02:50 p.m. - At Cathedral Dungeon, Dawnspire.
The cell smelled of vinegar and old prayers. Light came through a thin slit and drew a narrow band on the floor. The harness hung in the center like a cold altar. Runes breathed from the walls. Chains swung with small sounds when the air moved. The ward thrummed low and kept him off the stone.
(Ryan feels like the house is the same as his, but not the same. It is his room but under different sky.)
They brought people down in shifts. First came a man in a plain robe who held his chin like a question. Then a merchant with ink-stained fingers and a fur collar. Then an acolyte who smelled of incense and sweat. Each one edged inside, looked at the body marks on Ryan's face, and stepped back with a small, quick face. No one touched him. The ward kept them at bay.
Crowds above sent them down like messengers with news. They moved in and out, full of the need to see and tell. Some came with prayers. Some came with bets. None left quietly.
Priest (curious): "Is it true? Do they say the man smiles in fire?"
Merchant (low): "I saw the blood. But people say he laughed while the man fell apart. They say it was a smile."
Acolyte (whispering): "We must mark it. We must tell the holy."
They said the same small things in many different words. The rumor grew with each telling. The dungeon feasted on the noise and fed the city its next tale.
(Ryan thinking: I did not smile. I was in a harness. The word that moves faster than truth is fear.)
He lay in the harness and the dried spray of Cassian's blood still shone on his cheek. It felt like proof to those who saw it. The mark did not come off. The smear would not be washed away by words. It stayed like a badge that accused him without law.
People took tokens. A woman pressed a scrap of cloth against his sleeve and said a short prayer, then tucked the cloth into her bundle. A child looked up with eyes too bright for the dungeon and asked the mother why he had no cuts. The mother said nothing and pulled the child away.
Voice after voice circled the same idea. Men spoke of ancient wrongs. Women spoke of the safety of their houses. Children hummed new songs they learned from older mouths on the stairs. That hum bent the hall like wind.
!(Burn the books! Burn the tools! Purge the city of the shadow.)
The cry started thin at the mouth of the guardroom and grew until the ledger of the Temple heard it. It is quick work to turn a crowd into a blade.
Pope Thaddeus (commanding): "Order. We will not make a rash ending. Yet the city expects a shield. The Temple must show resolve."
He stood above the circle, silk folded like an armor, fingers at the hidden sigil in his collar. The sigil was a small thing, but he touched it like a man seeking ballast. His voice went soft and slow and it rolled through the stones.
Pope Thaddeus (cold): "This thing does not answer to the law of flame. It stands outside the old tests. It must be bound until we know what it is. If the danger is great, we will act to protect the people."
There was always a precise language with him. His speech wrapped caution and command in the same cloth. People who feared liked soft orders. They needed rules said in low and certain tones.
Marcelline stood a step back from him. Her white and gold robes cut the dim. Her hands were folded. She watched Ryan like one watching a slow, dangerous machine. Her face was a place where no warmth stayed long. She moved with the careful will of a woman who had learned to hold prayer like a blade.
Marcelline (quiet, to herself): "We do not burn for gossip. We do not spare for fear. We seek truth."
Someone else above had already begun the push. Two elders from the inner circle—men who measured power by how long their names stayed in book margins—came down the stone stair. They smelled of old wine and older prayers. They closed the distance between Marcelline and the Pope and put their counsel in the air between them.
Elder One (insistent): "High Priestess, the city trembles. If you do not name this man monster, you will be called its hand. Your rivals wait."
Elder Two (quiet threat): "Do not let softness be your legacy. Name him, and the Temple keeps its hold."
Marcelline's jaw tightened. She had the look of a woman who could measure the weight of two heavy words and still be forced to choose one. The elders wanted her to speak a sentence that would bend the city to their shape. They offered her a simple ledger: pronounce the man a demon, and you keep the square, hesitate, and your name will be used to call you keeper of devils.
(Marcelline is young. She must face older hands. The elders speak like older brothers. This is not said aloud, but the city will call them older brothers in memory.)
Marcelline (cold): "If I issue a false sentence, the city will burn for nothing. If I refuse, the rumor will call me protector of evil. I will not be guided by threat."
