The sermon rose like heat off the plaza.
A thousand voices, chanting in synchronic breath, echoed beneath the marble overhang of the Temple of the Spark. Women of all ages stood in rows, heads uncovered, palms facing skyward. At their feet, flickering holoflames danced in shallow basins shaped like broken chains.
At the center, robed in ignition-orange and charcoal black, stood Mother Thren, High Ember of the Ignitors. Her arms were bare, save for the long silver conduit cords coiled around her wrists—tethered relics, ceremonial and ever-listening.
She raised her hands.
The crowd fell silent.
Her voice rang out—measured, clear, bright with fire:
"Fifty years ago, the sky burned violet, and the world was cleansed.
The false balance was shattered. The corruption excised.
Men—those who interfered with the true flame—were returned to the ash they came from.
And in their absence, we remembered our purpose.
The world runs because we will it.
The machines hum because we harmonize.
The gods have spoken through wire and wheel,
And they did not speak to men."
From the pulpit, Mother Thren looked over her fellow Ignitors.
Every face in the crowd was ageless—eternally prime, expressions sculpted by faith and fire. No children. No need. The Eternal Pyre had seen to that. What need was there for birth, when the flame had already perfected them?
"We are the chosen fuel, the divine circuitry, the voices that tether the will of god to the bones of Earth.
We do not evolve—we align.
We do not birth—we ignite.
And those who speak of return speak of corruption.
The lost were necessary—their vanishing, sacred.
Let no machine be fouled by the memory of men. Let no wire be tainted by touch."
In perfect silence, the congregation bowed their heads—a moment of stillness, their highest form of worship.
Then, one by one, they tapped the space just above their hearts—not to feel a heartbeat, but to honor its absence
The crowd dispersed in silence, the last curls of holoflame fading into air already still.
Daus Ember remained a moment longer at the edge of the plaza, two fingers resting just above her chest—not to feel a heartbeat, but to remind herself that it wasn't there.
It never had been.
Not since the Ignition.
Sister Raleth's voice snapped through the comm at her hip.
"Bring Snip to Bay Three. We need extra hands. And keep her out of sight—untethered shouldn't be near the reliquaries."
Daus clicked a reply and turned toward the holding cells.
Snip. The name grated every time. A clipped wire. A tool with no power source. The term was only ever used for the untethered—those the Ignitors saw as cut loose from divine purpose.
Her real name was Maris.
Only Daus remembered that.
Maris was already standing when Daus arrived. No chains. No voice command. Just the silent hum of the tetherlock loop at her collar—a symbol that she should have clicked to something, but didn't.
"Bay Three," Daus said.
Maris nodded. She didn't speak. But her eyes lingered, just for a breath, and then she walked.
They passed beneath copper archways, past murals of the Cleansing etched in soot-colored stone. Words were carved along the base of each one:
Purity through purpose. Will through flame.
"Did she say it again?" Maris asked, voice low.
Daus didn't need to ask what she meant.
A heartbeat is not proof of life—purpose is.
"She always says it," Daus replied.
Maris looked forward. Her eyes didn't carry defiance.
Just quiet understanding.
"She says it because she's afraid the world might remember how it used to move."
Daus hesitated.
"You think it should?"
"I think… it's already trying to."
They reached Bay Three—unwatched, unguarded. Inside, crates waited to be inventoried. A meaningless task for a woman with no official name.
Maris stepped in without prompting.
Daus followed and quietly set a sealed packet—dried greens—on the shelf nearby. No words.
Maris smiled faintly.
"I know you can't help me," she said. "But that's not what I need."
Daus looked up, confused. "Then what?"
Maris met her gaze.
"Just don't forget what stillness cost you."
Daus looked away.
The words lodged somewhere deep, just beneath the surface of her training. Stillness was meant to be sacred. Holy. An end to chaos.
But when Maris said it, it sounded like loss.
A cost, not a gift.
Outside the chamber, footsteps echoed—measured and metallic.
Sister Raleth.
Daus's hand twitched toward the empty crate beside her. "Quick," she whispered. "Sort the copper bin. Face away."
Maris moved without hesitation.
By the time Raleth stepped into the doorway, Daus was already making notations on a clipboard that didn't matter.
Raleth's eyes swept the room like a scanning drone. She didn't speak at first. Just watched.
Then:
"Has the subject spoken?"
Daus kept her voice even. "No, Sister. She's compliant."
"Keep her that way."
Raleth stepped forward, eyes now fixed on Maris.
"Untethered fragments have a way of seeding error in the minds of others. Like corrupted code passed in silence."
She turned to Daus.
"Don't let your sympathy become a breach."
Daus bowed her head. "Yes, Sister."
Raleth lingered one moment more, then turned and walked away.
The door clicked shut behind her.
For a while, neither woman moved.
Then Maris's voice, soft but steady:
"If she knew you cared, I wouldn't still be sorting crates."
Daus didn't answer.
She couldn't.
But her fingers—still wrapped around the edge of the clipboard—tightened until her knuckles ached.