Chapter 9: Verdict

The clearing held the quiet of a place waiting to be filled. Mist threaded between the rows of benches and stumps that Moss had arranged the evening before, each one angled toward the stage where the podium stood clean and proud against the hillside. Planted wildflowers lined the aisles in careful clusters, Rain's handiwork, their petals still closed against the early chill. Beyond the far edge of the clearing, the ground fell away sharply into a ravine, and beneath it the ocean churned against dark rock. The sound of waves carried up through the trees like breathing.

Callum stood at the podium, shuffling papers he'd already sorted twice. His hands wouldn't stop trembling. He pressed them flat against the wood and held them there, counting the seconds until the shaking passed. It didn't pass.

People were arriving.

Rain was already seated near the ravine's edge, legs crossed, twirling a daisy between their fingers. They looked content in the way only Rain could manage on a morning like this, as though the flowers and the salt air were enough to make the world feel safe.

Toni's voice preceded him by thirty feet. He burst onto the path carrying a wicker basket with both hands, a proud smile so wide his face barely contained it. Silas followed a step behind, hands in his pockets, the multicolored veins beneath his obsidian skin catching the early light.

"Did everybody try the pie?" Toni called to no one in particular, lifting the basket higher. "There's still some left."

"He's campaigning for his mom through baked goods," Silas said to the nearest cluster of people, shaking his head.

Toni turned on him. "Is it working?"

Laughter rippled through the arrivals. Silas's mouth twitched.

"Maybe."

They found seats near the front, Toni dropping into his chair with theatrical satisfaction while Silas settled beside Moss, exchanging a quiet nod.

Flint arrived next with Nyla at his side. His hand rested on her back, palm spread wide between her shoulder blades, and his eyes moved constantly, scanning the tree line, the clearing's edges, the faces of everyone already seated. Nyla's luminous violet eyes darted between the crowd and Flint's expression, reading his tension like weather.

They sat together, Flint positioning himself between her and the aisle. A wall. Always a wall.

At the clearing's edge, Wren paced. Her platinum pink hair was tied back loosely, the feathers behind her ears ruffling as she walked a tight line between two spruce trees. She was muttering, lips moving without sound, hands gesturing at the air as if arguing with someone invisible.

She stopped. Laughed at herself, sharp and nervous, and pressed both hands to her face.

"Get it together," she whispered to a tree trunk.

The tree didn't answer.

In the back row, Cheri had already claimed her territory. Journals fanned across her lap and the empty seat beside her, charcoal sticks lined up in a pile. Her silver eye moved across the scene in slow sweeps, cataloging. She didn't look up when others sat nearby. She was already working.

Iris landed at the clearing's perimeter with a flutter of white wings, her boots striking earth. Her red scarf trailed behind her as she folded her wings tight and scanned the tree line. She didn't sit.

Shew arrived beside her, and they walked together toward the rows.

"Think this will actually change anything?" Iris asked.

"It might." Shew's mismatched eyes swept across the crowd. "People seem hopeful."

"Hope's dangerous." Iris adjusted her goggles. "Makes you forget to watch your back."

Shew opened their mouth to respond, but another voice threaded through their thoughts first.

Today carries a particular weight in the air.

Shew's jaw tightened. They murmured under their breath, barely audible. "Responsibility is heavy, I suppose."

Iris glanced over. "Hm? What did you say?"

"Nothing. Just wondering what's taking so long to start."

Iris shrugged and turned away. Shew exhaled slowly, their tail curling close around their ankle.

At the podium, Callum straightened his papers a third time and looked out at the gathering crowd. Some nervous, some eager, all of them watching the stage like it mattered. Like this small act of choosing meant something.

I wonder if James is watching.

The thought came unbidden and settled like ice behind his ribs.

Is he waiting in the trees? Is he going to walk down that hill and ask to speak?

A fragment surfaced from two nights ago. James's voice, flat and final in the dark: I can give you that answer tomorrow.

Tomorrow was today.

Callum's gaze drifted across the crowd. Wren's nervous face, the way she kept ruffling her hair and rehearsing words she'd never commit to memory. Toni laughing with Silas over the last piece of pie. Rain's quiet contentment near the ravine's edge, flowers in hand. A found family of strangers and people who'd somehow found each other at the edge of the world, sitting in rows because they believed they deserved a say in what happened next.

Maybe this is it. Maybe he just wanted to be heard. Maybe he'll listen to whoever wins and we can all move on.