Elder One (hard): "Then be guided by duty. Either you shape this story or this story shapes you."
They moved away with the hint of expectation and left Marcelline alone with the silence that gathers before a bell rings.
The next night she prayed until the flesh of her hands bled. The candles by the altar flickered and threw her long shadow up the wall. She pressed her palms together and gripped the wood so hard the grain bit into her skin. It is an old thing to trade blood for answer, people with power still tried it even when ritual grew thin. When she opened her hands she found the skin split and the prayer had not come.
(Marcelline thinking: I asked him to show a sign. I begged the Staglord to say the truth. There was only silence. I feel the cold that comes from not knowing.)
Marcelline (quiet, raw): "Sometimes I wonder if the gods answer— or if we are only echoing our own fear."
No voice returned to her. The chapel kept its velvet quiet like a place that had swallowed a sound.
Below, Ryan counted the moments like notes. His head fit the shape of the harness and the ward hummed along with the line of his breath. He tried to think of rules and found only the space where rules used to be. The Choice Mandate sat like a key he could not reach. He could feel the power inside the Space House like a warm thing behind a door. The door did not open.
(Ryan thinking: I have a house that is not my house. I have choices with voices I cannot read. I cannot go to the Space House now. Not until the rules make death a door and I refuse to step through it. I must live in this day and make a plan without the logs. That is the cruel part.)
A guard brought food in a small bowl and set it where Ryan could reach with his chin. The food was thick and plain. Ryan did not taste it. The ward would not let him lift the bowl to his lips. He watched instead as faces walked by—some cruel, some frightened, some bored—and each one carried a tiny new word about him.
Aman (guard, bored): "He eats the same as us. He bleeds like us. But he smiled when the man broke. The old women saw it."
Old Woman (sharp): "It was not a smile. It was the way of the devil to seem kind while the world burns."
The words sank like thorns.
Varena's name came up sometimes among the visitors. Rumor liked to put merchants in the mouths of many. They said Varena had been seen buying small lots of paper and jars in the market the week before. She had motive in the eyes of those who wanted a villain to sell to.
Varena (cool): "I am a trader. I buy what pays. Nothing more."
Her answer was a thin thread. People gave it too many weights and hung it like an accusation. Varena moved in the market as a woman who kept her ledgers like shields. She had little love for being used as a face for someone else's fury.
Ryan tried to think what the Mandate might do. Every chosen line he had picked in the Space House felt less like a guard and more like weather. Safe from Wounds had kept his skin from breaking. Safe from the Red Moon might have answered like a trap. Safe from Doubt built smooth belief in taverns, but not in a room where a man had exploded.
(Ryan thinking: If the Mandate acts like weather, then my choices may move without me. I cannot rely on it to stop the next thing. I must find people who read rites and rules. I must build truth by tests, not by hoping the house will speak.)
He looked at the rusted chain that pledged him to the cathedral. The letters burned into its links read, "No living trade within." The statement was blunt and small. It had the clarity of a thing meant to hold more than iron.
A scribe came down with a page and asked him to sign. The ledger was thick and full of names like anchors. Ryan's pen hand—still whole, still stained faintly with ink—trembled as he wrote his name. He signed with the same habit he had in another life: neat, flat, a line to prove he had not fled.
Scribe (soft): "Master Ryan, write as you can. We will keep this for the record."
Ryan (steady): "A record is a good thing. Keep it true."
Scribe (nods): "They will read it and measure it. Some will think you clean. Others will not be satisfied."
His handwriting felt like a small rebellion against the story the city tried to make.
05:30 p.m. - At Market Square, Dawnspire.
By early evening the square filled. Torches stood like small suns in a sky that seemed full of other light—stars not like the city had known, a black point far away that did not pull. People carried bundles of things with red marks: paper, metal jars, broken pens. They stacked them on carts and set them in a heap. A fire started because someone threw a torch on a pile and the flames took in paper and varnish and made the market smell of new ash.
Children clustered at the edges and learned the song of the day from older mouths. They sang with voices high and plain:
Child Voice (singing): "Fire cleans the city, fire sets it white. Clean the hand that sells the night."
