The first knock came before dawn. It was not polite. The doorframe shuddered. The plates on the wall clinked together like teeth. Tomas's father shouted that he was coming, but the second blow rattled the hinges before he could get off the mat. The third wasn't a knock at all. Wood split. The latch burst with a crack. The door swung inward as if kicked by a storm, and men in grey filled the room, their lanterns cutting the dark into jagged pieces.
Tomas's mother cried out and stumbled forward, robe clutched to her chest. She put her arm out as if that could hold them. A hand slammed into her shoulder and shoved her aside. She hit the hearth hard enough that her head snapped back against stone. The breath left her body in a broken gasp, and she slid down, legs folding under her.
Tomas barely had time to lift his head. Rough hands ripped the blanket away and yanked him up by the arms. His shirt twisted around his ribs. Bare feet slipped against the boards. He cursed, kicking, and managed half a turn before a fist smashed into his mouth. His head whipped sideways, and blood sprayed his teeth. His legs buckled, and they dragged him, half-hanging, toward the doorway.
"Rumors," the lead man said. His voice carried no heat, only exhaustion. "Talk of leaving. Of tempting others."
Tomas spat blood across the floorboards. The red drops broke apart under the lantern light. "Lies," he shouted, voice shaking. It sounded small against their faces. Another hand clamped his neck and twisted, forcing him forward.
The lanterns threw everything into harsh slices—his mother bent on the floor, his father pressed back with both hands raised, the table shoved aside, the bed stripped bare. Home turned into a stage of separate pieces, none of them able to help each other.
They hauled him into the street. The night air slapped cold across his chest. No one came out. Shutters cracked open, a slit of candlelight, the quick blink of an eye. He thought he saw a hand through one, pale against the wood, but it closed too fast to know. His heels scraped against stone until the skin split.
The men did not hurry. They marched him like a criminal everyone already believed guilty. The cobbles rang under boots. The chapel loomed above, its shadow stretching across the street. They dragged him past it, down the slope, to a door he had never noticed. Iron hinges screamed as it opened. The smell of damp earth and oil rose up like a throat opening.
They pulled him inside, and the door shut behind him with a sound that made the rest of the village feel impossibly far away.
The room below was bare, but it breathed like a cell. The lamps smoked, turning the air thick and bitter, and the stone walls sweated in slow beads that gathered and dropped with patient rhythm. The only furniture was a heavy table pressed against the far wall, a single chair beside it, and the low stool at the center.
They forced Tomas onto the stool and tied him there. The rope cut across his wrists where they were bound tight behind his back, forcing his shoulders into a strained arch. A second cord pinned his ankles to the stool's legs, and another wrapped around his chest, biting into ribs each time he tried to breathe deep. His chin kept wanting to fall forward, but the way his arms were wrenched back forced him upright, like a puppet held too high by its strings. The rope did not restrain him it displayed him.
He tried to twist once, to find slack. The stool rocked an inch, but one of the grey-robes pressed it down with a boot until it stopped moving.
A line of water ran down the wall, cutting a channel in the grime, and dropped into a shallow pool. Each drip landed loud, like a nail being tapped into wood. Tomas stared at it and tried to count. Seventy-three. Seventy-four. His jaw began to ache around ninety, and he lost the number when pain started to interrupt thought.
The door opened, and Gaius entered.
The grey-robes shifted at once, straightening. They stepped aside with their heads lowered. Gaius walked without hurry, his robe brushing the floor. He carried no lamp, but the light in the room seemed to find him, bending to the folds of his garment, sharpening the edges of his face.
He did not sit immediately. He looked at Tomas the way a priest looks at an altar before touching it measuring, considering. His silence was heavier than a voice. Finally, he lowered himself onto the chair. The wood creaked, as though it knew the weight wasn't physical.
Tomas fixed his eyes on the scarred edge of the table.
"You walk crooked paths," Gaius said at last. His voice was soft, almost kind, but its cadence was measured, as if borrowed from scripture. "The river. The road beyond. Lies of escape. You think the dark keeps secrets, but the Light walks your thoughts before you speak them. I have watched you. I have heard you at the riverbank."
"That's not-"
The back of Gaius's hand struck his cheek before the sentence was finished. The sound cracked through the smoke-thick room. Tomas's head snapped sideways, and the rope burned into his wrists as his body tried to follow the motion.
