Chapter 5 The ashes that remember

The Hour of Smoke

The sound of horns echoed through the halls like a muffled warning. Three deep, descending notes marked the beginning of something the slaves avoided naming. No one said "execution" out loud. They simply glanced at each other briefly, lips sealed, and hurried toward any corner that seemed unheard.

Asha was sweeping the East Wing atrium when the sound reached her. She didn't have to ask what it meant: her body understood before her mind. A shiver ran down her spine, her muscles tensed. She raised her eyes. One of the lower-ranking priestesses, dressed in the dull gray that denoted obedience, approached.

"Come. Today you will be a witness."

There was no room for refusal. No explanation. Asha put down her broom, surreptitiously wiped the ash from her hands, and followed the woman through the temple's curving corridors.

They led her to the Courtyard of the Silent Flame.

An open, circular space surrounded by black columns carved with inscriptions that no one dared translate aloud. In the center, a large slab of polished obsidian, like a dark mirror, reflected the cloudless sky.

And on that slab, a man on his knees.

His torso was bare, marked with white symbols. His hair was shaved, his gaze straight ahead. He wasn't crying. He wasn't screaming. He was... still. As if his soul had already departed, and his body simply awaited the protocol.

Asha was led to a privileged position: a small staircase, where only the Custodians in training or designated witnesses sat.

The place smelled of incense and wet coal.

From the northern threshold, Kael Thuros appeared.

He wore an ash mask: not painted, but woven with the same particles of the ritual. His black robes shone slightly, as if something pulsed beneath the fabric.

Asha held her breath.

Behind Kael, two Keepers dragged a large urn. She had seen it in the records: an Essence Collector, an ancient artifact into which the ashes of the executed were poured. Not as punishment, but as a legacy.

That was the dogma of the Ezen Empire: "The soul is not lost if it becomes a memory."

The condemned man lowered his head. No one spoke.

Kael raised his hand, and the ashes dancing around his figure arranged themselves with a sigh. A thread of reddish light ran across his palm. He carried no weapon. He didn't need one.

"By the will of the Living Fire and the Law of Memory, the bearer named Silias Kaern commits his soul to the keeping of the ashes. His memories will be preserved. His body, returned to the flow."

A curt gesture.

And then it happened.

Kael touched the man's forehead with two fingers. His body arched. A guttural sound, like a scream suppressed for centuries, escaped her throat. From her back, spirals of burning ash erupted, not burning, but scarring. Her skin turned gray. Her eyes white. And then, nothing.

The body collapsed forward, a fragile sculpture made of ash.

Not a single particle dispersed.

The Keepers placed the corpse gently in the Collector, while a third priest murmured a chant in an ancient language. Then, a draft lifted the ash from the body and sucked it into the urn.

Asha couldn't move.

Not out of fear, but from something deeper. She had witnessed deaths before. Her father's, those of sick neighbors. But this was different. Here, death wasn't final. It was... a transformation. A sacrifice that preserved something.

And for the first time, she understood what her mother had whispered when she spoke of "those who remember for us."

The Look Behind the Mask

When everyone began to disperse, Kael stepped down from the altar.

He didn't address any of the Keepers. He walked straight toward Asha.

She considered lowering her gaze. Pretending to pretend, as before. But something inside her-perhaps an instinct or a freshly opened wound-told her not to.

She stood tall.

Kael stopped in front of her. He slowly removed the mask. His eyes were darker than she remembered. Not because of their color, but because of their weight.

"Do you know why I brought you here?"

Asha didn't respond. She knew that silence was her only defense... and now also her only form of protest.

Kael raised the corner of his lips. A fleeting, humorless smile.

"Not to scare you. Though fear sometimes sparks fire."

He took out a small ceramic sphere and held it in the air. Inside, a particle of ash floated, not falling to the bottom.

"This is what remains of him. Silias Kaern. Traitor, thief of memory. But also a father. Lover. Poet."

The sphere glowed faintly as he spoke those words. It was as if it reacted to the memory. As if the very essence of the executed man responded to his story.

"You are a slave. But that doesn't prevent you from one day becoming something more. Unless you choose oblivion."

Asha felt she wanted to speak. That she should say something. That if she didn't, she would lose a part of herself. But she pressed her lips together, fighting the tension in her chest.

Kael lowered the sphere. His eyes bore into hers.

"Remember this, even if you don't speak: not everything that dies disappears. And not everything that lives... remembers."

And he left.

Asha lowered her gaze to the ground. The obsidian slab was still warm beneath her feet.

And for the first time, she didn't fear the fire.

She feared forgetting.