They marched us at dusk.
Down the cliff path. Past the old bell. Past the chapel. Past the painted saints with their faces worn away.
Toward the harbor.
No one told us what to bring. No one told us how long we'd be gone. They just said, "Move."
So we moved.
Boots on stone. The wind sharp with salt and the iron stink of sea-rot. The path wound down in tight switchbacks, steep enough to kill if you slipped. The waves below looked like teeth.
No one talked for the first mile. Just the slap of boots and the cold breath of the Lord in our lungs.
Then Milo broke the silence.
"I thought we'd be training here," he whispered. "Fort Vesper. March drills. Morning bells. That kind of thing."
"Guess not," Tomas muttered.
"Heaven's Gate," Leo said softly, like saying it might summon something. "That's… that's where the fighting never stops, right?"
Farid kept his eyes ahead. "Not the front itself. Not yet. But it trains the ones who go. They've held that line for three centuries. Fifteen years without a day of silence. Artillery every night. Gas every morning. They say the instructors there don't shout—they pray while they beat you."
Milo winced. "Then why train us there?"
"They want zealots," Tomas said. "Not soldiers. Boys who bleed scripture. Who charge into hell because they think it's heaven."
Leo shook his head. "Why not Constantinople? Or the Norse fronts? At least those slow down. At least you get quiet sometimes."
"Because we're not being sent to die," I said, voice quiet. "Not yet. They want to make sure we die right."
That silenced the group for a stretch.
The harbor came into view—ships docked beneath torchlight, hulls dark and salt-streaked. Some bore the Dominion seal. One had a mounted gun. One had scripture carved into its side.
"I'd rather have trained anywhere else," Milo muttered. "Africa. Europa. Even the frost gates. At least the demons freeze."
Farid nodded slightly. "At Heaven's Gate, they say even the dead don't sleep."
Tomas exhaled through his nose. "They say the soil there drinks blood like wine. You walk the trench and step in bones and don't even notice."
"And they built a chapel every fifty meters," Leo added. "So the priests never stop reading. Day and night. Even when the line breaks."
We reached the bottom of the path.
A line of boys. One officer. A list.
We were counted, checked, glanced over like meat at market. Then pointed toward the boarding ramp.
The boat groaned beneath us, old wood laced with rusted nails and damp salt. As we pulled from the dock, the lanterns of Fort Vesper flickered in the dusk behind us, and the cliffs rose like tombstones swallowed by the sea.
Tomas sat with his arms crossed, legs dangling over the side. "Heaven's Gate," he muttered. "And here I thought Vesper was bad."
"It's still training," Milo said, trying to sound hopeful. "It's not the war. Not yet."
Leo shook his head. "Not just training. That place breaks people. I heard they don't send letters home—not because they can't, but because no one leaves whole enough to write them."
Farid leaned on the railing, watching the shore fade. "They say the instructors aren't like ours. They're Heaven's Gate blood. Born in it. Raised in ash and scripture."
"Three hundred years old," I said quietly.
They looked at me.
"That's how long it's been running. Three centuries of death and prayer. I read about it once. Said to be the Church's hammer. Said the dirt there remembers every scream."
Milo shivered. "I thought it was just legend. All that about the bells ringing before the shelling. About the smoke never clearing. About the saints carved into the walls of the bunkers—crying blood."
"It's real," Farid said. "My brother trained there. Didn't come home. They said he volunteered for the front after the second week."
"Volunteered?" Leo echoed.
"Or cracked," Tomas muttered.
The boat hit a swell. Cold spray bit our faces.
"We should be going to Constantinople," Milo said. "At least there's stone under your feet. Real buildings. Patrols. Something you can understand."
Tomas scoffed. "Africa's worse. Trenches like ovens. Sand in your blood. But at least you can see the sky."
"I'd even take the Norse gates," Leo said. "Snow means you see them coming."
"I think that's why they're sending us here," I said. "Because we're not ready for any of that."
They all turned toward me.
"Heaven's Gate doesn't train soldiers. It burns away everything else first."
A long silence followed.
Behind us, Fort Vesper was a dark slash on the horizon.
Ahead, only smoke and stormlight.
Farid looked up. "First bell comes before the sun."
Tomas grunted. "Then we'd better sleep fast."