He cleared his throat. The murmuring faded.

"Thank you all for coming." His voice came out steadier than he felt, and he clung to that steadiness like a rope. "Today we're choosing our future. Both candidates will speak, then take your questions, and afterward, we vote." He paused, letting the silence hold.

Heads nodding. Eyes forward.

"Wren and Flint have both stepped forward to lead us. They'll each present their vision, and then we'll hear from you all."

He gestured toward the candidates. Wren had stopped pacing, standing rigid at the side of the stage. Flint sat with his arms crossed, already watching the crowd like he was taking a headcount.

"Flint. You're first."

Callum stepped aside. His palms were dry for the first time all morning.

Flint took the podium the way he did everything. No preamble. No performance. He planted both hands on the wood and scanned the rows, meeting eyes one at a time, deliberate as a heartbeat.

"I'm not good with pretty words," he said. "So I'll be direct."

A few sat straighter.

"Look at us. We're not warriors. We're not fighters." He let that settle, his gaze moving across the faces staring back at him. "But damn those who try to harm us."

The words landed. Some people nodded. Others went still.

"I know many of us are afraid. And that's not weakness. That's honesty." He gripped the podium's edge. "Because James asks a question that none of us have considered: what happens when we're threatened?"

Silence. The waves filled it from below.

"Are we supposed to just move on? Again?" He gestured at the crowd. "We found each other because we had nowhere else to go. Some of us were cast out. Some of us ran. Some of us had no choice. But we're here now. We built this." His hand swept across the clearing, the camp beyond, the stage they'd hammered together with borrowed nails. "To hell with him if he thinks we're going to give it up."

Flint took a second to find his words.

"James isn't the only threat out there. He's just the one we can see. There are others. There will always be others. Winter's coming. Resources are tight. People get desperate." He paused. "We need to be ready for all of it."

"Organized patrols. Night watches. Training for those who can fight. Shelters for those who can't. Walls if we need them. Plans for when threats come. Not if. When." His voice dropped half a register. "Everyone contributes something. Everyone has a role."

Near the back, Iris was listening with her arms folded, leaning in. Moss sat forward, fingers laced together, nodding slowly but with something uneasy around his mouth.

"Sometimes survival requires being uncomfortable," Flint continued. "Difficult decisions." He paused, and the weight of what he wasn't saying pressed against the air. "I'm willing to make them. Are you all willing to trust me to?"

He looked across the rows one last time.

"Community matters. But we need to survive first. And I'll do whatever it takes to keep us alive."

He stepped back. The applause was uneven, some people clapping hard, others tentative. Nyla watched with quiet pride, though her hands stayed folded in her lap. Silas frowned slightly, something in the phrasing catching against old memories.

Callum gestured to the other side of the stage. "Wren."

Wren took the podium like someone approaching a cliff's edge. She gripped it with both gloved hands, and for a long moment she just stood there, looking out at the faces looking back.

"I don't have Flint's certainty," she said. An awkward laugh escaped her. "I'm not even sure I should be up here."

Scattered encouragement from the crowd. Toni grinned from the front row and gave her an exaggerated thumbs up that made someone behind him snort.

"But Flint is right."

"We can't just keep running. We need to stand our ground. And yes, we need to be ready to defend ourselves." She straightened, her height raising over the crowd. "But there's a difference. Between defending and hunting. Between protection and revenge. Between being ready and being cruel."

The crowd went quiet. Wren's voice found its footing.

"We're all strangers, aren't we? We came here for different reasons. Running from something. Looking for something. But we found each other. And that has to mean something." She looked at the rows, at a human sitting beside Inhumans, at people who'd arrived alone and somehow built something together. "We can be strong and kind. We can prepare and grow. We don't have to choose between survival and being good people."

Rain nodded gently. Silas was smiling now.

"I want us to build shelters. Not just walls. I want us to be careful. Not paranoid. I want us to defend ourselves. Not hunt down everyone who scares us." She laughed softly at herself. "I know how that sounds. Naive. But I've seen what happens when fear makes people cruel."

The words carried something beneath them, a weight the audience couldn't name but could feel. Wren didn't elaborate. She didn't need to.

"So yes. Let's be strong. Let's be prepared. But let's also be the kind of place worth defending." Her voice steadied into something almost fierce. "Because if we lose that, what makes us different from the rest?"

She stepped back. The applause came warmer this time, fuller. Toni was on his feet, clapping hard enough that Silas had to tug his sleeve to get him to sit back down. Flint watched from his seat with his arms still crossed, but he was nodding. Respect, not agreement. Something close to both.

