Enemies Who Know Your Name
Names had power in Noctyrrh.
Lumi felt it the moment they spoke hers.
She and Blake were given temporary refuge in the eastern quarter—an old watchhouse abandoned after the curse swallowed the city walls whole. Its stones remembered vigilance, not worship, and that made it safer than the palace had ever been.
Night settled uneasily outside. The stars remained, but shadows pooled in unfamiliar ways, as if the darkness itself were deciding where it still belonged.
Lumi sat at the narrow table, hands wrapped around a chipped cup of bitter tea that had long gone cold.
"They're organizing," she said quietly.
Blake looked up from where he was cleaning blood from his arm, his movements precise despite the stiffness in his fingers. "The loyalists?"
"Yes. And others."
Truth brushed against the city beyond the walls—whispers braided with fear, belief hardening into resolve.
They are giving each other names. Symbols. Stories.
"At twenty-two," Lumi continued, voice tight, "I've learned that movements don't begin with weapons. They begin with certainty."
Blake exhaled slowly. "They know who we are now."
"That's the problem," she replied. "They know our names."
A knock sounded at the door.
Blake was on his feet instantly, shadows coiling around his shoulders. Lumi shook her head, eyes unfocused as truth unfurled.
"Not an enemy," she said. "Not yet."
Blake opened the door to reveal a young courier—no more than sixteen, eyes wide and darting. He held out a folded scrap of parchment with trembling hands.
"For the Truth Bearer," he said, and fled before either of them could speak.
Lumi unfolded the note.
You have broken the night. You have broken us. Meet us before we break you back.
Below the words was a symbol—an eye carved through with a blade.
Blake's jaw tightened. "The Vigilant Remnant."
"You know them," Lumi said.
"I know what they believe," he replied. "That the curse was divine judgment. That suffering kept us pure."
The truth throbbed darkly.
They are not lying to themselves.
That frightened her more than deception ever could.
The city stirred violently before dawn.
Fires broke out in the western districts—small, deliberate, timed to pull attention and spread panic. Bells rang again, not in warning, but accusation.
"They're testing us," Blake said as they watched smoke coil into the star-pricked sky. "Seeing how fast we respond. Who we protect."
"And who we abandon," Lumi added.
She closed her eyes, letting truth stretch farther than she ever had before—not sharp, not invasive, but listening.
She felt it then.
A pocket of silence beneath the old cathedral.
"They're meeting there," Lumi said. "Tonight."
Blake's expression hardened. "It's a trap."
"Yes," she agreed. "For both of us."
He studied her carefully. "And you still want to go."
Lumi met his gaze, unwavering.
"If I don't," she said, "they get to decide what my name means."
The cathedral loomed like a wound carved into the city's heart, its spires cracked, its holy wards long dead. Beneath it, the Remnant waited—faces hidden, candles burning low.
"You came," a voice said from the dark. "Good."
Truth surged painfully.
They believe they are righteous. They believe violence is mercy.
Lumi stepped forward, Blake's presence a solid anchor at her back.
"You want the night returned," Lumi said. "But what you really want is absolution."
Murmurs rippled.
A masked figure laughed. "We want order."
"Order built on silence," Lumi replied. "On erased lives. On love treated as liability."
The silence that followed was brittle.
Then steel scraped.
Blake moved as one with the shadows, Dreadsword flashing as the chamber erupted into chaos. Lumi stood her ground, truth blazing outward—not to wound, but to expose.
Faces were revealed.
Names surfaced.
Fathers. Priests. Guards who had sworn to protect the innocent.
The Remnant faltered.
They had not expected to be seen.
When it was over, the cathedral floor was cracked and scorched—but the blood spilled was far less than it could have been.
They fled.
Blake turned to Lumi, breathing hard. "You didn't finish them."
"No," she said softly. "I named them."
The truth settled, heavy and irreversible.
Enemies who knew your name could hunt you.
But enemies whose names were known?
They could no longer hide.
As they emerged into the uneasy starlight, Lumi understood the next cost awaiting her.
Truth did not end wars.
It only decided whether they were fought in darkness—or in the open.