The bakery burned for three hours.
By the end of it, nothing smelled like bread.
Only ash. Only ruin.

Julin hadn’t meant to start a war that night.
But war didn’t care for meaning.

It began with one thrown brick —
Then ten.
Then smoke rose like a sermon from every window.

The city gasped.

Noblemen locked their doors.
Guards stormed down alleys.
Children screamed and old songs returned — ones that were once outlawed.

Julin moved like thunder — fast, sharp, unafraid.

He pulled down a royal banner and lit it with a coal he’d hidden in his pocket since morning.

“For the bread they took,” he shouted,
“we give them smoke!”

The crowd followed.
One voice. Then many.
Stone met steel. Fire met flesh.
The streets echoed with rebellion.

In the chaos, a child stumbled into the path of a collapsing wall.

And again —
She appeared.

Ziya.

Not running. Not shouting.
Just… there.

She scooped the child up in one motion and vanished into the smoke, cloak trailing behind like a shadow with purpose.

Someone whispered:

“The woman in the smoke…”

Julin, breathless, stared at where she had been.

He saw nothing.

Only a single word scratched into a scorched wooden door:
“There is no bread. Only steel.”