The air stank of iron and ash.
Morning came with blood on the sand. Again.
Two slaves had tried to run during the early work bell. Their chains were found near the latrine trench. Their bodies weren't found at all.
As punishment, the guards announced a lesson.
Everyone was gathered—children, elders, broken men with hollow eyes. The slaves were forced to kneel in the dust and watch as the Dominors brought forward a boy. Eight years old. Too thin. Too slow. The guards claimed he'd spoken "heretical words" in the food line.
Words about freedom.
"He's just a child," someone whispered.
That didn't matter.
Grath stood at the center of the yard, a heavy black iron staff in his hand. His armor was dull but soaked with menace. He walked slowly around the boy, who was now tied to a wooden post.
"Words have weight," Grath said, voice echoing. "They shape minds. Minds shape rebellion. And rebellion is rot."
Kael stood near the back of the crowd, his hood pulled low. Mira beside him. Renn and Brenn flanked the edges. The four of them had come to blend in.
But Kael already knew.
"They're not going to stop with punishment," he murmured. "They're sending a message."
Mira's voice was quiet but sharp. "You want to stop it."
Kael didn't respond.
But she already knew.
Grath raised his staff.
The boy wept softly. His knees buckled.
Kael stepped forward.
Just once. Just one step.
The crowd shifted. No one else moved.
Mira reached for his arm.
"Kael, not here—"
But it was too late.
The first glyph lit in the dust.
☿↯⟆⟹ — Veilcut.
Not to hide. To see.
Kael's eyes burned silver as the structure of the execution pit came into focus. Loose joints. A weak point in the post. Cracked bone where the staff had broken before. He understood it all in an instant.
Then he drew the next.
☽⟁⫷⨀ — Varn's Grasp.
It bloomed beneath his feet like fire chasing oil.
Grath froze.
The staff in his hand twitched, and the metal chain around his wrist snapped open like a snake unraveling.
Kael stepped forward again. The boy turned to look at him, eyes wide with fear and hope tangled in one.
"Let him go," Kael said.
The crowd gasped.
Grath turned slowly. "Who said that?"
Kael removed his hood.
Whispers.
A name.
Not spoken. Felt.
The one who knows glyphs.
The boy who sees.
The one they can't control.
Renn stepped forward on the left.
He drew his glyph on a slate stone with a nail.
⇉⎋∴⟡ — Null Sigil.
The moment it activated, the world near him fell silent. No screams. No commands. Just a sharp, unholy calm.
Across the line, Brenn pounded his fist into the earth. The glyph on his knuckles flared.
⚒⟞◉⟴ — Stone's Pulse.
The ground beneath the post shook. The wooden stake cracked and tilted. The rope binding the boy snapped. He fell free.
The crowd roared.
A guard moved toward Kael—blade drawn.
Mira whispered.
♬⧫༶✾ — Lun'Serra's Thread.
Her voice hit the guard mid-stride. His eyes lost focus. His steps slowed, became unsure.
Emotion swept through the onlookers like a fever.
Hope.
Real, blinding, terrifying hope.
Kael walked to the child and lifted him from the ground.
The boy stared at him, eyes shining with something unspoken.
"Run," Kael whispered.
And the boy ran.
The world collapsed in the next breath.
Grath's shout split the air.
"Seize them!"
Dozens of guards surged from the barracks, iron weapons drawn. The crowd scattered. Screams. Chaos. Dust.
Kael and the others ran.
Not into the pens.
Into the mines.
Into the dark.
They didn't stop until they were two levels down, in the abandoned shaft with the broken glyph door.
Breathless. Bleeding.
But alive.
Kael pressed his back against the stone and slid down, glyph light still flickering on his palms.
"We've started something," he said between breaths.
"No," Renn muttered, wiping blood from his cheek. "We lit it."
Mira sat beside Kael, arms around her knees. Her voice was calm. "They'll call us heretics. Mind-marked. Maybe even Mindflencer kin."
"We are," Kael said. "Not by birth. By choice."
Brenn leaned against the wall, arms folded. "You know they'll come. Not just Grath. The cloaked ones."
The others fell silent.
They all knew who he meant.
The Mindflensers.
Later that night, while the others rested, Kael unrolled the scroll in the flickering lantern light.
It had changed.
The glyphs near the bottom were shifting again. Not just symbols. Names.
One glowed with sickly red light.
🜏✠⟁⩫ — Memory Lock.
Another next to it shimmered gold.
⚖⟡⇅♒ — Balance Bind.
He touched the scroll, and it felt warm.
The glyphs weren't just teaching anymore.
They were responding.
Meanwhile, in the upper levels, whispers spread like a disease.
"They saved a child."
"I saw the stones crack."
"She sang, and he fell."
"He drew light from dirt."
Kael's name spread without a voice. Just glances. Just nods. Just the shifting weight of collective belief.
And Grath?
Grath fumed.
He locked the lower mines.
He burned the bedding in the southern pens.
He crucified three men by morning just to show that fear still reigned.
But the sparks were lit.
And some fires don't go out.
The next evening, Mira returned from a short supply run with eyes wide and voice shaking.
She opened her palm.
There was a scrap of cloth in her hand.
Folded neatly.
On it, scrawled in ink:
"You are not alone."
Below it — a glyph, unfamiliar.
✠⟞⧬☍
Kael studied it.
It moved when he looked at it.
He touched the ink.
It was fresh.