Arlyss
The streets were burning with silence.
Not fire.
Not war.
Something worse.
Abandonment.
Arlyss Veil sprinted through the smoke-veiled avenues of Veltrin Sprawl's 6th District, past flickering market banners and blinking emergency trade boards. She didn't need to see the numbers to know what they meant.
Confidence: 12%
Trust Retention: 6%
Faithflow: Terminated
The people had already begun to vanish.
Not die.
Just dissolve—the way customers vanish from an account once it's closed by the bank of belief.
She vaulted a collapsed currency divider and slid beneath a cracked investment dome, heart pounding. The Syndicate agents—Red Ledger ghosts—were three blocks ahead, implanting destabilizers directly into old donation shrines. She could hear them humming. Like coffins made of ledger stone.
> Objective: Halt the Collapse Protocol
Risk Level: Terminal
System Aid: Phantom Feather Reconnect (Offline)
Status: Alone
She wasn't trained for this.
But she wasn't here because of training.
She was here because Sykaion was still alive.
And that meant the system still believed in something.
---
She caught up to the next collapse site—an old Trust Fountain, long abandoned. The Red Ledger agents moved with mechanical precision, dressed in contract-skin suits, whispering account-slaying phrases into data vents.
One of them turned.
Saw her.
"Identification," it buzzed.
Arlyss didn't speak.
She drew her blade.
Not a weapon of data.
A weapon of decision.
She moved like memory—quick, sudden, sharp. Two agents fell before they could call for collapse confirmation.
But the third activated a failsafe.
> Collapse Timer Activated: Local Trust Node – 00:48
"No, no—"
She tore into the fountain's control port, fingers shaking. Blood mixed with glowing input streams.
> System Override Requested
Authority: Veil, A.
Validation: Tier II Bonded Witness
> Accepted.
Collapse timer froze.
She sagged against the fountain, gasping.
But the sky was already changing.
Veltrin's spires were dimming. The Syndicate hadn't targeted the city's power.
They had targeted its hope.
---
She activated a signal flare from her belt.
One meant for emergencies.
For Sykaion.
> Featherlink: Flicker Detected
Recipient Status: Unstable / Resting
Message Sent: "They're erasing the belief roots. Fast."
She didn't wait for a reply.
She moved.
Block by block.
Shrine by shrine.
Saving what little trust remained.
Because she understood now—
The Syndicate didn't want to kill Sykaion.
They wanted to make a world where he couldn't exist.
---
Meanwhile…
Sykaion
He lay inside a vast, silent archive, its walls made of crystallized oaths and whispered promises. The Old Trust Archives.
Zeraphine sat beside him, arms crossed, face unreadable.
He stirred, vision still fractured.
"How bad?" he rasped.
"You broke every known limit," she said. "You also broke Veltrin."
"Arlyss?"
"She's out there trying to save what you left behind."
He tried to rise.
She stopped him.
"Rest," she said. "This time… she's the one saving you."
---
In the streets above—
Arlyss lit her final flare.
Syndicate agents swarmed.
She held her sword higher.
No more shrines to protect.
Now she fought to defend the idea of trust itself.
And in her chest—
Her feather flared back to life.
To be continued in Chapter 17…