Callum returned to the podium. "Both candidates have spoken. Questions for either? Both?"

Hands rose. Callum called on them one by one, voice steady while his thoughts ran underneath like a river he couldn't dam.

How much longer? When does James come?

Rain's hand went up first. "You talk about being ready, Flint. What does that actually mean for us? Do we all have to carry weapons? Do we all have to fight?"

Flint answered without hesitation. "Not everyone fights. But everyone contributes. Some people patrol, some build defenses, some grow food so fighters can focus. But yes, those who can fight should learn. We arm ourselves. We stay alert. We don't get caught off guard."

Moss raised his hand next, voice careful. "Wren. What if being kind isn't enough? What if James, or someone like him, comes back? What if they attack instead?"

Wren paused, considering. "Then we defend ourselves. We fight back. I'm not saying we don't fight. I'm saying we don't start fights. We protect our home. We don't go looking for revenge."

A voice from the middle rows, trembling: "Should we kill James?"

Silence blanketed the gathering.

Flint answered first, immediate and certain. "If he hurts us, we hurt him. You come at us, you face consequences. That's not revenge. That's justice."

Wren took longer. "We decide if we have to. Not before. Not just because we're afraid." She saw heads shaking and pressed forward. "I know you think I'm being stupid. Maybe I am. But I don't want us to become the kind of people who kill first and ask questions later."

Flint leaned toward his podium. "I'm not saying we kill first. I'm saying we respond with force when force comes to us." He looked at Wren. "We agree on defense."

Someone from the back, challenging: "You mentioned seeing this before, Wren. Where? When?"

Wren froze. For one exposed instant her composure cracked, and something old and sharp moved behind her eyes. She recovered, but barely.

"Somewhere I used to live. A long time ago." She didn't elaborate. "That's why I know what I'm talking about. Fear is dangerous. It makes people do terrible things. I won't let that happen here."

They believe words can shape their world, Fate observed.

Shew, under their breath: "Maybe they can."

Beside them, Silas glanced over. "What?"

"I said they're both making good points," Shew said, louder.

Across the crowd, Iris's gaze locked onto Shew. A small frown. She'd seen the murmur, the half-second delay of someone responding to a voice no one else could hear. She stored it away.

Callum's fingers tightened on his papers. One more question. He had to ask it. It had been boiling underneath.

"If James were here right now," Callum said, his voice tighter than he wanted, "what would you say to him?"

Flint didn't blink. "I'd have him explain himself. Why he burned his house. What he wants. Make him pay for the damage. The wood, the resources. And then keep an eye on him. Trust is earned, and he'd have to earn it back."

Wren considered, tilting her head. A small, almost apologetic smile crossed her face. "I'd probably offer to help him build the house again."

A ripple of disbelief.

She laughed at herself. "I know. But everyone deserves help. Even people who don't make sense to us. Maybe especially them." A shrug, self-conscious. "I don't know. Maybe I'm too soft for this."

They continued a short round of questions, ranging from stability and commitment to protection and armament. Flint continued his deliberate aim to arm, while Wren stayed true to her own philosophy. Whether it was devoid of violence, or perhaps she simply wanted to avoid conflict.

Callum closed the debate. "Thank you both. Let's vote."

Applause broke out, genuine and engaged. Murmurs threaded between the rows. Flint's got the fire. But Wren's got heart. Can we have both somehow? Wren and Flint exchanged a look across the stage as they stepped down. Flint nodded at her, a gesture that carried more than words. Whatever happens, we'll work together. Wren returned it.

Callum distributed small pieces of parchment, moving through the rows with a basket and a voice that sounded like someone else's.

"Mark your choice. Fold it. Return it to the box. Everyone gets one vote."

People accepted the papers with reverence, as though the act itself mattered as much as the outcome. They scribbled and folded and rose one by one, dropping their votes into the barrel Moss had set at the foot of the stage.

Some were quick. Others paused, quill hovering, weighing something private before committing. Everybody found the barrel eventually.

Shew held their paper, charcoal poised, when Fate's voice slipped through.

This choice will not matter. But make it nevertheless.

Shew paused. Confusion flickered across their face, then something like defiance. They marked Wren. Folded it. Dropped it in.

Callum opened the barrel when the last vote fell. He began counting, fingers moving through the slips one at a time.

Wren. Wren. Flint. Wren. Wren.

