Among the unclaimed items held at the Marialis Warden archive are several dozen objects recovered over the years from abandoned lodgings, closed-down taverns, and the personal effects of the unidentified dead. Most are worthless. A few are curiosities.
One is a small iron pendant, unremarkable except for the symbol pressed into it: a circle with a single vertical line through the center. The same symbol has been found on eleven other objects in the archive, recovered from different locations across the city over a period of twenty years.
No one has identified what the symbol means. No one has claimed any of the objects.
— Marialis Warden Archive, inventory record. Compiled by the records office.
When the white light began to fade, it gave way to a cloud of dust. The dust hadn't yet settled when Kaelin realized she was no longer standing in the corridor. The stone beneath her feet was still stone, but it felt completely different from what had been there moments before — older, rougher, belonging to a place that had nothing to do with the Warden headquarters, or Tarr'en, or everything they had lived through in the last three days. And yet the ground was familiar. The cracks and every uneven surface of it.
There was a taste of smoke in the air. A burning at the back of her throat. But underneath it she caught a familiar smell — the bittersweet, melancholy scent of lived-in things, something that gave comfort and hurt at the same time. She hadn't been able to see the street she had grown up on through the smoke yet, but she knew she was there. This smell, which she hadn't breathed since her mother died, had worked its way back into her. But beneath the smoke burning her lungs, the city and the street where she had grown up were in flames. When she finally raised her hand to cover her mouth, she understood.
She was seven or eight years old. The hands were still hers, but tiny, and the street she was beginning to make out looked enormous because of it. Something was happening somewhere behind the buildings close to her, but her mother was nowhere in sight. The ground was trembling and she could now see smoke rising from many places in the distance. People were running in the street, but it was less like chaos and more like the flight of people retreating, people who had already lost. The fire in the building beside her had grown and begun to warm the left side of her face. A woman passed quickly at her side, clutching something to her chest. Screams were the only sounds she could make out through the chaos. Kaelin was in the same place again — inside the vision she had accidentally seen that night. But this time she couldn't find a way out.
When the tall building across from her began to groan she froze with fear. For a brief moment her eye caught a sword passing by in someone's hand — the blade had bent like rubber nearly at its melting point and hardened again, ruined. But before she could even think about what had happened, she watched the building begin slowly to collapse. She still couldn't move, locked in shock. At that moment a tall silhouette in the crowd began running directly toward her. Moving faster than everyone else around them, the figure caught her and ran with her to the end of the street. The building came down right behind them into the street and Kaelin watched from the man's arms as she looked back, saw people being crushed beneath it.
When they stopped at the end of the street the man set her down and looked at her face. He had taken her face in his palms and was saying something, but Kaelin couldn't hear his words through the ringing in her ears. He was tall but not heavily built. His eyes were a lighter green than hers and his ears were pointed. This elf with dark copper-red hair lifted her into his arms once more and passed her to someone else. To someone with much gentler hands. When the smell of the woman who took her into her arms reached her, she knew who it was before she even looked. Feeling her mother's smell for the first time since her death broke something inside her.
She had finally begun to hear what the man was saying. You were right, you were always right. Forgive me. I can't put you in any more danger. Change your name and hide. I love you. Then he looked at Kaelin one last time. He turned his back and ran in the opposite direction, into the chaos, and disappeared into the smoke. Kaelin cried out after the running man on impulse, in a child's voice.
Papa!
The white light took her back inside itself and everything blurred and was gone.
Drifting in the whiteness in that barely conscious state between sleep and waking, she tried to absorb the memories flooding into her mind. Images passed before her — her father making plans, coming home with his clothes in tatters. The image of him wiping the dagger came last and stayed longer than the others. She had begun to feel the stone floor beneath her feet and the faint breeze on her skin. Different from a moment ago, but the smell of smoke and blood surrounded her again.
She opened her eyes.
The corridor was exactly as she had left it. The bodies of the Warden soldiers still lay on the ground. The dust and smoke from Tivver's sack still drifted slowly near the ceiling. The world hadn't changed at all, but somehow everything inside her felt different. Like the particular feeling of coming home after a long time away, when the furniture seems somehow slightly different from how you remembered it.
Tarr'en lay motionless in front of her. Blood was still flowing from the wound the dagger had opened, though much more slowly now. As if the last fragments of his soul were leaving his body gradually. But what truly drew the eye was the symbol seared into his chest. The same symbol that had appeared on Koreth's chest. And yet somehow it felt far more unsettling. Only when she heard the others beginning to come back to themselves was she finally able to look away.
Veylith was the first to rise, testing the steadiness of the knee she'd been on before standing fully. She moved through her whole body like someone coming back from a long injury, opening her muscles. A few seconds later she lifted her head and looked at Tarr'en, then at Kaelin. They held each other's gaze for a moment without speaking, but there wasn't much need to speak. Veylith finally gave a slow, deliberate nod — proud, and certain. She hadn't smiled, but Kaelin could see the light in her eyes. She returned the nod in kind, with a faint smile.