I dreamed again.
Not of home.
I stood in a field of ash. Flat and endless. No sky, not really—just a gray so heavy it sat on my shoulders like a hand. The air tasted burnt. Like a church caught fire and no one put it out.
There were no trees. No birds. Just the soft drift of smoke curling through a world that had already ended.
And then he was there.
The man in white.
Same as before. Robes like torn altar linen. Bare feet. No face. Only the shape of one. Like someone had started to carve it from wax and gave up halfway.
He didn't move. He never did.
But I felt him see me. Like always.
My throat closed up. My hands wouldn't close all the way. Something in me remembered him too well.
I didn't say anything at first. Just looked at him. My knees felt weak.
"What is this?" I managed. "Why am I back here?"
He lifted an arm. Pointed.
Behind me, the ash cracked.
A trench. Long and deep. Filled with bodies—boys. Faces I almost knew. One of them looked like Zeke. One of them looked like me.
Their eyes were still open.
I staggered back. My foot caught on nothing. The air was too thin. The ground didn't feel real.
"No," I said. Or thought. Or dreamed. "This isn't right."
The man in white didn't move.
His voice came like wind through bones.
"This is what happens when the flame is named, but not kept."
I shook my head, like I could knock the words out.
"I—I don't understand," I said.
"You will."
The bell rang. Not from above. From beneath.
Deep and slow, like something waking under the earth.
"Please," I whispered. "I don't want to see this."
"Then why did you come?"
"I didn't. I didn't ask—"
"You followed the road. You swore the vow. And you watched your brother go."
I covered my ears.
"Stop."
"You said you believed."
"I do," I gasped. "I do—"
"Then burn."
The sky split. Not with light. With fire. Not fire like warmth, but fire that thinks. Fire that judges.
And through it, I heard the bell again.
Three times.
Then I woke.
I woke to hands on my shoulders.
"Salem," Farid said. Low and firm. "Wake up."
My breath caught. I didn't know where I was. The sky above was black-blue, rimmed with a dull, orange fog.
"Salem," he repeated.
I blinked. Sat up fast. My back hit damp wood. The dream still clung to my skin like soot. I couldn't shake the sound of the bell. Couldn't forget that voice.
Farid watched me for a moment. Then nodded, satisfied I was back.
"You were shaking," he said. "Thought maybe you were seizing."
I didn't answer. My mouth was dry.
The others were stirring too. Tomas stretched with a groan. Milo yawned. Leo already had his pack on, eyes wide with whatever he'd seen from the deck.
The boat was slowing.
I pushed myself up and followed the others to the railing.
We'd arrived.
Heaven's Gate.
At first, it didn't even look like a fort. It looked like a cathedral died in the mountains and was buried standing up. Spires pierced the sky—crooked, blackened, jagged like swords rammed into earth by angels at war. Stone walls rose from the cliff face itself, too high to see the top, all laced with scaffolds and iron cranes and winding pipes that hissed steam into the cold.
Chimneys belched black smoke beside bell towers. Banners hung limp, stained with ash and old blood. One bore the Dominion seal. Another, a painted sword ringed with crowns of thorns.
The harbor itself was artificial—half sunken stonework, half rusted docks nailed into the bones of some older, darker thing. Lanterns swayed in the mist. Figures moved along the piers in gray uniforms, rifles slung and heads low.
"Saints preserve us," Milo whispered.
Even Tomas said nothing.
The boat gave a final groan as it scraped against dock pylons. Someone shouted. Ropes were thrown. We were told to disembark.
"Come on," Farid said. He clapped my shoulder once, like it was enough to drive the dream from my bones.
We stepped off the boat.
The wood of the dock was warped and wet. Salt caked the nails. Beneath it, the sea didn't lap—it pulsed. Slow and thick, like it had memory. Like it knew what we were.
A row of stone stairs led up from the harbor, each step carved with symbols I didn't recognize—worn holy marks, but older, sharper. Less comforting.
At the top waited a gate—not iron, but cathedral doors, blackened by fire and studded with nails the size of my fingers. A single bell hung above it, cracked clean down the center.
The figure who met us wore no armor. Just a robe, ash-colored, cinched at the waist. Dominion cross on one shoulder. No name. No smile.