He miscounted, lost his place, had to start over.

"You okay, Callum?" someone called.

"Fine. Just making sure I get it right."

He counted again. The result was clear. Wren by a comfortable margin.

He stared at the papers in his hands. Folded them slowly. Stood at the podium and looked out at expectant seats.

His voice cracked. "I have the results."

Too long a pause. He could feel them leaning forward.

"Wren has won. She'll be our... our leader."

The clearing erupted.

Toni leapt from his seat and sprinted to the stage, throwing his arms around Wren before she'd even processed the words. "I knew it! Mom, you did it!"

Wren laughed, startled and bright, folding him into a hug that lifted his feet off the ground. "Okay, okay, put me down before I drop you."

Silas was on his feet, clapping hard. "Well deserved!"

Moss applauded beside him, relief written into the lines around his eyes. Rain smiled gently, clapping with soft hands, flowers still tucked between their fingers. Cheri's charcoal moved furiously across the page, capturing Wren's surprised expression in quick strokes.

Flint stood. He began to clap, slow and deliberate, and across the clearing he met Wren's eyes. He nodded once. Genuine. No bitterness. I'll support you.

Wren returned the nod. Something passed between them that the crowd could feel but not articulate.

Nyla applauded beside Flint, respectful despite her vote. Iris called out encouragement from the perimeter. People turned to each other, smiling, talking, the conversations overlapping in that particular way that only happens when a group of people feel, for a brief suspended moment, like they belong to something.

She'll do well. Flint will help her, I'm sure. Finally, some structure.

Callum stepped down from the podium and returned to his seat. He sat down heavily. The celebration moved around him like a current around a stone, and his hands seemed to finally relax.

The clearing settled gradually into a warm, easy quiet. Conversations softened. People leaned back in their seats, still smiling, still talking in low voices. The sound of waves drifted up from below. Rain's flowers swayed in a passing breeze. For one fragile, perfect moment, the camp felt like what they'd always wanted it to be.

They clamor. This is soon to be vexed.

Shew's blood went cold. "What?"

Iris turned sharply. "What?"

Shew opened their mouth to answer, but before the words formed, a new sound cut through the quiet.

Slow. Deliberate. Clapping.

Not from the crowd. From the hillside above.

Heads turned. One by one, then all at once.

He stood on the crest of the hill, silhouetted against a sky that had gone pale and indifferent. An axe rested on his shoulder, it's shine catching the flat morning light. His bandaged face was unreadable, but the rhythm of his hands said everything.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Someone gasped. "Is that...?"

"James?!"

Recognition swept through the crowd in a wave. People stood, pointed, gripped each other's arms. The celebration died instantly, like a candle snuffed between fingers.

This was inevitable, Fate said.

"No," Shew breathed. "No, not now..."

Callum's face drained of color. His fingers found the edge of his seat and held on. He'd known. But seeing James standing there, unhurried and silhouetted and utterly at ease, was something else entirely.

Wren was still on stage. She froze, the joy sliding off her face like water. Her eyes met James's across the distance and the new confidence she'd carried for the last five minutes evaporated.

Flint's hand moved to the sword at his belt. Every muscle in his body shifted toward readiness. Nyla gripped his arm. "Flint, wait..."

Silas stepped closer to Toni. "Stay close to me."

"What does he want?" Toni whispered.

Rain shrank back in their seat near the ravine's edge, fingers clenching around the daisy until the stem bent.

Wren found her voice. It came out raw, but she forced it to carry. "James! Why are you here? What do you want?"

The clapping stopped. James smiled, visible even at a distance, the pull of it against the bandages.

"What do I want?" He shifted his axe on his shoulder and began walking down the hill. Casual. Unhurried. Like a man arriving late to a gathering he'd planned himself. "I want to congratulate you, Wren."

His voice carried easily across the clearing, the kind of projection that belonged to someone used to commanding attention.

"They chose you. How fitting." He descended steadily, boots finding the slope. "The leader who thinks trust and understanding will protect them."

Halfway down. His smile sharpened into something that looked like amusement.

"You wanted to build something different here. Humans. Inhumans. Together. Equal voices. Equal votes." A bitter laugh. "Like they all say."

He reached the clearing's edge and stopped. His eyes moved across the gathered faces, and when he spoke again, his voice had lost its lightness.

"Many tried that. Do you know what happened?" He savored the silence. "Let me tell you about integration."

