Chapter 4 The Ones Who Lived

Rain pattered against the shattered windows of the eastern watchtower. The city below lay quiet, soaked in gray and still carrying the echo of screams no one had the strength to repeat.

Emily stood alone by the broken railing, watching water run in trails across stone. Her cloak was soaked through, but she didn't move.

Behind her, boots scraped softly. She didn't need to turn.

"I know that walk," she said. "Mark."

He came to stand beside her, silent at first. His uniform was still patched with the sigil of the old army, though the threads were fraying. Like the war had marked him too deeply to take off.

"They say you're spending time with him," he said without preamble.

Emily didn't answer.

Mark let out a slow exhale. "He killed my brother."

She closed her eyes. "I know."

"I need you to tell me there's a plan," Mark said. "Tell me this is strategy not sympathy."

Emily opened her mouth, then stopped. The truth was more complicated than a battle map.

"He knows things," she said finally. "Things we don't. Routes his people used. Stockpiles we never found. Hidden cells still loyal to the old cause."

"And you think he'll just give us that?"

"No," she said. "But I think he wants something. And I need to find out what."

Mark turned to look at her, jaw set tight. "You always played your cards close. But this one feels dangerous."

Emily met his eyes. "So did we."

He blinked, caught off-guard. Once, long ago, they'd loved each other in the way soldiers love in the middle of war briefly, fiercely, doomed from the start. He hadn't expected her to bring it up. Not now. Not in the rain.

"We were on the same side," he said quietly.

She turned back to the city. "That never stopped anyone from becoming the enemy."

In the cell, Raphael was humming.

It was the kind of tune you hum at funerals. Low. Slow. Almost gentle.

Ruth stood outside the bars, arms folded, watching him like he might sprout fangs.

"You know that song?" he asked her.

"It's a burial hymn," Ruth said. "From the southern provinces. My mother sang it when my sister died."

Raphael nodded, eyes distant. "Mine too. Except she sang it for me."

"You're not dead."

"Not in body."

She gritted her teeth. "If you're trying to make us feel sorry for you"

"I'm not." He looked up, and for a moment, there was nothing but honesty in his voice. "I'm trying to remember what it felt like. To be a person."

Ruth flinched. Not visibly. But he saw it. She hated that he saw it.

He leaned forward slightly, the chain groaning. "She's not coming today, is she?"

Ruth didn't respond.

Raphael smiled faintly. "Didn't think so."

"I don't know what you think this is," Ruth said. "But it's not a redemption arc. You die down here. Alone. Forgotten."

"Maybe." He leaned back again. "Or maybe I leave a little piece of myself in her first."

Ruth left without a word.

But her fists were clenched the whole way up the stairs.