The square of Calad was already full before dawn. Everyone had come to witness the killing of a man.

  Mist rolled in from the harbor, crawling over the cobblestones and clinging to the banners of the Valval Priesthood. It gathered in the hollows between stones like breath caught in a throat, thick and reluctant to fade. The air carried that particular heaviness reserved for mornings of purification, the kind that made even whispers sound like sin. These were the days when faith demanded spectacle, when belief had to be seen bleeding to be believed at all.

  The crowd waited in silence, cloaked in grey mantles that smelled faintly of salt and wet rope. Fishmongers, sailors, beggars, and nobles stood shoulder to shoulder beneath the pale towers, all wearing the same mask of expressionless devotion. The square itself seemed to hum, an undercurrent of restrained anticipation. Even the gulls circling above the harbor held their cries, as if sound itself had been outlawed.

  The mist dimmed the torches, turning their flames into trembling halos. The statues of the saints, raised high along the parapets, looked like ghosts half-revealed. The whole city appeared half-drowned, half-awake, as though Dromo itself feared to see what it had summoned. Somewhere beneath the murmuring tide, bells tolled a slow rhythm, not an announcement, but a reminder.

  High above the atrium, the Custodians stood in perfect formation beneath the banner of the Light. They were robed in ivory, motionless, their masks gleaming like bone. At their feet, in chains, knelt the condemned man. His breath came steady, almost peaceful, like someone who had long ago accepted that mercy was not part of this world. Water pooled beneath his knees. His hair clung to his face, plastered by mist and sweat. He did not shiver. He was waiting for the moment his existence would be undone, and he seemed almost relieved by the certainty of it.

  From the shadow of an arcade, Aros watched. He was a man of white skin, brown hair streaked with grey, and a face drawn by thin scars that time had not softened. The sort of man who had seen enough endings to know this one would be no different. The years had carved into him a patience that resembled apathy, though the lines around his eyes betrayed a weariness that went deeper.

  Beside him stood Gemma, a girl small enough that the cloak she wore looked like it might swallow her whole. Her white hair caught the faintest trace of light, a silver thread against the gloom. Her eyes, blue and distant, did not move with the crowd. They seemed fixed somewhere beyond the visible, as if she were listening to something the world could not hear. The child looked untouched by the cold, but her hands trembled beneath the fabric.

  There was no room for surprise in this act; everyone knew why the man was dying. He had not stolen, nor killed, nor conspired. He had doubted. And in Dromo, doubt was a fracture in the world’s foundation. Doubt meant the Light might not be absolute, and that thought alone could not be allowed to live.

  The people did not judge him. Some pitied him, perhaps, but pity in Dromo was only another form of worship.

  The Custodians began the chant of the litanies. Their voices rose deep and steady, the kind of sound that seeped into the skin, not the ears. A rhythm designed to lull the listener into surrender. The bells of the Great Temple answered from the towers, their tone rolling across the square like an invisible tide. The sound merged with the sea breeze until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

  Aros felt the air itself shift, as if the city were inhaling. The collective breath of the people became a single pulse. The power of the Light, he thought, could not be seen, yet it pressed upon the chest like a weight. It was faith as gravity, invisible but absolute.

  Gemma squeezed his hand. “I can’t…” she murmured weakly.

  He turned his head slightly. The girl’s pupils dilated; her gaze shimmered as if the sound itself were resonating within her. A pale moisture gathered on her forehead: not sweat, but something finer, luminescent. Aros recognized it instantly: resonance. The same energy the Custodians summoned from their temple. Gemma didn’t just hear it, she felt it, could almost answer it. And if she did, if she lost control here, every Priest in Calad would know.

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  He saw her shoulders tense, her lips part, the faint hum building in her throat.

  “Easy,” Aros whispered, his lips barely moving. “Don’t listen. Focus on me.”

