Chapter 9 – The Bird in the Square
The night market of Mare Rosso was a restless river of light and sound, its current pulling the group
along narrow lanes between stalls of gleaming brass trinkets, spiced bread, and hot oil frying fish fresh
from the docks. Lanterns swayed overhead, their copper frames clicking softly in the sea breeze. Steam
from the food carts mixed with the tang of salt and coal-smoke until the air tasted both sweet and
metallic.
Ren drifted toward the edge of the crowd, hands shoved deep into his coat pockets. Behind him, John
and Max argued idly over whether to try the skewers or the fried squid, while Liza lingered at a table
covered in glass miniatures of the city's famous harbor. Elli walked ahead, eyes scanning the stalls not for
souvenirs but for patterns — dates, symbols, anything old enough to have survived Mare Rosso's chaotic
history.
The music from the taverns rolled over them in uneven bursts — too loud one moment, barely a whisper
the next, as if the city itself was breathing in uneven gasps. A clock tower loomed above the rooftops
ahead, its brass face glinting in the lamplight. Ren glanced up just as the bell tolled.
Eight.
Then eight again.
And again.
The chimes stopped too quickly, their echoes swallowed not by distance but by something heavier,
thicker, like the air itself had taken them in.
Ren frowned. "Faulty gears?" he muttered.
Elli stopped walking. "Doesn't match the tide charts," she said, unfolding a small map and running her
finger along the grid. "This street shouldn't be here."
John laughed lightly, though it cracked at the edges. "Cities don't just grow streets overnight."
Elli didn't look at him. "Vale did."
That earned her a glance from Ren. "Ghost stories already?" His smirk was in place, but there was no
weight behind it. The name stirred something in him — an image of a boy in the fading light, the echo of
cries rising from unseen cliffs. Elli had told them the legend on the train, her voice flat but her eyes
sharp, as if daring them not to believe.
The crowd had thinned without them noticing. One stall became two, then none at all. The hum of the
market faded until even the smell of grilled fish was gone, leaving only the damp chill of the sea breeze
and the soft rasp of their footsteps on uneven cobblestones.
They turned a corner into a street none of them recognized. It was narrower than the others, hemmed in
by brick buildings whose windows were dark, their shutters nailed closed. The air here felt colder, though
the wind had stilled.John hesitated. "We should go back."
But ahead, the street opened into a small square.
It was silent. No market stalls, no lanterns, no sound but the faint hiss of the sea somewhere beyond the
rooftops. In the center stood a dry fountain, its basin cracked and empty. Rising from the middle was a
sculpture — a brass bird, wings outstretched mid-flight, every feather rendered in jagged, precise detail.
Its head was turned toward the sea, beak slightly open as if calling to something far away.
Ren's smirk slipped entirely. "That's—"
"—the same as Vale's," Max finished, his voice low.
Liza had already taken out her sketchbook without thinking, her pencil moving across the page in quick
strokes. She didn't remember making the decision to draw. She only knew she had seen this bird before
— in the boy painter's canvas, in the edges of her dreams, in shapes she had sketched idly without
understanding.
The fountain was not just an object. It was a memory that didn't belong to her.
John circled the edge of the basin, keeping his hands in his pockets. "When the bird looks to the sea," he
said under his breath, "the city looks to its grave."
Ren turned sharply. "Where'd you hear that?"
"It's part of the tale," John said, not meeting his eyes. "My grandmother told me. Said it was the last
thing people saw before Vale was gone."
Elli moved closer to the fountain, tracing the lines of the sculpture with her eyes. "Not just Vale," she
murmured. "There are records of other coastal towns with the same statue, always right before—" She
cut herself off.
Before the Last Light.
The thought sat heavy in all of them, unspoken but shared.
A gust of wind swept through the square, sharp with the scent of salt and something colder — like metal
left out in winter. The hair on the back of Ren's neck rose. He looked past the fountain, over the rooftops,
to where the sea should have been hidden from view.
And there it was.
A faint, reddish-gold shimmer, pulsing against the dark sky. Too bright for the hour, too strange for
moonlight, it bled into the air like a wound that wouldn't close.
The others turned to look, one by one.
"Not possible," Max said, but his voice was distant, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
The shimmer rippled, bending the rooftops in its light, making them sway like reflections in water. For a
heartbeat, Ren thought he saw something moving within it — black wings cutting across the glow.
Liza's pencil snapped in her hand. She hadn't realized she was pressing so hard.The shimmer pulsed again, brighter this time, and a sound rose faintly on the wind — not music, not
speech, but something between a cry and a call. It was soft, almost fragile, yet it carried the weight of
distance, as though it had been traveling for years to reach them.
Ren blinked, and the light was gone. The rooftops were still. The air was just air again.
But the square no longer felt empty.
From somewhere deep in the narrow streets behind them came the faint scrape of a shoe against stone.
Max turned first, scanning the shadows. "Someone's following."
Elli's eyes darted to the alleys on either side. "Or leading."
The footsteps did not grow louder, nor did they fade — they simply existed, steady, deliberate.
Liza closed her sketchbook slowly. "We should move."
No one argued. They left the square, their pace quickening as they wound back into the streets. But the
turns didn't lead them to the market. The buildings grew taller, pressing closer, their windows higher and
narrower, their doors marked with symbols that prickled the edges of memory.
Ren glanced back once and saw the square still there behind them — too close, as if they hadn't walked
away at all. The bird statue's head was still turned to the sea.
And in its brass eye, for just a flicker, he thought he saw the reddish shimmer again.
END OF ARC 1