Tivver sat against the wall with his knees pulled to his chest, eyes open, rubbing his head. He seemed to have come back to himself, but his face carried the expression of someone trying to make sense of something. A similar confusion was readable on Darian's face — he hadn't changed his position on the floor and was staring at the ground as though trying to absorb something. Then he looked at the symbol on Tarr'en's chest, a look of mingled anger and revulsion. Behind them, Ravah stood up among the bodies, straightening her clothes. Her clothing was full of tears and beneath them cuts she seemed not to feel. She was scanning the corridor like someone taking stock, but even a stranger could have seen she was somewhere else entirely.
At the top of the stairs Vaelra, whose body had already been weakened and who had just lived through something deeply painful on top of it, was trying to stop the trembling. In the place where most people couldn't have moved at all, she was slowly trying to get to her feet. Kaelin went to her quickly, without thinking. She slipped under her arm and helped her up. They looked at each other for a few seconds.
"So they wiped an entire resistance — a whole uprising — not just from history but from everyone's memory." Tivver was the first to speak, still staring at the floor from where he sat. "They erased an entire movement from the world." He raised his head and looked at them. "And then for twenty years they just carried on like nothing had happened."
"I don't think it was the first time or the last," Darian said. "We can't know how many times they've done this, or when, or what else they've made people forget. If they could erase an event this large from everyone's memory, there's no telling how much more they've done."
"Given that the man was talking about powers going back to the Allmother and the First Age, this goes much deeper than we can see," Ravah said, in the kind of observation nobody had expected from her.
"If the Ledger's roots are older than a thousand years, then I suppose what we call history is no longer something we can trust," Darian added, looking at her.
"You're all missing the most important thing," Vaelra said, cutting through the atmosphere entirely. She was walking toward them with Kaelin's arm under hers. "Strike the blood of a god and you shake the faith of its subjects. If people see what the Ledger has done — that they can play with everyone's memory — their authority crumbles." Then she turned and looked at Kaelin. "And today, someone managed to strike the blood of a god."
Kaelin had said nothing through all of it and was still wrestling with what she had just seen. It took a long time before she noticed everyone was looking at her. When she did, she didn't know what to do with it. "I'm not entirely sure what just happened," she managed, in a low voice. "I genuinely..."
"You did this, darling," Vaelra said, pressing the word. "What you carry and how to use it may still be unclear. But you'll discover that eventually. What matters is that you did this." She smiled. "And you're not the only one who doesn't understand what they have."
"You're not alone in this," Darian said. "Now that there's a hope of actually shaking the Ledger's authority, I think I can speak for all of us — we've got your back."
"And then some," Tivver jumped in. "You have no idea how many people could rally behind you. Though we'll need to get back everything that was taken — all those memories, the truth of what happened."
"They already know," said Veylith, who had been silent until now. She was already scanning their surroundings and finding their exit. Everyone looked at her.
"What do you mean they already know?" Tivver asked.
"Shut up and listen."
"Listen to what?"
"Exactly."
He stared at her blankly for a few seconds before it landed. "Oh," he said, and couldn't hide the surprise.
Kaelin still hadn't understood what they were talking about. She tried to listen to her surroundings for a few more seconds before the truth finally reached her. Since they had come back to themselves, no sound had come from outside. Yet only minutes ago the whole city had been in chaos. The only explanation was that what they had lived through here, the whole city had lived through too — maybe the whole world. This thought sent a sudden ache through her stomach. Knowing she had done this herself felt strange, and at the same time a heavy responsibility had begun to make itself known. Breaking down her own small walls was one thing. Reaching into the memory of an entire world and its history was something entirely different.
"The first fire has already been lit," Darian said. No one answered, but they had all finally understood that they were part of something larger than themselves. Vaelra had known she needed to help Kaelin, but it had never even crossed the edge of her mind that this girl might be the key to reviving a rebellion whose very existence had been erased from history. She knew there was a vast uncertainty ahead of them, but at the same time she had finally found something she could call purpose. She looked at Kaelin — who didn't yet know what to do with the responsibility she was holding — and smiled, and took her hand more tightly.
Outside, sounds began arriving again at the same moment. First came the steady rhythm of marching boots, then the noise of the crowd rising slowly. Veylith wasn't certain, but she had a fair idea of what was happening out there. Right or wrong, she knew the time to leave had come. "We've rested long enough. We need to get out before reinforcements arrive," she said, pointing back the way they had come. All of them came back to where they were at once and began pulling themselves together.