"Humans who thought they were respected. Who thought their voices mattered as much as the others." His voice hardened, anger bleeding through the performance. "But Inhumans? They're full of lies. Deceit. Falsehoods." He pointed at faces in the crowd, jabbing the air. "They smile. They nod. They tell you we're in this together. And then they use their gifts" he spat the word "to take what they want."

"Humans are honest. Humans are real. We don't hide behind tricks and magic." He resumed his descent, the last few steps bringing him level with the clearing. "But communities like this? They're a virus. An infection that spreads. That tells humans to trust what they shouldn't. That makes them weak. Makes them prey."

He stood at the clearing's edge now, close enough that they could see the flat planes of his bandaged face, the dark gleam of his eyes behind tinted lenses.

"Democracy. Leadership. Community. All of it. Theater." The cocky smile returned, and it was worse than the anger. "You're not the exception. None of you are. You're just the next one."

Moss stood. His chair scraped against earth. "This is insane. We're leaving..."

"SIT DOWN!"

The voice cracked across the clearing like a whip. Moss froze mid-step. The mask had slipped. Beneath the performance, beneath the philosophy, there was nothing but fury. Pure and absolute and barely contained.

James controlled himself. The smile returned, but colder now. "I wasn't finished."

Flint's voice came from the other side, low and dangerous. "You come here to threaten us? You're alone, James."

James laughed. Genuine amusement, which was somehow the worst sound any of them had heard.

"Am I threatening you?" He tilted his head, mock-innocent. "I just came to talk." A pause, weighted. "And to show you something."

He pointed at the ground. "Do you see them? Look carefully. Under your seats. Around the stage."

Confusion first. Then people began looking down, leaning, peering beneath benches.

Someone gasped.

"What is that?"

"Are those..."

"Oh god..."

Charges. Visible now that they were looking. Placed beneath benches, nestled against stage supports, half-buried in the grass. Everywhere. A trail of what was thought to be woody dust was a spilling of gunpowder.

Panic erupted. People tried to stand, to run.

"I wouldn't."

Two words, and they carried enough command to freeze people where they sat. Some dropped back into their seats. Others stood locked mid-motion, unable to move, unable to think.

James hefted his axe in both hands. "I could end this" he snapped his fingers, the sound sharp "like that."

Silence. Broken only by the ragged sound of frightened breathing and someone crying softly in the back rows.

Callum stood. He couldn't stop himself. His voice broke before it left his mouth, pitched high with desperation and confusion.

"You told me you wanted to be heard! To reason!" He was trembling. "You said you just needed to be at the table!"

Heads turned to Callum. Confusion spreading fast.

"What?"

"Callum, what are you talking about?"

Iris, sharp and immediate: "You knew about this?"

James looked at Callum. The smile that crossed his face was almost fond.

"You're right, Callum," he said, nodding slowly. "I wanted to be heard." A breath, passive, measured. "And now you're all listening, aren't you?"

A beat.

"I'd much rather just kill you all right now."

Iris shouted from the perimeter. "Then do it! Stop playing games and..."

"But I want you to see this first." James looked directly at Wren on the stage, and his voice dropped to something intimate and cruel. "You wanted to lead them, Wren? You wanted to be responsible for their safety?" He gestured at the trapped crowd. "Watch what your leadership is worth. Watch what happens to leaders who build on weakness."

He turned to the crowd. "This is what integration gets you. A facade of democracy built on powder charges." The silence stretched until it ached. "You wanted to be different? To be better? You're just like all the others. Human and Inhuman, working together." He laughed, and the bitterness in it was bottomless. "Right up until the moment it all burns."

James's smile faded.

"Sorry." A pause. "Not sorry."

His hand moved to a rope tied to the tree nearest him. Someone screamed "NO!" and the sound barely left their mouth before the axe swung, the blade shearing through the rope in a single clean arc. A trip wire released. Below the grass, something hissed. Trails of sparks appeared in the earth, racing toward the stage.

People screamed. Tried to stand, to run.

No time.

The stage erupted.

The blast swallowed everything.

A wall of force and heat and noise tore through the center of the clearing, lifting the podium apart in a spray of splinters and flame. The stage supports exploded outward. The structure collapsed.

Wren was closest. The blast caught her full in the chest and flung her backward into the collapsing stage wall. Her left arm took the worst of the impact, fire catching her sleeve instantly, licking up toward her shoulder. She hit the ground and didn't move.

