Epigraph
"Ascendance are Our Salvation, Question Not the Chosen."
Standard Vigil Slogan, broadcast daily in Citadel megacities.
The bells of the Citadel tolled twelve times, each strike echoing through the iron canyons of the city. A sound designated to inspire, to reassure. The kind of sound that said: yes the world burns outside these walls, but we are still here.
And yet, underneath the low chime, Aiden swore he could hear something else.
A faint hum. A vibration that threaded through the stone and steel beneath his boots. Not the bells, not the thrum of generators or trains. Something deeper. A song, muffled but insistent, like someone whispering just behind the skin of the world.
He shook his head, pushing it away. The Choir didn't sing here. Not inside the Citadel. Not behind a hundred metres of ferrocrete and wards.
At least that's what the poster said.
The plaza was full. Citizens crowded together in gray uniforms, faces pale beneath the floodlights. Above them towered the holo-projector, a twenty-meter-tall Ascendant blazing in golden light. The image was indistinct, shifting between male and female, soldier and savior, a composite of a hundred heroes.
"Today," the voice boomed from hidden speakers, "we honor the fallen."
A hush swept the crowd. The voice was never named, never seen, only heard. It spoke with the perfect cadence of a human throat, yet carried the clarity of something inhuman.
"Two days past, Ascendant-Commander Valet and his squad sealed the breach on the Northern Wastes. They fought five Heralds. They slew two. Three remain chained within the rift until their kin dragged them back in the abyss. Valet gave his life so that you might love another day."
Gasps, murmurs, heads bowed.
The holo shifted. It now displayed Valek's face, sharp eyed, grim, younger than Aiden had expected.
"Repeat after me." The voice commanded.
The crowd spoke as one, words drilled into them since childhood: "We are the last. We are the shield. We are the voice that does not sing."
The Litancy of Humanity.
Aiden mouthed the words, lips barely moving. He felt no need to shout them like the rest. The Ascendancy don't care how loud you are, only that you obeyed.
The voice droned on, weaving praise for sacrifice with venom toward the Choir, the Rift Borns, the Heretics. The usual. Aiden stopped listening. His gaze wandered to the walls ringing the plaza, lined
with armoured soldiers and banners.
And above them, at the edge of the great dome, the sky.
The stars were gone tonight. The shield was up, an
energy field humming faintly, blotting out the heavens. Not for defense, the Choir never descended from above. No the shield was to block the whispers. The Choir's song rode starlight, and even filtered by the Earth's broken atmosphere, it could gnaw at minds.
Aiden wondered if the shield works as well as the Ascendancy claimed it to. Because even now, he thought he heard-
"Oil."
A hand clapped his shoulder. Aiden nearly jumped.
"Don't drift off during Vigil, man. They'll mark you."
It was Kieran, as usual. Shorter than Aiden, wiry with messy hair and a grin too wide for this gray world. He had a knack for ruining solemn moments, which was half the reason Aiden tolerated him.
"I wasn't drifting," Aiden muttered.
"You were staring at the sky like it would give you answers." Kieran leaned in, lowering his voice. "Newsflash:no stars tonight. Big dome. Big hum. Big nothing."
Aiden's mouth twitched, almost a smile. Almost. "You're loud."
"I'm helpful," Kieran elbowed him. "Besides, you can't get caught looking like you are questioning the Litany. They'll slot you for heresy, and then who will carry my sorry ass through training?"
Training. Right. That was tomorrow.
The announcement had come two weeks ago: Aiden, Kieran, and thousands of others their age had been selected for Ascendant trials. Most wouldn't survive. Everyone knew that. But the alternative was living as a civilian, having third rate rights, just waiting for the Choir or Rifborn to tear down the walls.
At least as a candidate, you have a chance.
The voice's speech ended. The crowd dispersed slowly, murmurs of relief and grief swirling together.
Kieran stretched, groaning. "Another Vigil, another lecture. At this point, I think they recycle the speeches, just swap the names."
"Shut up," Aiden said, but without heat.
"Hey, I'm right. They're gonna read your name up there one day, you know."
Aiden's jaw tightened. "Not if I fail."
"You won't."
He glanced at Kieran. The boy's grin was lopsided, confident. Stupidly so.
"Why are you so sure?" Aiden asked.
"Because if you die, whose gonna stop me from getting eaten by a Herald?"
Aiden snorted. That was Kieran: fearless only when he assumed Aiden would clean up after him.
The bells tolled again, signalling curfew. Soldiers herded citizens back to the arteries of the city, down long corridors of steel and light.
Aiden followed, his steps heavy. Tomorrow, he would step into the Ascendancy training halls. Tomorrow he would begin the path toward becoming the thing everyone worships and fears.
Tomorrow, he would find out if he was meant to become human or something else entirely.
And in the back of his skull faint as a memory, the song hummed again.