!(Fire will wash the rot away! Let the stalks of the city burn to new light!)
The cry lifted and the square answered. Some had come with grief, some had come with profit. A few had come with nothing but the combustion of a will that wanted a body to blame.
(There is a black hole in the sky that watches. The gravity here feels like home. I do not understand the stars, but my feet know the ground.)
Marcelline stood on the cathedral balcony above the square. She had not yet spoken the sentence the elders wanted, but her mouth moved like a hinge between hope and hurt. Tears tracked down her cheek and left small glittering lines on her skin. She watched her people burn the paper the way people burn memory.
Marcelline (soft, to herself): "Sometimes I wonder if the gods answer—or if we are only echoing our own fear."
Her lips moved, tight with a prayer that did not respond. The people below could not see the way the light in her eyes shook. They only saw the one truth they needed: their High Priestess stood above them and watched.
A voice came from the square. A preacher—small and loud—found his stage and pointed to the bonfire. He used the word "order" like a hammer.
Preacher (rousing): "See the proof! He wears no wound, but death came to our man. The Temple sees this as a mark. If we let such things stand, our doors will fall. Keep the good. Sweep away the wrong."
!(Keep the city pure! Burn the papers of the stranger! Cut the hand that feeds the enemy!)
The chant rolled and the market answered with a sea of hands and a sound like flint. It is easy to make a crowd feel held when you give them something to destroy. Thaddeus's men walked among them with calm smiles like men who feed a small fire that grows big.
Pope Thaddeus (from the steps): "Citizens, calm yourselves. The Temple will not be ruled by frenzy. We will find order and we will cleanse where cleansing is needed. But do not swear wild things in our name. Let the law decide with care and speed."
His voice soothed the edge, but it did not stop the flames. The fire ate through stacks of letters, pamphlets, sample sheets of Technologia, and small jars labelled in neat hands. The smell was bitter and bright. From the balcony one could see the little pigs of paper curl and blacken and fall.
Varena watched from the crowd with a measured face. She wore a plain cloak and a small silver ring that glinted when she held her hands together. People whispered her name like a coin flipped and dropped. She moved close enough to the pile that her shadow touched the heat, then stepped back and folded her hands.
Varena (calm): "I pay for goods. I do not start bonfires. Those who burn what they do not own enjoy a short triumph."
Her words were a dam for a mood. She had no love for the public acting like judge, jury and arsonist. The market was her turf. She kept her ledger and her mouth small and neat.
From the balcony Marcelline looked down and felt the city turn into the thing she feared. Her lips formed the sentence she had not wished for. It was a soft sound that carried like a verdict.
Marcelline (clear, cold): "He must be judged to keep the Temple true. We will not let fear make our mercy a chain upon the innocent."
(A small, private thought: I am afraid. I am young and I tremble and my hands bled asking for answer. But softness will kill the city. Strength will save it. Which of these is the god's will? Why does the sky not tell me?)
She did not raise the torch herself. She did not need to. Her decree was the shape of a hand that could turn the city.
Ryan watched the fires from the slot in his world where the harness kept him safe. The market smoke rose and found the streets and the people who bought their dinner and their tools. He thought of the apprentices, the men who bent iron and worked late nights at the shop. That shop depended on the city being better than a single rumor.
(Ryan thinking: If I lose this city, who pays the men? If the apprentices leave because their master is a devil, they lose roofs and bread. I chose rules in the House thinking they would protect people. But rules that act without me are a new kind of danger.)
He imagined the apprentices: faces, hands, small jokes. They trusted the shop as a place to find honest work. The idea that rumor would pull them away felt like a physical cut.
A man at the square held a torn pamphlet aloft and stamped his foot. He used the word "monster" like a coin that always finds its side up.
Man (angry): "Burn it all. Keep the town clean. If there is a demon in our midst, it must not stand."
Woman (soft): "But what of the men who work the pens? What of the children who learn to read from new ink? Are they to be punished for one man's dreadful luck?"
The two voices did the work of many arguments. The crowd split for a moment, thought of their lives, then the smell of burned paper and the feel of a small triumph pushed them back to anger.
