Grey dawn hides most things in Edelgard’s crumbling city, just out beyond the Iron Gate. Ephra, sixteen, is up early by her father’s broken window. She folds hands over the wilted prayer leaf. ‘Come home safe, Papa,’ she says. The leaf doesn’t answer, nor does the street. Eyes linger on the empty beds. First taste of hunger for another day. Still—it could always be colder, or far darker. No point wasting time hoping for sweet things that won’t come.
Down the street from Ephra, a crowd gathers outside the wax shop. Brother Mael can be heard shouting at two constables. Mael looks drawn, red-eyed. Each week, someone else is caught or gone missing. The iron lanterns flicker over the cobbles. Lines form fast. Folks trade rat tails, needles, or the soft claws from the mindrats that keep lurking at the city edges at dusk. Ephra, though, just waits and watches this week. Too weak today for bartering. Does that feeling sound true? Have you ever just stood silent when you knew you had nothing to trade?
Everyone’s eyes keep darting north, past the Fallow Acre to the parish walls. The Bellsingers stop by the chow line. Erk, her old schoolmate, tries to smile at her from his post in the soldier’s queue. Soft eyes, bandaged palm. ‘I heard strange things under the wall last night,’ he says, glancing down. ‘Sounded like digging. Did you feel it too?’
‘Wasn’t dreaming,’ Ephra tells him. ‘Felt it right in my jaw, actually.’
As the preacher’s new edict is read out loud—a warning about darkness and warmth-lies—only Ephra can see the seam in the withered sky above the city’s burning edge. Dark ash falls on the stones by noon, as always during this season. That’s when Delin, wild-eyed and limbs like smoke, grabs Ephra’s cold hand. ‘Help me with this,’ Delin whispers. ‘I found one of the diggers. Breathing. Still alive.’ Ephra cracks her raw lips. ‘Why’d you bring trouble to me?’
‘Would you rather I just left him down there to rot?’
Down into a wet alley half-sunk where the wall splits, Ephra and Delin peel away a grate and find a strange boy—bare-skinned and fevered. His voice is jagged but beautiful, words in broken tongue. From his neck hangs a sliver of red stone. Ephra blames herself for feeling drawn so hard. What would you do, seeing fire in a face you’d never known?
Delin helps hoist the stranger home. They smell wet clay on his hair. Flies nest in his dirty collar. That night, Ephra prays again. ‘He’s from there,’ she whispers, showing Delin the stone sliver. The north woods lie aching, full of beasts and mines old as the city. Her palm runs cold. ‘He said something about the Ash Remnant—a gate, or guard? Maybe worse. He’s hiding from what’s after him.’
One blink and Ephra finds herself out in the bones of the city church, red moon way above—for the wind has changed. She chases mist like iron, two sounds in her ears: her mother’s song and the broken boy whispering for help.
Down below, soldiers hammer at the city gate. Mindrats bite air. Delin is gone, and the darkness is peeling. The red stone in Ephra’s hand is so hot, she almost drops it. Will she use it, lose herself, or fight the thing creeping up the walls?
That’s where the episode ends: Ephra cornered, the wall shuddering, shadows clawing along carved names in ancient iron. Rain falls, spins on the stone, stealing sound from the world. Close on her breath as she looks behind, waiting for either dawn — or death. Would you look, or keep your eyes shut?