While Veylith loaded her weapons and checked her ammunition, Ravah moved toward Vaelra to carry her. But this time Kaelin stopped her with a hand. "You can't carry her on top of everything else — you were still losing blood," she said, with an edge to her voice that surprised even her. Ravah paused, and so did everyone else. Even Veylith hadn't expected it.
"But someone has to carry her in this state—" Ravah started.
"I know," Kaelin cut her off in the same tone. Then, while they all watched, she crouched beside Vaelra and wrapped her arms around her. In one swift motion she scooped her up and got to her feet. Vaelra, eyes wide, stared at her and held on tightly, having not expected this at all. When Kaelin turned to the others with Vaelra in her arms, she found all of them motionless, watching her. "I thought we were in a hurry."
Ravah and Veylith watched her with surprised but quietly approving eyes. Darian was smiling at the corner of his mouth. It was Tivver who enjoyed it most. "You keep impressing me. At this rate we might drop Vaelra and take you instead, Kae," he said with his usual irreverent expression.
"Shut up, Tivver," Vaelra shot back immediately — but she was smiling too.
Kae.
This single word, which she had never heard from anyone before, sent a faint warmth through Kaelin's chest. The things she felt for these people she had known for barely three days didn't feel normal to her in the slightest. She would do almost anything for them right now, and that thought both warmed her and frightened her in equal measure. She felt suddenly bare, exposed — but instead of unease she felt safe. While these thoughts moved through her, Vaelra rested her head against her shoulder and her attention shifted.
"If you keep this up you're going to change all my preferences, darling," Vaelra said with a meaningful look. Kaelin knew she was teasing her, but a faint flush crossed her face anyway. Vaelra caught it immediately and only smiled.
When the sounds from outside finally rose enough to break through the moment, they realized a support unit had entered the courtyard. "Move," Veylith said, pushing them toward the corridor they had come from, and turned herself toward the entrance. Ravah glanced at her for a moment but knew what she needed to do. She moved quickly to the front and headed for the door at the end of the corridor.
The reinforcement unit was entering the courtyard but was taking heavy pressure from the protesters in the street as well. Veylith knew it would only take a single spark for things to turn serious, watching from the edge of the door. "Here comes the chaos," she whispered to herself, and stepped into the doorway of the building. The Warden soldiers who spotted her couldn't process what they were seeing for a moment, but when they saw her raising her weapons they lifted their shields to take cover.
Half the unit hadn't even entered the courtyard yet.
…
Ravah had made her way back to the first room they had entered and was heading for the door. Tivver and Darian, coming in behind her, were clearing the path for Kaelin — throwing chairs and other things aside. At that moment Tivver saw that one of the men they had left under the desks was coming back to himself. Without hesitating for even a moment, he grabbed a chair and hurled it directly at the man. He knocked him out again and kept moving without breaking stride. Kaelin came in last, Vaelra in her arms, and while she wasn't moving quickly she didn't seem to be struggling much with the weight of her either.
Ravah let out a low roar and lifted the bar holding the door shut clean off its brackets with both hands, then threw it aside. She gripped both handles and turned back inside. The others had reached her within seconds. But instead of going straight out, they waited. Then they heard the gunshots.
…
Veylith had put down at least three soldiers before they could raise their shields and had managed to push the entire unit back to a standstill. But when she paused to change her magazines the men started getting up and moving toward her again. Her weapons came up again within seconds and the men took cover once more. She knew that sooner or later, this way, they would reach her — but that hadn't been the point.
She wasn't trying to push them back. She was listening. Listening to the sound of the street. She could finally hear the protesters outside, emboldened by her, clashing with the Warden soldiers in the street. After putting down three or four more, the gunshots fell silent. When the men raised their heads they found the doorway empty. While the back half of the unit was fighting the crowd in the street, the front half began surging toward the building.
The men pushing through the not-quite-wide-enough entrance in a crush had barely taken their first steps toward the stairs when gunshots rang out again from the left corridor. Veylith, who had come in fast, shot down the first two men who rushed inside and was backing down the corridor with her weapons trained on the entrance. Anyone who tried to step into the hall or look around the corner was fired on immediately. She walked and reloaded at the same time — one weapon firing continuously while the other hand reloaded the second. When she finally reached the open door and glanced inside, the moment the others saw her ready and waiting at the door, she fired one last shot and at the exact same instant shouted "now." Then she threw herself through.
Ravah had flung the doors open and launched herself outside into a crowd made up of protesters. The others followed right behind her. Veylith came in from the other side of the room in one fluid motion, hit the door at a run, and fired two shots each into the bases of the fully loaded shelves flanking the entrance as she flew through. As she came out the shelves toppled forward behind her and collapsed across the doorway.
They were all standing in the middle of the street now, protesters surrounding them on all sides, breathless. Everyone was looking at them, and the tension in the air was something you could feel. Then a man came out of the crowd and raised his hand toward them.
"This way — quickly!" Harrik shouted.