The days that followed settled into a tempo that was both a comfort and a quiet deception. The Burn Field demanded its daily tribute of sweat and spirit, a relentless cycle of excavating collapsed trenches, hauling away slag, and reinforcing the decaying earthworks that scarred the land. It was mindless, body-breaking labor designed to grind a person down to their most basic components. Yet for Xieren, the gray monotony was now threaded with slivers of brilliant, impossible color. They were found in the brief, luminous smile Elia offered him across the smoky haze of the mess tent, a look meant only for him. They existed in the fleeting, feather-light touch of her hand as she passed him a waterskin under the flat, oppressive sky. These small, stolen moments were like living embers, a secret warmth he cupped in his hands and carried with him into the cold, silent earth.
He began seeing the world the way she did. When the gray clouds parted for a moment, the muddy puddles looked like smooth silver mirrors. The charred pine trunks on the ridge, once just burnt stumps to him, now stood like stark black figures against the purple-blue dusk. Elia wouldn't let the field be only sorrow, and day by day she was teaching him to notice its quiet kind of beauty, too.
One evening, long after the final bell had tolled its flat, metallic note and a weary quiet had descended, he found her behind their shared tent. She was kneeling before a rusted-out basin she had dragged back from the scrap heaps, her fingers gently turning the dead, sterile soil within it. It was a profoundly futile gesture; nothing had grown in the Burn Field for generations. The earth was a poisoned mix of chemical residue, heavy metals, and generations of cremated ash. Still, she persisted, her focus absolute, as if her hope alone were a seed she could plant to coax life from the dust.
"You're trying to reason with stubborn ground," he said softly, his voice barely disturbing the quiet as he came to stand behind her.
She glanced up over her shoulder, a smudge of dark soot stark against the pale skin of her cheek. He had the sudden, overwhelming urge to reach out and wipe it away, to feel the warmth of her skin beneath his fingers. "And you spend your days digging holes just to fill them again," she countered, her lips curving into a gentle smile that reached her eyes. "We all have our hopeless tasks, don't we?"
He knelt beside her, the coarse fabric of his trousers scratching against his knees. Their shoulders brushed, a small point of contact that sent a jolt of warmth through him. "What would you grow," he asked, his voice softer now, "if you could make anything bloom right here?"
Her gaze became distant, her eyes looking at the barren soil but seeing something else entirely—something vibrant and alive. "Moonpetal flowers," she said, her voice taking on a hushed, reverent tone. "My mother used to tell me stories about them when I was little. She said they only bloom in the darkest part of the night, that they drink the starlight to survive. Their petals glow a soft, silver color." She turned to him then, her eyes wide and achingly earnest.
"Can you even imagine that, Xieren? Something so beautiful, growing right here, born out of all this darkness?"
He couldn't. The very concept felt like a fairy tale from another world, a story told in a language he didn't speak.
But watching the dream reflected in her eyes, so vivid and fiercely held, he found himself wanting to believe in it with every fiber of his being.
"I can now," he said, his voice thick with an emotion he couldn't quite name.
He reached out, slowly, and his calloused thumb gently brushed the smudge of soot from her cheek. Her skin was impossibly soft. The moment hung between them, fragile and potent, charged with all the words they hadn't yet said. She leaned into his touch, a barely perceptible movement, a silent affirmation that made his heart ache with a fierce, protective tenderness.
Their quiet world was fractured two days later by the arrival of the quarterly supply wain and its overseer, Quartermaster Darek. Darek was not ashborn; he was a Faction man, his specific allegiance a matter of grim and whispered speculation. He was a thick, imposing figure, wide as an ox and clad in boiled leather and gray fatigues that seemed to absorb the light around him. His face was a mask of hardened indifference, his eyes small, sharp, and perpetually narrowed against the world. He was a physical manifestation of the power that crushed them, the force that consumed what they produced and gave them back only enough to continue producing.
The laborers lined up before him in a silent procession, their wooden bowls held out in obedience. Xieren stood in line just behind Fen. Fen watched the Quartermaster with a carefully neutral expression, but Xieren could see the tension in the set of his shoulders.
