Chronicles of the Untalented

There was no natural sky to turn red, no golden sun to dip into a distant horizon. But still, above the city, the haze had changed—less heavy, less choked. It was how they knew the harvest festival had begun.

Silas stood just outside his house, chewing the edge of a stale root biscuit as he watched a group of younger trainees hang dim lanterns from crumbling ropes. The air didn't smell sweet, didn't carry spice or fruit. It smelled like wet stone, boiled greens, and ash—like everything else in this city.

Still, something was different.

No missions had been posted that day. For once, the Cathedral had declared a "pause" in activity—a brief reprieve. Not a celebration, exactly. Just… a breath.

Silas didn't feel festive. He hadn't, since the mines. Since Nessa.

His effigy stood behind him, motionless and dim. The cracks from the last battle still ran faintly down its chest. He hadn't fixed them completely. Didn't have the points. And besides, he wasn't sure if it wanted to be whole again.

"Wow," Velira said, stepping up beside him. She was dressed the same as always, cloak a little tighter, boots muddied from walking. "You're really going to stand out here and sulk while the city hands out free food?"

He didn't look at her. "I like sulking. It's efficient."

She rolled her eyes. "They're giving out dried apple slivers. Come on. Even you can pretend to be human for an hour."

---

The festival wasn't loud. There was no real music—just people humming work songs, no instruments—just scavenged cans struck together in rhythm. The market square had been cleared of corpses and chalk lines for once, replaced with crude tables covered in shared rations and thin cloths.

Everything was rationed. Everything tasted like dust. But people still smiled.

An old woman sold stew made from bone marrow and dried leaves, a pot hanging over a flickering soulflame. Children ran past with painted effigy masks—most made of paper, some just flattened cloth. One of them bumped into Silas and laughed. He didn't laugh back.

Velira shoved a cup of broth into his hands and nudged him toward the central square. "Stop scowling. You're scaring the old priests."

"I am a priest," he said dryly.

"No," she replied, sipping her own. "You're a barely tolerated heretic in training. Now come on."

---

They passed by a shrine—if you could call it that. An old offering circle etched into the floor, surrounded by cracked stone. Inside lay tokens: broken dolls, dried petals, feathers, bits of hair. Each was an offering. Not to gods—there were no gods left. Just... to whatever watched them from below.

Silas paused. A faint humming filled the square—people lining up to offer tokens of survival.

He didn't have anything. Not really.

Just a name stuck in his throat. One that hadn't stopped echoing since the mines.

Velira placed her hand on the circle's edge and whispered something he didn't catch. Then she turned to him.

"You don't have to believe in it," she said softly. "You just have to admit that you made it out."

He dropped a sliver of cracked soulstone into the circle.

That was all he had.

---

Later, they sat near the edge of the square, the faint glow of soul-lanterns floating above them like lost spirits. No stars. Just gas-filled orbs drifting in artificial wind.

"I saw Len earlier," Velira said. "He's alive."

"Missing an arm," Silas murmured.

"Still alive."

They sat in silence.

After a while, Velira pulled out a charcoal nub and scratched something onto her boot—a tiny symbol, like a fish with too many eyes.

"What's that for?"

She shrugged. "Just… wanted to draw something weird."

Silas watched her quietly, the warmth from the soup still lingering in his fingers. He thought of Nessa, of blood in the mines, of how quickly someone's name stopped being said after they were gone.

Then he looked up.

There was no sky. No stars. No gods.

But the smoke curled above them like it was trying to remember what it felt like to be free.