  Gemma nodded, but the chant was swelling. The Custodians had descended the steps, leading the prisoner to the center of the square. One of them, robed in gold, drew a ceremonial blade from his belt, a long, slender thing that shimmered faintly, as though catching light from some unseen star. When he raised it, the chant ceased.

  The air contracted. The blade began to hum, a low, sorrowful note that vibrated through the stones beneath their feet. The Custodian placed one hand upon the prisoner’s shoulder and spoke a single word, lost in the echo of the bells. Then, with almost tender precision, he thrust the blade into the man’s chest.

  The reaction was immediate. The sword’s glow erupted, white and blinding, flooding through the condemned’s veins like liquid fire. His body arched, suspended in a moment that felt both sacred and cruel, the kind of beauty that could only exist beside horror. When the Custodian withdrew the blade, the light did not fade; it bled out through the wound, silent and weightless, until it dissolved into the mist. The smell of ozone lingered, sharp, clean, as if heaven itself had scorched the air.

  Aros did not look away. He had witnessed dozens of executions, but each time it gnawed a little deeper. It wasn’t death that unsettled him; it was the precision of it. Power here did not kill by force, but by faith. The Light devoured quietly, as though it were not ending a life but cleansing it.

  Around him, the people bowed their heads. One woman crossed herself, not from fear, but habit. That was how the Light survived: through habits mistaken for belief.

  “Don’t look,” Aros murmured, but Gemma’s gaze remained fixed on the dying light.

  Her breathing quickened. The air around her began to vibrate, first subtly, then visibly. Her cloak rippled as though wind rose from within her body. Aros felt a sharp burn behind his eyelids, the warning pulse of resonance spreading. If she answered the Light here, before the entire square, there would be no hiding it.

  He leaned closer, gripping her shoulders. “Gemma, listen to me,” he whispered. “Don’t answer it. Let it pass. It isn’t yours.”

  The girl’s lips trembled. “It hurts.”

  “I know. Breathe. Keep your eyes on me.”

  The bells rang again: louder, nearer, as if the sound were rising from beneath the ground. The crowd’s murmurs dissolved into silence. The world seemed to hold its breath. Only the wind, the salt, and that relentless hum remained.

  Gemma closed her eyes. The air tightened, and for one suspended heartbeat, the flame in the ceremonial brazier leapt a full meter high, white, perfect, and cold.

  Aros moved instantly, wrapping her cloak tighter, pulling her against him until the vibration eased. When he looked again, the light had vanished, but the silence remained, heavy and accusing.

  The Custodians dragged the body toward the altar. The crowd began to disperse, obedient and wordless, their footsteps over wet stone sounding almost gentle. Faith had been satisfied; the city could breathe again.

  Gemma’s breathing was uneven, her lips pale as chalk. Aros held her by the arm and guided her toward the alleys that bled down to the port. No one looked at them. In Dromo, indifference was the last mercy left to the living.

  “You felt it, didn’t you?” she asked as they moved through the shadows.

  “Yes,” Aros replied without slowing.

  “It was speaking to me,” the girl said, her voice trembling. “Like it wanted me to answer. Like it wanted me to do something.”

  He didn’t respond. He already knew what that meant. If the Light could hear her, it could also find her.

  Not if we find it first, he thought.

  They reached the edge of the harbor. The tide lapped weakly against the stones, each wave like a breath fading into sleep. The mist had thickened, turning the city into a pale shroud. Lanterns flickered faintly across the water, distorted reflections of a world already dissolving into its own reflection.

  From somewhere inland, the bells began again, softer now, but endless. Their rhythm carried through the fog, through the sea’s hush, through the spaces between thoughts.

  Aros stopped and looked back toward the towers. The lights of the temple glowed faintly through the mist, a distant constellation that marked the heart of faith’s empire.

  “Come on,” he said quietly. “We won’t be safe here when the sun rises.”

  Gemma took his hand. Her fingers were cold, but the grip was steady. Together they disappeared into the fog, two shadows swallowed by something larger than darkness.

  Behind them, the song of the bells echoed across the harbor, steady, eternal, and watching.