"Do not lie," Gaius said. He did not raise his voice. "Every lie is another stone tied to your neck. Do you wish to sink?"
Tomas spat blood onto the floor. "We weren't-"
The second slap landed harder.The stool tilted an inch before the guard's boot steadied it again.
"You thought the water would hide your words," Gaius murmured. "But water listens. I have seen the map you drew before it was swallowed. A line drawn is already a road. A road imagined is already walked."
"We were joking," Tomas said, jaw trembling. "Children draw worse on the school wall."
Gaius nodded, almost sympathetically. Then he gestured.
One of the grey men lifted a bucket and flung its contents over Tomas. The water struck like a sheet of ice. He gasped and choked. His shirt clung to his chest. Drops ran down into his lap and pooled on the floor, dripping off the stool in quick rhythms that joined the slower drip in the wall.
"Do you feel it now?" Gaius asked. His tone didn't rise, but his words pressed harder. "Cold that sinks through cloth, through skin, until it touches the soul. Lies freeze the spirit just so. We cleanse with water. The Light cleanses with flame. Which will you choose?"
Tomas blinked hard, his teeth clicking together from the cold. "We never meant-"
Another slap silenced him. His cheek stung raw. His lip split open further.
"Do not dress rebellion in play," Gaius said, leaning closer now. "You carry her with you. You follow him. Your silence is not loyalty. It is infection. Disobedience breeds in the mouths of boys who think love excuses blasphemy."
"Don't you talk about them," Tomas hissed.
Gaius's eyes softened, disturbingly gentle. "I speak as the Light commands. One child is bright, but safe. One boy is a candle, steady, useful. The other is flame without vessel. I have watched him. He feels nothing, Tomas. No joy, no grief, no love. He is empty, and emptiness devours. He was born to be reborn. You cannot stop it."
Tomas shook his head hard enough to rattle the rope. "You're wrong."
"You think silence saves him," Gaius whispered. "It will not. He waits for a voice to give him permission. When that voice comes, he will fall to it. I know, because I have been the one watching him, closer than any of you. You cannot compete with the Light."
Tomas swallowed against the rope. His body shook, from cold and fear alike. "Then let me talk to him. If he's so lost, let me—"
Another bucket came. He flinched too late. The water slammed into his chest and face. He gasped, coughing, his nose burning. His hair dripped into his eyes.
"He will not hear you," Gaius said, standing. His shadow stretched long across the floor. "The Light has already chosen the voice he will hear. It is not yours. You are here to learn this: your fists, your laughter, your loyalty — none of it can save him. His end is not yours to change."
Gaius laid one hand flat on the table. His palm spread over the rough wood like a seal. "You are bound in rope. He is bound in hunger. Both bindings serve their purpose."
Then he turned and walked to the door. The men slid the bar into place behind him.
Tomas twisted once more, wrists raw and slick with blood under the rope. His cheek burned. His clothes clung cold to his skin. He pressed his head against the wood behind him and tried not to make a sound. The drip in the corner kept tapping, each one slower than it should have been, as though marking down the seconds until someone else's fate arrived.
The knock came after sunrise. Three even taps. The kind that announced themselves as inevitable.
Cala hummed by the window, tugging at her ribbon. The knot slipped loose again.
Leor opened the door. Gaius stood there, one hand resting on the frame. His eyes were not asking permission. "Good morning," he said. "May I sit."
Leor stepped aside.
The priest lowered himself into the chair. His gaze moved across the room: the cracked bowl, the cups, the jar still faintly glowing from last night, Cala's pebbles near the wall. Then his eyes settled on Leor and did not move again.
"I have seen you," Gaius said. His voice was low, steady, the rhythm of scripture. "Not by hearsay. Not by whispers. By my own eyes. At the riverbank. Drawing lines into roads. Teaching the girl to follow. Watching Tomas pretend he is brave. I have stood where you thought no one watched."
Leor's mouth was dry. "We weren't-"
Gaius raised a hand. "Do not stain this room with denial. The lie dies in your mouth before it reaches your lips. The truth has already been spoken. You long to leave. Not for a road. Not for the sea. You long for nothing. I have seen your eyes. They are hungry for void."