Darek stood beside the supply crates, a heavy iron ladle in one hand and a data-slate in the other, doling out the weekly rations of grain, salted meat, and a nutrient paste the color of rust. His gaze swept over the assembled workers, assessing their health, their compliance, their spirit—or the glaring lack of it. When Elia approached the crates, her posture straight and proud despite the subservient ritual, Darek paused his mechanical movements. His eyes lingered on her for a moment too long, a cold, appraising look that made Xieren's blood run cold.
"You're looking thin, girl," Darek said, his voice flat and devoid of warmth. It wasn't concern; it was the assessment of an asset. "See that you eat your share. Broken tools are of no use to the Factions."
Elia simply inclined her head, her expression a careful, unreadable mask as she accepted her rations.
"Yes, Quartermaster."
A hot, familiar knot of anger tightened in Xieren's gut. The casual dehumanization in Darek's tone, the way he spoke to her as if she were a shovel with a cracking haft, made his hands clench into fists at his sides. He felt a sudden, reckless impulse to step forward, to say something, to wipe the look of smug authority from Darek's face.
Before he could act, Fen's heavy hand landed on his shoulder. It was a subtle, grounding pressure, a silent command: Stay still. Endure. This is not the hill to die on. Xieren's jaw clenched, but he obeyed, the anger a hot coil inside him. He knew, as they all did, that defiance here was a swift and brutal death sentence.
Later, as they ate their meager meal, Fen watched him from across the rough-hewn table. Xieren tried to focus on his stew, but he could feel the old man's gaze on him.
"You've been different lately, boy," Fen said, his voice a low rumble that wouldn't carry. He wasn't looking at Xieren directly, instead scraping the last of the stew from his own bowl. "Quieter. But a different kind of quiet. Not beaten. Just… preoccupied."
"Same work, same dirt," Xieren mumbled, keeping his eyes down.
"It's not the dirt," Fen continued, finally looking up. His slate-gray eyes were knowing. "It's the girl. Elia." Xieren's head snapped up, his defenses immediately on alert. Fen just nodded slowly. "I see the way you look at her. And the way she looks at you. It's a look I haven't seen in this place in a long, long time."
"She's a friend," Xieren said, the words feeling thin and inadequate.
"This is something else. Something more dangerous." Fen said with a sharp tone.
"Why is it dangerous?" Xieren asked, his voice tight.
"Because hope is dangerous in a place like this," his gaze softening with a deep, paternal sorrow. "It makes you vulnerable. It gives them something to take from you. Darek sees it, too. Don't think for a second he doesn't. He sees a spark of light, and his first instinct will be to snuff it out." He leaned forward slightly. "Just be careful, Xieren. Both of you."
The conversation left Xieren feeling exposed, as if Fen had peeled back a layer of his skin and seen the secret, vulnerable thing hiding beneath. The unease lingered long after the meal, a cold weight in his stomach. The Quartermaster's presence was a heavy blanket smothering the camp's spirit, and now Fen's warning echoed in his mind.
He found Elia later by the silent, skeletal pines at the edge of the camp, her arms wrapped around herself as she stared out into the endless, swallowing darkness.
"Don't let Darek get to you," Xieren said, joining her in the shadows.
"It's not just him," she whispered, though a shiver that ran through her betrayed her words. "It's what he represents. This cage. Fen is worried about us, isn't he?"
Xieren was taken aback. "How did you know?"
"I see the way he watches you. The way he watched us today," she said. "He cares about you. He's afraid for you."
She turned to him, her eyes searching his in the gloom, her expression desperate and resolute. "That's why I have to show you something. Because Fen is right to be afraid, but maybe for the wrong reason. You have to promise me you won't be."
A chill that had nothing to do with the night air prickled his skin. "I promise," he said, his heart beginning a low, heavy drumbeat against his ribs.
She led him to the most secluded part of the camp, a deep hollow shielded by a collapsed retaining wall where the darkness was thick and absolute. "Give me your hand," she commanded, her voice a fragile whisper.
He extended his hand, and she took it in both of hers. Her skin was as cold as ice. "Now, watch," she breathed, and closed her eyes.
