❖ Chapter 8.2 — Ashes of the Veil

☕ Support the story → ko-fi.com/cielomilo

Join the Circle of Firstlight 💫

Third bell tolled, and the city answered.

Not a riot. Not a rally. A gathering. Mothers with flour on their sleeves. Apprentices with ink under their nails. Veterans who smelled like leather and old snow. Nobles who had put on traveling boots and looked nervous about dirt. Children with strings knotted to each other’s wrists so no one would get lost. The bells of Velmora held their tongues, letting the people speak first.

Maren’s “listening” was not a pulpit. It was a circle—a thread of chalk wider than a warrior’s stride, drawn where the bridge began. Inside it sat a single stool and a bowl of water. Nothing else. Men with banners hate bowls of water. It is difficult to stab reflection.

Seraphine stepped into the circle. She did not stand on the stool. She put the bowl on it. Alaric took his post to her right. Lioren became a column at her back. Marcus and Elisana chose to stand within reach and not within shadow. Cerys lifted her lantern once and let it lower.

“Salastian,” Seraphine said, not amplified by magic or trumpet. The river stole half, carried it down to the harbor, and brought back a hush. “You were asked to witness a proof at noon. I ask you to offer one at morning. Prove this with me: that we are not an argument. We are a city.”

Murmurs—soft assent, a few appreciative curses, someone's quick prayer. Maren’s eyes darted to the chalk seam. “Ask them your questions.”

Seraphine nodded. “What will you not sacrifice?” she called. “What must your rulers not take from you even when afraid? A name? A child? A door? Say it.”

At first the silence felt embarrassed. Then a woman with a laundry rope slung around her shoulder lifted her chin. “My son’s laugh,” she said. “You may take his bread if you must. Not his laugh.”

An old man with war-scars down his neck: “My morning bench. I earned these knees and I will sit where I like.”

A boy of twelve, voice cracking: “My sister. She’s smarter than me.” Laughter. Then cheers.

A glazier: “My work. If I cannot mend broken things, what am I?”

A midwife: “My hands. Miracles go through them.”

A priest in plain gray: “My doubts. If a god can’t hold them, it isn’t a god.”

Maren’s slate flew over itself to keep up. The circle became a pulse. People spoke from within it and from its edge. The bowl of water trembled with their breath.

“Now,” Seraphine said, softer, “what will you end with me?”

Silence first. Then a cobbler with blackened thumbs: “Excuses,” he said, reluctant, as if repenting of his own. “Mine and yours.”

“Secrets,” said a woman in a noble’s cloak, voice thin and brave. “The kind that costs other people’s blood.”

“Mirrors,” said the elderly priest. “At least the sort that lie.”

“Wards that are cages,” said a young guard with freckles, “and cages we call law.”

“Very good,” Maren murmured, awe-covered-in-sarcasm softening into something like love. “They came hungry.”

Seraphine lifted her palm. The ring around her eyes brightened—not blazing, not intimidating. Present. She breathed. The chalk seam woke like a river remembering its bed. A hush carried across the bridge and into the streets beyond—tavern doors half-shut to listen, balconies full of grandparents, cats who had found the warmest steps and refused to yield them to anyone but prophecy.

“This is our proof,” she said. “Not that a gate can open. That a city can. Not that a mirror obeys. That a people do not.” She turned, palm outward, toward Velmora. “When he opens his gate at noon, do not kneel to witness it. Stand. If you must kneel today, kneel to help someone else stand.”

Alaric glanced sideways, eyes glass-clear with pride. Lioren didn’t move; it was not his job to glow.

The crowd parted of its own will, like water making room for a boat. In the opening stood Cael Ardentis, dust on his boots, a small line of border-cohort at his back. He was supposed to have left at sunrise. He hadn’t. He looked at the bowl, at the chalk circle, at the way the city held its breath, and he smiled without showing his teeth.

“Forgive me,” he said, not loud, not soft. “The Nareth sent me back. The river on the right lied and the river on the left told the truth. I thought you might want to know before noon.”

“News?” Lioren asked, all soldier again.

“Probes along the ford,” Cael said. “Not many men—enough to measure the depth. And song at night. The kind that makes a gate in your sleep if you’re not careful.”

Cerys’ hand tightened on her lantern. “He’s teaching the river to carry his mirror.”

“Can we break the lesson?” Alaric asked.

“Not by shouting,” Cael said. He glanced at Seraphine—calm, candid, offering her an answer he didn’t know was a question. “By giving it something else to carry.”

“A different song,” Maren breathed.

“A better one,” Seraphine said.

The third bell’s echo faded into the ribs of the bridge. The city exhaled—together, not on cue. The listening ended the way a good meal does: with people still talking.

“Go,” Marcus said softly, hand on Seraphine’s shoulder. “You will not be in the city when he speaks. That is both a mercy and a risk.”

Elisana kissed Seraphine’s hair, an old gesture that fit the new crown the way a hand finds its place on a familiar door. “Bring back the circle that moves.”

“I will,” Seraphine said, and there was no sword in the promise. Only rope. Only bell-metal. Only breath.

Maren pressed a packet into her hands—dried cherries, honey, paper. “For the road. For bribes. For letters you’re brave enough to write first.”

“Come with me,” Seraphine said, too fast. “Please.”

Maren looked up at the bridge’s belly as if reading a sentence written there. “I’m better at building crowds than walking into ruins,” she said gently. “I’ll keep the city talking while you make it worth their listening.”

“Coward,” Alaric told her, which in their language meant thank you for staying where I can see you.

Cael shifted his weight, the border in his stance even when he stood at the empire’s heart. “I’ll guide the first day,” he said. “I owe the ford a report and the cohort my spine, but I can spare dawn to carry you to the road that won’t lie.”

Seraphine’s heart thudded once, sternum a drum. She didn’t ask whether he wanted to. She read the answer in the fact of him standing here when he said he would have gone. “Thank you.”

Lioren glanced between them with the resigned fondness of a man who has watched too many campaigns turn into songs. “Four riders,” he decided. “No banners. Half a dozen wardens shadowing at a distance where they can be stupid without our help. Prince, you’re not invited.”

“I wasn’t going,” Alaric said, and for a moment he looked younger than he had since yesterday. “I am staying where noon can’t hurt her if it wants to. Besides—someone has to keep the Archon from falling in love with his own echo on a stage.”

“Try not to duel him in front of children,” Elisana said.

“No promises,” Alaric said. “I am my father’s son.”

Marcus looked like he wanted to apologize and didn’t know how without lying. Seraphine spared him. “We leave in an hour.”

“Half,” Lioren corrected. “Before every man with a banner decides he is part of your procession.”

They did not make a procession.

They made a departure.