Chapter 38: chief's mesure

Ryo lingered by the ember-lit balcony long after Keller had left him. The satchel at his side was quiet now, but his pulse wasn’t. The chief’s words echoed in him, steady as a drumbeat: You don’t get to choose what you carry. You only choose how far you take it.

“Thinking too hard again?”

Ryo turned. Lara stood in the doorway, her cloak drawn tight around her shoulders, golden eyes sharper than her quiet tone. She stepped into the morning light, her hair glinting faintly against the glow of the ember grass.

“You didn’t sleep,” she said flatly.

“Neither did you,” Ryo countered.

She ignored that, leaning against the railing beside him. For a long time, she said nothing—just watching the field blaze red-gold. Then, finally:

“That man… Keller.”

Ryo blinked. “What about him?”

Her gaze flicked toward him, piercing. “He’s like you.”

The words hit harder than a blade. “Like me? You mean—”

“A reincarnated one.” Lara’s voice was quiet but certain. “I saw the number 2 below his left eye, Ryo, you don’t belong to this world. Neither does he.”

Ryo’s throat tightened. He thought of Keller’s steel-gray eyes, of the strange weight in his voice when he said, I’ve carried things no one else could see.

Lara’s hand brushed the railing, her fingers pale against the black stone. “That’s why he looked at you the way he did. He recognizes it. The burden of remembering a life you can’t speak of…”

Ryo’s grip closed around the satchel until his knuckles ached. “So I’m not… alone.”

“No,” Lara said. For once, her tone softened. “But that doesn’t mean you’re safe.”

---

Far below, in the central hall of Ember Field, another meeting was unfolding.

The war room was heavy with smoke from the braziers, maps sprawled across the table, pins and markers scattered like battlefield bones. Around the table stood the commanding figures of West Geneva’s defense—generals, strategists, and among them, a man in obsidian armor that gleamed like oil in a firelight.

Amos, Captain of the Enforcers.

He was taller than Keller, his frame built like a fortress, his shaved head marked with a single scar cutting across his brow. His presence filled the room, sharp and oppressive, as if every soldier’s breath bent toward his command.

“Keller.” Amos’s voice was a low rumble, dangerous in its calm. “You brought people from North Geneva, and word of fire on the villages. I assume you also brought an explanation.”

Keller stood unflinching across the table, his weathered hands resting on the map. “I brought the truth, Ironhold was destroyed by a vengeful spirit nothing else. And there’s more—an entity moving with the convoys.”

Amos’s eyes narrowed. “entity?”

“i thought the boy who lived with the Sunwhisper died,” Keller replied, gaze steady.

Amos squeezed the wooden part of his weapon.

“he died during a delive—”

“you are lying ” Keller said coldly.

Silence stood between the two men.

“ I'm pretty sure he is somewhere , maybe in my agency, I'll find him and kill him, if him or the beast inside of him falls into the wrong hands, it won’t just fracture Geneva. It will burn it to ash.”

The room fell silent again, the crackle of braziers the only sound. Generals exchanged uneasy glances, but Amos never looked away. His jaw worked, his scar pulling taut.

Now everybody knows about the boy.

“You’ve always walked your own path, Keller,” he said finally. “But war doesn’t bend to couriers. It swallows them.”

“And yet,” Keller countered, voice calm as iron, “couriers are the only ones who decide what reaches its destination. Even war cannot swallow that.”

For a moment, the two men stood locked in silence—iron against stone, weight against weight.

Then Amos leaned back, lips curling into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Very well”

The council shifted back to maps and markers, but the tension hung sharply in the air. Keller was no fool and Amos knew it, he will really hunt down the boy once he finds his identity, therefore he will wait, another murder will shake the kingdom again.