2025-08-01 09:00:57The Assembly Hall was quiet the next morning.
Not silent - there were distant boots on tile, quiet murmurs of volunteers laying cables and pinning up maps -but the kind of quiet that came after storms. The kind you earned. Ares stood near the north-facing window, watching as the mist lifted off the shattered rooftops of Lin City.
Behind him, Elijah tugged at his sleeve.
“Is this where they argue?” he asked.
Ares smirked. “Sometimes. Mostly, they try to listen.”
Elijah nodded solemnly, like that was harder.
The boy wore a scarf too big for him and boots slightly too worn. His hair still stuck up in wild tufts from sleep, and he held The Little Prince under one arm like it was a secret weapon. Ares rested a steady hand on his son’s back as they stepped inside.
Some of the council members were already seated. Kara gave a quick wave. The woman from the South End was bouncing her baby with one hand and flipping through ration figures with the other. Hawk stood by the coffee dispenser, pouring something that looked more like tar than caffeine.
“You good?” Hawk asked.
Ares nodded. “Getting there.”
He gestured to Elijah. “He insisted on coming.”
Hawk raised a brow. “Taking after you already.”
“I’d be lucky if he didn’t,” Ares replied.
Elijah wandered ahead, waving to a few people like he knew them. The South End woman smiled back. Someone pulled out a chair beside her and gestured for the boy to sit. Elijah hesitated, looked at his father for permission.
Ares nodded.
The meeting began with no fanfare. Reports flowed - updates on water purification, school zoning, reassignments of medics and militia. Ares didn’t say much. When needed, he spoke. When not, he watched.
At one point, Elijah leaned over and whispered, “Do they all know you used to punch generals?”
Ares leaned back, lips twitching. “That wasn’t a strategy. It was a bad reaction.”
Elijah nodded gravely. “Like allergies.”
Some chuckles rippled around them. Apparently, they’d been overheard.
Still, the mood held steady. Calm. Earnest. Not perfect - but real.
After the meeting, Ares stepped outside and sat on the old concrete steps beneath the overhang. Elijah followed, sketching something in the margins of his book with a half-broken pencil. Ares glanced down - a crooked version of the Assembly table, complete with doodled smiley faces on each council member.
“You gave Hawk hair,” Ares said.
“He looked cold,” Elijah replied without looking up.
Ares chuckled under his breath, then grew quiet. Across the street, a cleanup crew worked through the rubble of an old apartment block. Kids helped - passing bricks hand to hand, shouting names, laughing through the dust. One of them wore a Resistance patch on their sleeve -too big, clearly borrowed.
“Are we safe now?” Elijah asked suddenly.
Ares’s smile faded.
He didn’t answer right away.
“Safer,” he said eventually. “But not safe. Not completely.”
Elijah nodded, thoughtful. “Because bad people don’t vanish. They just hide.”
Ares turned to look at him.
“That something you read?”
Elijah hesitated. “I used to hear them. In the dark. When you were gone. They’d whisper about how they were waiting... waiting for the right time.”
Ares clenched his jaw.
He wanted to smash something -scream into the wind, tear apart whatever had made his son know fear so young.
But instead, he breathed. He reached out and rested a hand on Elijah’s shoulder.
“Do you still hear them?”
Elijah looked up at him. “No. Now I just hear you.”
Ares’s chest tightened. It took everything in him not to break.
So he wrapped his arm around the boy and pulled him close.
Later, as evening spread across the sky in long strokes of gold and blood-orange, Ares found himself on the roof of the old radio tower. The antenna beside him hung like a bent spine. They didn’t use it anymore -comms were handled through cleaner lines now - but Ares still liked this spot.
It reminded him of height. Of lookout posts. Of watching for danger and sometimes... hope.
He stood there, still, watching as the city glowed in the growing dusk. Smoke curled from rebuilt chimneys. Small fires lit alley kitchens. A generator buzzed three rooftops down. Somewhere, a guitar played softly - off-key but full of life.
Mira joined him without a word.