Toni, seated in the front row, caught the edge of the explosion. The force threw him out of his chair and sent him tumbling across churned earth, flames biting into his clothes, smoke rising from his hair and arms and chest. He landed face-down and lay still.

At the ravine's edge, Rain was thrown from their seat. The blast wave caught them sideways and sent them sprawling across the grass. They hit the ground hard, coughing, ears ringing, but alive. Their hands found earth and they pushed themselves up onto trembling knees, blood trickling from a cut above their brow. The ravine yawned behind them, close enough that loose soil crumbled over the edge beneath their weight.

Nyla vanished. Pure reflex, her body acting before her mind could catch up. Purple smoke erupted from her seat and she materialized twenty feet away, stumbling, disoriented, gasping. Her eyes were wild. "Flint?!"

Silas threw himself over Moss. The blast caught them both and hurled them into the nearest tree trunk. Silas's back took the impact, his skin crackling, the sound like burning wood. Moss hit the ground beneath him, winded but whole.

"Stay down!" Silas hissed through gritted teeth. "Stay DOWN!"

Flint was near the stage when it went. His fiery nature spared him the worst of the flames, but the concussive force was indifferent to biology. It threw him backward, spinning, and he slammed into the ground hard enough to blur his vision. Burns crawled up his arms and across his chest. Smoke filled his lungs.

Cheri's journals exploded off her lap. The blast reached the back row as a diminished wave, but it was enough to rip her from her seat and throw her to the earth. She caught herself on her hands, palms splitting open against gravel. Her ears rang so loudly the world went silent. Blood dripped from her fingers onto scattered pages.

Iris's wings deployed on instinct, trying to catch air, trying to lift her above the blast wave. The force hit her sideways and drove her into the tree line. Branches cracked. Her wings crumpled against bark. She fell, groaning, and tried to stand.

Shew was blown sideways. Debris flew toward them and passed through them, their body phasing on an instinct they didn't consciously trigger.

You must survive this! Fate's voice cut through the chaos like a blade.

They hit the ground hard but intact, vision swimming.

Callum didn't move.

He sat in his seat, exactly where he'd been when the rope was cut. The charges around the seating area hadn't detonated. The audience section was intact. The blast had washed over him, carrying heat and debris and the smell of burning wood, and he'd felt the air punch out of his chest, but the fire was concentrated on the stage. The podium. The platform where leaders stood.

James had aimed for the symbols.

Blood that wasn't his own speckled Callum's face and hands. Soot coated his clothes. He stared at his palms.

Smoke billowed through the clearing in thick grey columns. Flames crackled from the wreckage of the stage, casting everything in shuddering orange light. Through the haze, James descended the last of the hillside, surveying the destruction with the slow satisfaction of a man observing finished work.

Then he saw Rain.

They were on their knees near the ravine's edge, trying to stand. Blood ran from the cut on their forehead and their arms shook with the effort of holding themselves upright. One hand found the ground and pushed. They got a foot under them, swaying, and turned toward the clearing with glazed, searching eyes.

James changed direction.

He walked toward Rain with the same unhurried gait, the same casual ease, as though he were striding his way to see about a friend. Rain didn't see him coming. They were looking at the smoke, at the screaming, trying to make sense of the ruin through the ringing in their ears.

James closed the distance. He swung the axe in a low, deliberate arc.

The blade caught Rain across the back. Not a killing strike. Controlled. The kind of cut meant to drop someone to the ground, and it did. Rain crumpled forward with a sound that was less a scream and more a shocked exhalation, their body folding as though the strings holding them upright had been severed.

James stood over them for a moment. Then his boot connected with their spine, and the force of it sent Rain tumbling sideways across the last few feet of earth and over the edge of the ravine.

They disappeared without a sound. The drop swallowed them whole. Rough surf churned against dark rock far below, indifferent and hungry.

James looked at the empty space where Rain had been. Scattered petals marked the grass. He turned away.

Flint saw it all.

Through blurred vision, through smoke that clawed at his lungs, through pain that screamed from every burn on his body, he had watched James walk to Rain. Had watched the axe swing. Had watched the boot connect. Had watched Rain vanish over the edge.

He struggled to his feet. Drew his sword with hands that were scorched and shaking. "YOU!"

He charged.

Through the smoke. Through the debris. Sword raised, fury and adrenaline driving legs that should have buckled.

James parried the first swing with the axe, almost bored. Steel met steel and the impact rattled up Flint's arm, jarring the burned nerves beneath his skin. Flint was weakened. Slower. His grip was wrong and his footing was unsteady and none of it mattered because James was right there.