!(The city will be pure! Down with the shadow! Down with the hand that smiles in blood!)
The chant became a tidal thing that pushed people toward the square's edge. They demanded a sign from the Temple, and the Temple gave them one: a sentence that was not yet law, a prayer that sounded like a command.
Poor men tried to salvage small things from the embers—charred papers, half-melted jars. They looked at the waste of what had been sold and their faces closed in. There was work to be done: cart the ash, see who had lost wares. The city would pay in small ways: a child sent home hungry, a furnace banked, a door left unbolted.
Ryan's mind went through a ledger that had no numbers his world taught him to count. He counted small losses in his head like a man who keeps inventory by heart: one apprentice's wages, two weeks of coal, a contract with a guild that could be lost. He pressed the thought into the shape of plans.
(Ryan thinking: I cannot fix the sky. I cannot change the stars or the black point that sits like a watch. But I can keep the people who work for me fed. I can find Aemond and a mage. I can keep the books. I can make tests. I can show the city proof other than fear.)
He tried to call for Aidan but had no other place to speak. He felt the weight of the moment like gravity. Outside the cathedral, the night bent in strange ways. Stars watched like eyes that had nothing to do with the city. A black hole hung far and did not pull. The sense that the world was both right underfoot and wrong above made his thoughts small and large at once.
A young boy near the bonfire—no more than ten—sang louder than the others. His voice had the raw joy of a child who thinks the world is simple. He had learned the line from older mouths.
Boy (shouting): "Fire takes the lies! We will be pure!"
(He is a younger brother to many kids in the square. He does not know the scale of what he sings.)
The child's innocence cut like iron. Ryan felt a cold come through him. He thought of the day he had left a different life—of bus stops and patch notes and the way the internet once replied—and he remembered the quiet of the Space House like a screen that would not wake. It was a heavy thing to carry: to have power and not to be able to use it when the world wanted answers.
Marcelline stepped down from the balcony at last and walked through the square. People bowed like grass before a stone. She walked like someone who had learned to give order gentle weight. When she passed the pile of ash she did not touch it. She only looked at the people who had come to be told what was right.
Marcelline (to the crowd): "We will not rend the city on rumor alone. Bring witnesses. Bring proof. The Temple will hold a fresh trial and the truth will come to light."
Her words were steady and they bent the immediate fury into a waiting anger. The crowd grumbled but for the moment cooled. That was credit she kept by the feel of a hand given freely. Yet as she spoke she still believed the sentence she had not uttered. She had already felt the shape of sacrifice.
Ryan felt a small relief like a breath that could be held only so long. The Temple's promise of inquiry bought time for the shop he had left behind. It bought minutes to find Aemond or a mage who could read the marks Cassian had left. Time, he knew, would be his only real currency now.
(Ryan thinking: Time and small truths. I will not let rumor take the men. I will find a way to show the world something they can hold. If that fails, I will trade with those who will keep my people fed. I will not go to the House and leave this paper here to scrawl alone. I will make proof with hands, not prayers.)
The fire in the square burned down to embers, and the song walked off into the streets like a thing that had done its small work. The city would have its next day. People would have to sleep with the knowledge that they had chosen to burn. Some would keep their houses a little safer in the morning because something had been destroyed. Others would find a loss and count it in small, bitter numbers.
In the dark above, the stars did not answer. The black point watched like a distant coal that had forgotten heat. The cathedral bells tolled once, twice, and the sound made the city fold itself into the night. For Ryan the sound was a clock and a shiver. He lay in a harness and he kept to his thoughts.
(Ryan thinking: I am sad and I am confused. I am a man who once read lines of code and thought he could fix things. Now the code is the city and the logs are in a room I cannot open. I will do what I can. I will keep the ledger. I will find help. I will not let the men who trust me starve because rumor wants a face to fear.)
The bells quieted. The ward hummed. In the cell the runes glowed a little until the stones took them back. The city turned inward like a great beast that needed to sleep. For the first time since his name had been called into the Temple's mouth, Ryan felt something like a plan: small, brittle, and real.