For a long, silent moment, nothing happened. Then, he felt it. A faint, tingling warmth spreading from her palms into his, a humming, pleasant sensation, like holding a captive sunbeam. He looked down, his breath catching in his throat. A soft, golden light was emanating from her hands, pulsing with a gentle, life-giving rhythm. It illuminated the space between them, casting her face in a warm, ethereal glow and causing the veins on the back of his own hand to stand out in sharp, stark relief. It was Oryn. Raw, untamed, and achingly beautiful. It was nothing like the violent, weaponized energy he'd heard stories about. This was warmth. This was life.
"How?" he finally managed to breathe, his voice full of a profound awe that momentarily eclipsed his fear.
Elia opened her eyes, a universe of terror and wonder swirling within them.
"I don't know," she confessed.
"It started a few weeks ago. Just a little warmth when I was scared or angry. Now… now there's this."
She released his hand, and the golden light vanished, plunging them back into a darkness that felt deeper than before.
"I think it's why I'm always so tired. It's taking something from me to create it."
The full weight of their situation crashed down on him. An unregistered Oryn-user in a labor camp. If Darek discovered this, she wouldn't be offered training. She would be a variable in an equation that demanded absolute control. A glitch to be deleted. Fen's warning took on a terrifying new meaning.
"This is our chance," she said, her voice trembling but gaining strength with every word.
"The Writemark Trials. They're held every year. It's a path to citizenship, to a life outside this hell. If I can learn to control this, if I can make it stronger, I could pass the Trials. We could be free, You and me. Truly free."
The words hung in the absolute darkness between them, shimmering with a desperate, beautiful hope. Free. You and me. Truly free.
For a heartbeat, Xieren let the vision wash over him—a world with mountains and oceans, a world with Elia's hand in his, the ash finally washed from her golden hair. It was a dream so potent it made his chest ache. But then the cold reality of the Burn Field, of their lives, crashed back in with the force of a tidal wave, and the dream shattered.
"No."
The word was a shard of ice in the dark, sharp and immediate. It seemed to wound the hopeful silence she had created. He let go of her hands as if they had suddenly burned him, taking a half-step back.
"Xieren?" she whispered, her voice laced with confusion, the light in her seeming to dim.
"No," he repeated, his own voice a harsh, raw thing he barely recognized.
He shook his head, running a hand through his matted hair. "Absolutely not. Do you hear what you're saying, Elia? The Writemark Trials?" He laughed, but it was a bitter, broken sound entirely devoid of humor.
"They're not a path to citizenship. They're a culling. It's a slaughterhouse they dress up as an opportunity to give the hopeless something to die for."
He began to pace in the small, confined space, his movements agitated, the words spilling out of him in a torrent of fear.
"We've heard the stories. The whispers from the wain drivers. They pit aspirants against each other. They use Maulkin berserkers as living obstacles and drop Tidegrave poisons into the air just to thin the herd. More caskets come back from the Trials than citizens, Elia! They send back the bodies as a warning to the rest of us: Don't you dare try to climb."
He stopped and faced her, his silhouette a wall of desperation against the faint starlight. "This power..." he gestured to her hands, "it's a miracle. It's beautiful. But to them? To the Factions? It's a threat to be managed or a weapon to be broken. You can't just walk in there and ask for a new life."
His voice cracked, the anger draining away, replaced by a deep, pleading anguish that was far more potent. "I can't let you do it."
"You can't let me?" she challenged softly, but there was a new strength in her tone. "Xieren, what is the alternative? To wait for Darek to decide I'm no longer a useful tool? To watch Fen grow old and die in this filth? To feel this… this thing inside me either fade away or consume me?"
She stepped toward him, her eyes searching for his.
"Staying here is also a death sentence. It's just slower. Don't you see? This is the first choice we've ever had."
"And what if you don't survive the choice?" he shot back, his voice raw. The question hung between them, terrible and real. He finally said the thing that was buried beneath all the fear, the one truth that mattered more than freedom, more than escape, more than life itself.
"I just found you," he whispered, his throat tight.
"In all this gray, in all this death, you are the only thing that feels real, the only thing that feels like life. I will not lose you to some Faction blood sport. I won't."
He looked at her, his entire being laid bare in his gaze. "I would rather spend a thousand years digging in this pit with you than spend a single day free in a world where you don't exist. Don't ask me to help you die."