Leor's chest tightened. He forced himself not to look away. Behind him, Cala whispered to her jar, telling the fireflies to stay good.
"You have a sister," Gaius said, his tone deepening, "who follows wherever you walk. You have a friend who stands taller only when you stand beside him. And you,empty vessel, hollow flame,you carry nothing for them. You mimic the smile. You echo the laugh. But the spark is false. The shell is hollow. The Light has shown me this."
Leor's hands pressed flat to his knees. He felt the words like nails driven into wood already cracked.
"There is no shame in emptiness," Gaius went on. "Some vessels are filled. Some are not. Some are made only to be broken, so the fire may escape. That is you, Leor. You were born to be reborn. Your spark burns without container. You will not carry love. You will not carry hate. You will carry only the call. And when it comes, you will answer."
Cala turned, catching his gaze. "Hello," she said brightly, waving. Her ribbon slipped loose again. She bowed with both hands behind her back, proud of her manners, then went back to stacking her stones.
Gaius's eyes lingered on her, and his voice softened. "Disobedience spreads. If the flame burns unbound, it leaps to dry grass. To her. To him. To every child who thinks they can walk beside you. The Light forbids this. The spark will be offered. The vessel will break. The fire will return to the Source. Only then will the field be safe."
Leor forced his voice steady. "We're not leaving."
"Leaving is not the road," Gaius said, standing. His shadow fell across the table. "Leaving is release. Leaving is the weight lifted, the lie ended, the emptiness given back to the flame. Leaving is not punishment. It is mercy. It is the only truth written for you."
Leor's eyes flicked to the door. His body felt borrowed, his hands spread on his knees like they belonged to someone else. In the silence between breaths, he knew Gaius was right. The emptiness had always been there. The priest had only given it a name.
Gaius looked down at him like one looks at a grave already dug. "Your time is near. Do not resist it. When the bell calls, step forward. The village will call you chosen. Accept the name. It will spare the child."
He turned and left. The latch clicked behind him like a seal pressed to wax.
The room sagged into quiet.
Cala looked up, brushing dirt from her hands. "What did he want?"
"Nothing," Leor said. "Just to talk."
She nodded, satisfied. The jar's glow shifted faintly across the floor, pale and unsteady.
Leor stepped outside because the walls felt too close, as if they already knew what was coming.
He went to the river by the bend where they had drawn the map. The drawing was gone. The water had wiped the sand clean. The reeds moved in the small wind. He sat on the bank with his legs bent and his hands around his shins. He watched the surface until his own face blurred.
He named the people he was supposed to love inside his head. Cala. Tomas. He waited for warmth or ache or anything that could be called by a name. Nothing came. He told himself this was a failure. He told himself he had become a liar. He could mimic the motions. He could lift Cala when she slipped. He could stand in front of Tomas when a boy tried to start a fight. He could say he would run away with them. He could say we will not be here forever. Inside his chest there was only a still place that did not move toward anyone.
He stood and stepped into the water. The mud took his boots and gave them back. The cold ran up his legs in a clean line. He kept going until the water reached his waist. He felt the current push at him. It was the first true sensation he had felt that day. It had nothing to do with anyone else. It was simple. It was not a performance. He closed his eyes.
If he kept walking, tomorrow would stop asking him to pretend. No more smiling because Cala wanted him to. No more nodding at Tomas's jokes because the moment expected it. No more finding the correct expression when a teacher called his name. No more arranging his face into what the market wanted to see. There would be no more shame when nothing happened inside him while people he believed he loved stood in front of him. There would be no more lie.
"Leor?"
He turned. Isabelle stood on the bank, hair tangled, ribbon slipping down her cheek. Her eyes were wide, surprised to see him there.
"What are you doing?" she called. "It's freezing! Get out before you catch something."
Leor didn't answer. He looked at her, then down at the water. His body moved before his mind did. He waded back to the bank. The cold clung harder once he stood still, teeth knocking as he bent forward, hands braced on his knees.
"Idiot," Isabelle muttered. The word was sharp, but the fear in her voice dulled it. She backed a step, then turned and ran up the path. Ian and Isaac were waiting. She caught Ian's sleeve and whispered fast. Both boys glanced back at Leor, then followed her without a word.