They didn’t speak for a while. They just stood, breathing the cold air, listening.
“How’s Elijah handling everything?” she asked at last.
Ares kept his eyes on the skyline. “Better than I expected. He’s starting to draw futures. Not ghosts.”
Mira smiled faintly.
“That’s you.”
“No,” Ares said quietly. “That’s him. I just stopped being in the way.”
She turned to look at him. Really look at him.
“You’re different.”
“I’m trying,” he said. “That’s the difference.”
Mira slipped her fingers into his. Her hand was cold, but steady.
“You think it ever really ends?” she asked.
“The war?”
She nodded.
Ares thought for a long time.
“No,” he said at last. “But I think we get better at carrying it. It stops being everything.”
She didn’t speak.
She didn’t need to.
She just stayed there beside him, fingers tangled with his - like they were remembering how not to let go.
Below them, two kids chased a soccer ball through a chalk-drawn goal. They laughed every time it rolled too far, calling each other by names that weren’t real but made sense in their world - names like Ghost and Rocket and Dagger.
Ares watched them until the light dimmed.
“They think we’re heroes,” he murmured.
“We were,” Mira said softly. “And maybe still are.”
“But I didn’t win anything. Not really.”
She turned toward him. “You stayed. That’s the hardest part.”
That night, Ares returned to the barracks. Elijah was already tucked under a threadbare blanket, the lamp dim beside him. The boy looked up as his father entered.
“Did you build anything today?” Ares asked as he sat on the edge of the bed.
Elijah yawned. “Kind of. I drew blueprints.”
“Of what?”
“A tower,” Elijah murmured. “Not for defense. Just... for looking out.”
Ares smiled.
“Sounds perfect,” he said.
The boy scooted closer. “You’ll help me?”
“Of course,” Ares whispered. “We’ll build it together.”
Elijah nodded, eyes fluttering shut.
Ares watched him for a long time, the silence thick with memory. He reached over and turned off the lamp. But sleep didn’t come right away.
He thought about the Assembly.
About the whispers in the dark.
About how the real rebuilding wasn’t wood or steel or structure - it was this. The quiet promise of staying. Of showing up again. Of no longer running.
Mira passed by the open doorway, paused when she saw them, and stepped in without speaking. She sat on the floor across from them, knees pulled to her chest, watching father and son breathe in rhythm.
And for the first time in years, the city didn’t feel like a ruin.
It felt like a seed.
It wasn’t healed.
But it was healing.
And this time, no one was running.
They were building.
Together.
...
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
ASH IN THE VEINS
The steel slab still stood at the western ridgeline when Ares returned at midday. The sun was higher now, carving the message deeper into the scorched metal with every flicker of heat. He didn’t touch it. Didn’t have to. The words were burned behind his eyes.We are not your past. We are your consequence.He stood there a moment longer, wind tugging at the collar of his coat, the dry scent of dust and burnt wire rising from the earth. Reyes approached from behind, silent, until the crunch of his boots gave him away.“They’re not just warning us,” he said. “They’re staging something. Making a show of memory.”Ares nodded slowly. “And calling it justice.”Reyes looked out toward the hills. “You think it’s just Vale?”“No.” Ares didn’t blink. “I think it’s what Vale left behind. A creed. A code. A wound still bleeding after all this time.”Reyes crossed his arms. “I’ve buried too many men to be haunted by ghosts.”Ares looked at him. “Then start digging again. Because this war... it didn
THOSE WHO REMEMBER
Because now, they had something worth defending.And for Ares Kai - the man who once lived only to destroy - that made him more dangerous than ever.The rooftop wind brushed over him, sharp with the chill of dusk but filled with the scent of food cooking in shared courtyards and the murmur of distant laughter. It was the kind of night that made a man forget, if only for a moment, how much blood had stained his past.But forgetting wasn’t an option.Mira stood at his side in silence. Her hand had long since slipped from his, but her presence hadn’t. She leaned against the railing, watching the city breathe. Her eyes were calm, but her voice, when it came, held a quiet weight.“Do you think they’ll come here? The ones watching?”He didn’t answer right away.Then, “Not yet. But they’ve taken notice.”She tilted her head. “Of you?”“No,” he said. “Of us.”Mira glanced back at the glowing blocks of Lin City - at the rebuilt shelters, the lights flickering in the old Assembly Hall, the hum