James brought Mary down in a ferocious arc that caught the blade flat and wrenched it from Flint's grip. The sword spun away into the smoke.

Flint tried to summon fire. He reached for the furnace inside him and found it sputtering, guttering, barely a spark dancing across his knuckles before it died. Too hurt. Too disoriented. The well was dry.

"Is this your protection?" James said. "This is what you promised them?"

"SHUT UP!"

Flint lunged, fists instead of fire. James sidestepped like it was choreographed. Flint overextended, stumbled, tried to correct.

The butt of Mary's handle caught him square in the face.

Bone crunched. Blood sprayed in a bright arc across the smoke-filtered light. Flint's vision whited out, pain swallowing the world whole, and he staggered backward with both hands pressed to what was left of his nose.

James's boot connected with his chest. Full force. The impact lifted Flint off his feet and sent him backward into the crater where the podium had stood. He hit the bottom hard, the breath punched out of him completely, and he lay in the ash and rubble with blood streaming down his face, staring up at a sky he could barely see.

James stood at the crater's edge. Looked down at Flint broken in the ruins of the democracy he'd sworn to protect.

"You're nothing."

He turned away. Dismissive. Like Flint wasn't worth the effort of finishing.

James surveyed his work.

The stage burned behind him. Smoke cleared enough to reveal the scope of it: Wren's crumpled form near the wreckage, Toni's motionless body trailing smoke, the scuffed earth at the ravine's edge where flowers lay crushed and scattered. People screaming, helping each other, crawling through debris. And the intact seating area, generously scorched.

"Do you see?" He gestured at the dead charges beneath their seats. "I could have ended this in a second. Every single one of you." He let the words land. "Dead. Instantly."

Those with ears that weren't ringing listened intently.

"You're alive because I'm allowing it. Because I want you to understand something." He scanned their faces, making eye contact with anyone who could hold his gaze. Most couldn't. "You're only safe not because you voted. Not because you have leaders or community or trust."

He turned toward the destruction. "Look at you all. Weak. Evil." A pause. "Inhumane."

He looked at Wren's injured form, barely conscious in the wreckage, one arm burned and blistered, breathing in shallow, pained gasps. Hair full of sinched curls.

"Every time you try to build something like this, every time you try to lead them... remember this moment." He stepped closer to the wreckage. "Remember what you really are. Monsters playing at civilization."

A long silence. Absolute, except for crackling flames and quiet sobs.

"Consider this a gesture of human kindness." He looked across the survivors in their seats. "So here's what you do: give up. Run away." He dropped his axe to catch it with the other hand. "Or next time... I'll put you down like the animals you are."

He turned. Away from the crater. Away from the burning stage and the broken bodies and the community that had believed, for one brief morning, that choosing their future was enough to secure it. Mary rested on his shoulder. He began walking up the hill. Slow, unhurried steps. No rush.

He'd made his point.

The forest took him back. The trees closed behind him like a curtain. And then there was only the empty hillside and the sound of fire and the question none of them could answer:

Was he watching?

Was he gone?

Would he come back?

Several heartbeats passed. Nobody spoke. Crackling flames. Distant waves. Someone crying.

Then someone screamed, and the spell shattered.

Movement erupted everywhere at once. People rushed toward the wounded. Panic and purpose collided in the smoke-filled clearing, voices overlapping, commands tangling with sobs.

Moss scrambled down into the crater where Flint lay in the rubble. Flint was trying to sit up, face covered in blood, nose bent at an angle that made Moss's stomach turn.

"I'll kill him," Flint rasped. "I'll kill him. I'll-"

"Flint, you need to sit still."

"He's still out there! We need to-"

"He's GONE, Flint. He's gone." Moss gripped his shoulders, voice cracking with a terror that went deeper than the moment. "And if you die trying to chase him, you're gone too. You understand? Gone."

The word landed differently now. Permanent. Irreversible. No coming back from the crater if his body gave out. No second chance. Flint stopped struggling. The rage in his eyes didn't diminish, but tarnished pride emerged from it.

Someone leaned over the crater's edge. "We need to set his nose."

Flint jerked away from the reaching hands. "Leave it. Focus on them." He pointed through the smoke toward Wren's crumpled form, toward Toni. "They're worse. They need..."

He trailed off. Couldn't finish.

Shew was already running.

They found Wren on her side in the debris, not moving. Smoke curled off her burned sleeve. Shew dropped to their knees and pressed two fingers to her neck, hands shaking, searching for a pulse.

