The Tower never slept, but it pretended.
On the upper levels, the wealthy dimmed their lamps and dined in candlelight, the illusion of night. On the market tiers, vendors shuttered their stalls, leaving the floors littered with scraps and the scent of spoiled grain. Even the enforcers slowed their patrols, moving like shadows instead of storms.
But on the mid-levels, where Kaelen lived, night meant something else. It meant whispers.
---
He returned from the lower corridors with his thoughts in knots. Lyra had slept easier since the medicine, but already her cough was creeping back. One vial—one victory—wasn't enough.
Not when her life dripped away in drops.
As he passed through the dim halls, he caught the low hum of voices. Men and women gathered in corners, their words careful, their eyes darting.
Kaelen slowed.
"…she lit the dark, I swear it…"
"…stood against an entire patrol…"
"…they say she can vanish, like smoke…"
The name passed from mouth to mouth like contraband.
Mira.
He'd heard it before, half-rumors traded in ration lines, nothing more. But now the whispers had sharpened, spreading faster than fever. A shadow with a woman's voice, a blade in the dark.
A spark.
Kaelen kept walking, but the word clung to him.
---
The next morning, Lyra asked for news.
"What's happening out there?" she murmured, voice thin but curious.
"Nothing," Kaelen said. He pulled the blanket higher around her shoulders. "Same as always."
But her eyes lingered on him. "I hear them, Kael. The whispers. Mira."
He hesitated.
"She's not real," he said finally.
Lyra smiled faintly. "Maybe she doesn't have to be."
---
The market was louder than usual. Arguments flared at ration stalls. Enforcers cracked down harder, shoving men and women aside with their batons. And yet the tension in the air wasn't just fear—it was something else.
Kaelen felt it in the way people glanced at one another. The way they lingered in conversation. The way graffiti scrawled in chalk began to appear on walls: MIRA LIVES.
He hated himself for looking twice. For scanning the faces around him, half-expecting to see her step out of the crowd.
Instead, he found Ryn.
The boy was leaning against a column, flipping a coin again, grin firmly in place.
"You look haunted, Dray."
Kaelen frowned. "Don't call me that."
"Too late. It suits you. You've got the eyes of someone who's seen the dark under the Tower."
Kaelen pushed past him, but Ryn fell in step.
"You've heard the whispers," Ryn continued.
"They're just stories."
"Stories start somewhere." Ryn's grin widened. "And stories scare the Governor more than blades."
Kaelen stopped, turning on him. "You don't believe in her either."
Ryn shrugged. "Believe? Doesn't matter. What matters is that everyone else does."
He leaned close, voice dropping. "Fear's contagious. So is hope."
Kaelen's jaw tightened. He wanted to argue. But Lyra's smile echoed in his mind, that soft, fragile Maybe she doesn't have to be.
---
That night, Kaelen returned home to find his neighbor, old Hessa, crouched outside her door. Her hands trembled as she scrubbed chalk marks from the wall: a simple symbol, a circle broken by a single line.
She glanced up as Kaelen passed.
"Careful, boy," she whispered. "They're watching for it. Mark it once, you get a warning. Twice, and you vanish."
Kaelen stared at the fading symbol.
"What does it mean?" he asked.
Her eyes darted around. "It means she's real."
Then she spat, wiped the last of it away, and hurried inside.
Kaelen stood in the corridor long after she was gone, staring at the empty wall.
---
Days bled into each other. Lyra grew weaker. The vial dwindled. And still, the whispers thickened.
Enforcers stormed the markets more frequently, dragging people away on suspicion alone. Whole families vanished overnight.
But the more they crushed, the more the whispers spread.
Mira lives.
Mira fights.
Mira burns the Governor's lies.
Kaelen tried to shut it out. Tried to focus only on Lyra. But every time he passed the walls, the chalk marks multiplied. Every time he stood in line, voices traded rumors like smuggled currency.
And sometimes—only sometimes—he thought he saw movement in the shadows. A flash of dark hair, a figure slipping into hidden corridors.
He never followed.
---
The breaking point came in the market.
Kaelen was trading what little he had left—a strip of cloth, worn but clean—for a handful of dried roots.
Then the patrol stormed in.
Enforcers spread through the stalls, visors glowing crimson. One seized a boy no older than Lyra, dragging him by the arm.
"He was marking walls," the enforcer's voice barked through the helmet. "Mira's trash."
The boy sobbed, insisting he hadn't. His mother screamed, rushing forward. An enforcer swung his baton, striking her down.
The crowd shrank back.
Kaelen's fists clenched. His chest burned. Every part of him screamed to move, to strike, to stop it.
But he didn't.
He stood with the rest, silent, as the boy and his mother were dragged away.
Only when the enforcers were gone did he realize his nails had drawn blood from his palms.
---
That night, he couldn't meet Lyra's eyes.
She noticed. She always noticed.
"What happened?" she asked softly.
He shook his head. "Nothing."
But the word felt like ash.
Lyra touched his hand. "Kael… you can't keep carrying it alone."
His throat closed. He wanted to tell her. Wanted to spill every thought, every fear, every scrap of guilt.
But instead he said nothing, and her hand slipped away.
---
When he finally slept, he dreamed of the Tower crumbling.
He dreamed of a woman standing against the Ashlight, her shadow stretching across every level. Her voice echoed, not words but fire, burning through the steel.
He woke with the taste of smoke in his mouth.
And the certainty that he could not stand still forever.
---