THE WEIGHT OF STILLNESS
Ares didn’t move.He sat by Elijah’s bedside long after the boy had turned back into sleep, his small hands tucked beneath his cheek, his breaths soft and untroubled. The notebook lay closed beside them - those sketches still etched into Ares’ mind.That last drawing... the three of them standing beneath a sun not yet drawn. No smoke. No sirens. No shadows clawing at the edge of their peace. Just presence.Ares leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, his head buried in his hands. His back ached from old wounds. His fingers were calloused from war. But none of that compared to the pressure behind his ribs now - the unfamiliar weight of not having to fight.Outside, the windowpane rattled gently in the breeze. There was no storm tonight. No cries. No coded transmissions. Just wind brushing across the roof and the distant clatter of tools as the early workers began their shifts.Mira’s door was still ajar across the hall, warm light spilling through the gap. He could have gone to her
EMBERS AND ROOTS
Mira didn’t move for a long time.She sat cross-legged on the floor, her arms resting on her knees, eyes fixed on the sleeping boy and the man beside him. The only sound was the low hum of the generator outside and the steady breath of a child who finally, finally, had no reason to be afraid.Ares didn’t speak either. He leaned back against the wall, knees bent, one hand resting protectively near Elijah’s shoulder, the other slack on his thigh. Every now and then, his eyes flickered open - checking, listening - but the tension he used to wear like armor had softened into something else.Stillness.Not weakness. Not surrender.Just the absence of running.Mira eventually pushed herself up, bones stiff, and moved to sit beside Ares. He shifted slightly, making room, careful not to wake the boy.They didn’t touch - not yet. But their shoulders were close enough to share warmth.“You should sleep too,” she murmured.“I will,” Ares said. “Just... not yet.”She nodded.A long breath passed
THE PROMISE OF STAYING
The Assembly Hall was quiet the next morning.Not silent - there were distant boots on tile, quiet murmurs of volunteers laying cables and pinning up maps -but the kind of quiet that came after storms. The kind you earned. Ares stood near the north-facing window, watching as the mist lifted off the shattered rooftops of Lin City.Behind him, Elijah tugged at his sleeve.“Is this where they argue?” he asked.Ares smirked. “Sometimes. Mostly, they try to listen.”Elijah nodded solemnly, like that was harder.The boy wore a scarf too big for him and boots slightly too worn. His hair still stuck up in wild tufts from sleep, and he held The Little Prince under one arm like it was a secret weapon. Ares rested a steady hand on his son’s back as they stepped inside.Some of the council members were already seated. Kara gave a quick wave. The woman from the South End was bouncing her baby with one hand and flipping through ration figures with the other. Hawk stood by the coffee dispenser, pour
THE WEIGHT OF PEACE
The Assembly Hall was quiet the next morning.Not silent - there were distant boots on tile, quiet murmurs of volunteers laying cables and pinning up maps - but the kind of quiet that came after storms. The kind you earned. Ares stood near the north-facing window, watching as the mist lifted off the shattered rooftops of Lin City.Behind him, Elijah tugged at his sleeve.“Is this where they argue?” he asked.Ares smirked. “Sometimes. Mostly, they try to listen.”Elijah nodded solemnly, like that was harder.The boy wore a scarf too big for him and boots slightly too worn. His hair still stuck up in wild tufts from sleep, and he held The Little Prince under one arm like it was a secret weapon. Ares rested a steady hand on his son’s back as they stepped inside.Some of the council members were already seated. Kara gave a quick wave. The woman from the South End was bouncing her baby with one hand and flipping through ration figures with the other. Hawk stood by the coffee dispenser, pou