Please. Please.

There. Faint but steady beneath the skin.

She will survive, Fate said.

Shew's breath rushed out. "Good, that's-"

They caught themselves, but too late.

Iris, limping from the tree line with crumpled wings trailing behind her, snapped toward Shew. "What's good? Shew, FOCUS!"

"She's alive! Her pulse is steady, she's-"

People were gathering now. Someone brought water, cloths. They worked over Wren's burns, the angry red blistering across her left arm, the cuts along her face from flying debris. She was unconscious but breathing, each breath shallow and pained. Iris knelt beside her and looked at Shew with an expression that held questions far sharper than the moment warranted.

Later. Those questions were for later.

Silas carried Toni in both arms, screaming as he came through the smoke. "HELP! Someone HELP!"

The flames on Toni's clothes were out but the damage was done. Burns spread across his chest and arms, the skin raw and weeping. His breathing came in wet, labored gasps.

Silas laid him down on clear ground with hands that wouldn't stop shaking. People rushed in with water, cloth, anything.

"We made pies this morning," Silas said. His voice broke on the last word. "Just this morning. We were laughing. We were-"

He couldn't finish.

Someone was already checking Toni's pulse, pressing an ear to his chest. "Still breathing. Still breathing."

"We can't lose him," another voice said. "We can't."

The sentence died unfinished because everyone knew what came after it. They couldn't lose anyone. Not here. Not in a world where death was the period at the end of the sentence, and nothing came after.

"Where's Rain?!"

The shout cut through everything. Heads turned, searching.

"Has anyone seen Rain?"

"They were right there. Near the edge."

Callum's voice came from his seat. Hollow. Barely audible above the chaos. But the words carried.

"He killed them."

Silence rippled outward from where he sat. People turned to stare.

"What?" Moss's voice cracked.

"James." Callum didn't look up from his hands. "He cut them down. Kicked them over the edge."

For a moment nobody moved. The words didn't make sense. Couldn't make sense. Rain, who planted flowers for a gathering they believed in. Rain, who twirled daisies while they waited for the world to get better.

Nyla broke first. "No. No, they could have survived the fall. I'll find them." She vanished in a burst of purple smoke and reappeared at the ravine's edge. Disturbed earth. Crushed flowers. A dark smear across the grass that could have been soil or could have been blood.

She peered over. Nothing but dark rock and rough surf and a fall that would break anything living.

"RAIN! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"

The ocean answered. Nothing else.

She teleported down. Purple smoke erupted on the rocks below. She stumbled across wet stone, searching, calling Rain's name into wind that swallowed every word. Nothing. Empty shoreline. Rough water churning against jagged stone.

She appeared back at the top in a burst of smoke, sobbing. "They're gone. I can't find them. I looked everywhere. They're just... gone." Tears enveloped her eyes, creating a shimmering hue to form around her iris.

Others joined the search from above, calling Rain's name over the edge, their voices lost in the sound of waves. No response came back.

Through all of it, Iris organized despite her own wreckage. Her wings hung wrong behind her, crumpled and scraped, but she was mobile and that was enough. "Who can walk? Who needs carrying?"

Cheri gathered her scattered journals with bloody hands. Her ears still rang. But she was working. Recording the wounded, sketching the damage in quick, tight lines. Still documenting. Still making sure someone remembered.

People helped each other with improvised bandages and water and desperate first aid that none of them were sure was enough. They checked pulses constantly. Are they breathing? Don't let them die. Don't let them. The permanence of everything settling into their bones, heavy as iron. Every injury could be fatal. Every mistake permanent.

And Callum sat in his seat.

He hadn't moved. People rushed past him on both sides, screaming for help, carrying the wounded, organizing the living. He sat with blood on his hands that wasn't his own and soot on his face and stared at the space where the podium had been.

I did this.

I said nothing.

I let this happen.

"Callum!" Someone grabbed his shoulder. "Callum, we need help!"

He didn't respond.

"Leave him," someone else said, already moving. "He's in shock."

They moved on. And Callum stayed. Alone in the intact seating area, surrounded by chairs that should have been coffins, while around him the community he had betrayed fought to save each other. To hold together. To keep breathing.

Smoke rose into a sky that didn't care. The crater smoldered where democracy had stood for less than an hour. Bodies were carried toward camp, the wounded helped to their feet, names called into air that gave nothing back.

And beyond the tree line, the forest was silent.