
But the Flame Singers did not move.
Not one.
Lior stepped forward himself.
He raised his weapon and fired a bolt of black flame toward the sapling.
Time slowed.
Abraham did not raise his hands.
He did not summon the Gate.
He simply stepped between the flame and the Tree.
And closed his eyes.
The bolt struck him.
But did not burn.
Instead, it unraveled.
Like a lie dissolving in truth.
The fire around his body turned white.
The Gate opened—
Not to destroy.
But to reveal.
A burst of wind swept through the island, lifting leaves, dust, sorrow, and memory into the air.
And then everything stilled.
Lior was on his knees.
The Choir was silent.
The Tree stood unharmed.
Small.
But alive.
Saral touched Abraham's arm.
You didn't fight him.
You forgave him.
He nodded, tears in his eyes.
The Tree did not ask for blood.
Only belief.
Reuel stepped out from the shadows.
It is done.
Abraham looked at the sky.
No.
It has only begun.
Above them, the clouds broke for the first time in weeks.
And sunlight touched the island where the Tree had been born again.
End of Chapter 24