Chapter 11: Beneath the Same Smoke

The orchard was dead.

Gnarled branches stuck out like broken fingers, leaves burned down to their veins, soil black and brittle. The trees had borne fruit once—maybe cherries, maybe something fucking sweeter. Now they only bore silence. Riven sat under one of them, arm wrapped in dirty cloth, ribs cracked and groaning every time he breathed too hard.

The horse was dead too.

Riven had slit its throat himself. Couldn't risk its noise. Couldn't risk anything now. Not after what happened in the village. Not after what he did.

He heard footsteps.

Soft. Too soft. Controlled.

He didn't reach for his blade. If someone wanted to gut him, he wasn't in the mood to argue.

Nyra appeared.

Hair soaked with blood—not hers. Eyes dark. She looked like she'd walked through ten kinds of hell to find him. Maybe she had.

"Too late," he muttered. "Smoke's already eaten the names."

She didn't reply right away. Just stood there in front of him like she wasn't sure if he'd speak or swing.

"I didn't light it," she said. "But I didn't stop it either."

He spat. The blood in his mouth tasted like iron and lies.

"Good," he said. "Then you're learning."

They didn't talk for hours.

They camped under the broken trees, fireless, wordless, still breathing the ash of people they'd failed to save—or chosen not to. Riven didn't ask where she'd gone. Nyra didn't ask how many he'd killed.

When the moon was high, Riven finally broke it.

"There was a boy," he said. "Said I killed them all. Said I burned his mother alive."

Nyra didn't flinch. "Did you?"

"No. But someone wants them to think I did."

"You think the Empire's behind it?"

He gave her a look. "Of course the fucking Empire's behind it. Who else has the balls to turn a burned village into a goddamn bedtime story?"

Nyra stared at the fireless pit. "Maybe they're not the only ones who want you dead."

Riven leaned forward. "If you were told to kill me by your rebels tomorrow... would you?"

Silence.

He smiled without humor. "Didn't think so."

Far away, in a tower polished with marble and blood, the Chanter of Blame raised a silver goblet.

"To monsters," he said, to no one in particular. "And the poets who invent them."

Behind him, a puppet dressed as Nyra rehearsed lines in a falsetto voice. Her face was painted. Her smile fake.

The screen behind them showed burning villages. On loop. Always burning.

The Chanter grinned.

"Give them a villain," he said. "And they'll never ask who lit the match."

Back in the orchard, Riven couldn't sleep.

His ribs hurt. His soul hurt worse.

The child returned at dawn. Limping. Dragging something shiny in his hand. Nyra reached for a weapon. Riven stopped her.

The boy walked up, hands shaking, and dropped something into Riven's lap.

It was a torn page—half-burnt, ash-dusted. On it, a glyph of fire, and over it, a black triangle.

Riven froze.

He knew that symbol.

Old. Ancient. Used by Albercht's kingdom before the fall. Before the betrayal.

"Who gave this to you?" Riven asked.

The boy blinked slowly. And then, like he was repeating someone else's words, he said:

"He said you'd come. Said you'd wear smoke and silence."

"Who?"

The child shrugged. "He said you were never supposed to remember the fire."

Then he walked away. Limped into the trees. Disappeared like he was never there.

Nyra looked shaken. Riven more so.

That night, under the half-burned church roof they found down the path, Riven couldn't stop staring at the glyph.

It pulsed.

Not in light.

In memory.

Nyra spoke finally.

"The rebels weren't just hiding your death, Riven."

He turned to her. "Then what the fuck were they doing?"

She looked at the symbol.

"Protecting it."

And that word stuck.

Protecting.

What the fuck did it mean?

Was it memory they protected?

A lie?

A truth too dangerous to live?

Riven didn't know. But something told him he was never meant to survive that fire.

And someone had known all along that he would.

He could feel it now. Fire was retracing his steps.

Someone had always known he'd survive. Someone had left the doors unlocked.

And now the ghosts were walking again not just behind him, but beside him.