Leor stayed in the grass until the shaking eased. He twisted water from his sleeves, drops spattering the ground. All that remained was the chill — and the quiet shame of being seen. At last he stood, shirt heavy, boots leaking faint sounds into the dirt as he walked home.
Cala was on the floor when he came in, weaving strands of weeds together with clumsy fingers. She looked up, face brightening. "You're late." Then she saw his clothes dripping. "You're wet! Did you fall?"
Leor tried for a smile. His hand trembled when he reached over to ruffle her hair. "Slipped on the rocks. I'll change soon."
"You're not allowed to play without me," she scolded, as if remembering a rule only she knew. She darted to the peg by the door, tugged down a blanket too small for him, and wrapped it around his shoulders. She pressed the corners together until they overlapped. "There. Better."
"Thank you," he said softly.
She beamed and lifted what she had been working on. It was a crooked crown of green—dandelion stems, long grass, a few wildflowers knotted in. "For you," she announced proudly. "You're the king now."
He took it carefully. For a moment he thought about setting it on his head to please her, but his hair was dripping cold against his skin. Instead he placed it gently on the table. "It's beautiful," he told her. "You make things better than anyone."
"I'll get the jar," Cala said quickly, as if the crown deserved an audience. She hurried to the corner, grabbed her fireflies, and set them down between them. The light flickered weakly through the glass. "They were sleepy," she whispered. "But I woke them up so they could see."
Leor sat in the chair, water pooling under his boots. He looked at the crown, at the jar, at the ribbon hanging loose from her hair. Something inside him tried to stir, to answer her joy with his own. But nothing moved. The emptiness held. He hated it. Still, he forced his face into calm so she would never notice.
She tugged at the ribbon, frowning. "Can you fix it?"
He leaned forward and retied the knot with stiff fingers, tight enough to hold but gentle so it wouldn't hurt. Cala smiled when he finished. It was a clean, easy smile, full of light. It reached across a distance he couldn't close. He curved his mouth to match it, but there was no warmth behind his.
"I'll keep the jar lit tonight," she said, lifting it like a lantern. "That way the dark can't get in."
"All right," Leor said. His voice was steady.
She lay down on the floor with the blanket, curling into it. She pulled it up to her chin, watching the jar until her eyes grew heavy. Her breathing evened, and she drifted into sleep with her mouth slightly open, the faintest smile still on her lips.
Leor sat watching her. His hands were red from cold, shaking faintly. He rubbed them together, listening to the quiet house. A board popped. The mouse scratched in the cupboard. Outside, a set of footsteps crossed the square, then faded.
He thought about what Gaius had said. Not as a puzzle. As a door already standing open. The idea of being chosen didn't frighten him. It should have. But it didn't. He felt only the relief of an end. Shame followed that thought, but shame didn't change it.
When the jar dimmed, Leor stood. He pulled off his wet shirt and replaced it with a dry one, then set his boots by the door. He lifted the crown of weeds from the table and laid it beside the jar so the last of the light caught its edges.
Cala had drifted off where she lay on the floor, blanket half-slipped from her shoulders, one arm crooked awkwardly under her head. Her mouth hung open in a soft breath. Leor crouched, eased his arms beneath her, and lifted her. She stirred once, head tipping against his chest, but did not wake.
He carried her to the small bed against the wall and laid her down. She curled onto her side instinctively, tugging the blanket closer. The fireflies flickered weakly from the jar on the table, casting pale gold across her cheek and ribbon.
Leor sat beside the bed and watched her. He waited for the stir of love to rise — the warmth he knew should live in him when he looked at her. Nothing came. Only the same emptiness, heavy and still. He hated it. He hated that his body could carry her with such care while his chest carried nothing.
He stayed until her breathing settled deep and even, until the fireflies dimmed. Then he stood, moving quietly into his own room.
When sleep finally came, it was shallow, a drift just beneath the surface. He dreamed of a place with no windows, no rope, and a door left open. He walked through without looking back.
When he woke, the jar still glowed faintly. Cala's ribbon had slipped loose in the night. He fixed it gently before she stirred, then placed the crown where she would see it first thing.
The bell rang up the hill, a single note to begin the day. Leor did not flinch. The sound didn't push him forward or pull him back. It simply found him, as if it already knew where he stood.
He sat very still and waited for morning to finish arriving.