Revolution

Jarathia | Jarathia City | City Center

Homes are shuttered, streets swept bare. Only the wind and the clatter of armor break the quiet. Mersa stands in the square while an unruly line forms behind him—bandits with patched coats, teenagers with makeshift spears, miners with cracked pickaxes. Across the plaza, rows of guards flood in—ten thousand at least, shields locked like an endless wall of iron.

Mersa cups his hands around his mouth and lets his voice carry.

“PEOPLE OF JARATHIA! WE WON’T KILL ANY OF YOU—DO YOU UNDERSTAND? I WANT TO END THIS SELF-ANNIHILATION! LET US HEAL AND BE HUMAN! END THE MISERY THEY FORCED ON US!”

The bandits, the teens, the miners roar in support, a jagged chorus that shakes the banners on the towers.

The head guard steps forward, greatsword on his shoulder. “All of you—this is your one warning. Leave, or we’ll have to cut you down!”

Mersa studies the army—rows upon rows, glinting like a second sunrise. “He really sent everything just to stop me…” He lifts his chin. “Tell me, captain—did you even like my father?”

“This isn’t about your father, Mersa!”

“Isn’t it?” Mersa’s voice hardens. “He protected children! He wanted knowledge! He fought for a better Jarathia! Look around—just five years later!”

“Because your father took our wellbeing from us!”

“DID HE?” Mersa’s eyes sharpen. “He reigned for fourteen years! And everything has been ‘fine’ ever since then too, RIGHT?” He gestures to the boarded-up windows all along the plaza. “Think clearly and choose your next words wisely! If you don’t…” He draws a breath sharp as a blade. “...I’ll kill you!”

“Even if you’re right,” the captain says, jaw tight, “more death won’t solve this!”

The troops behind him roar in their own agreement.

Mersa raises his palm to quiet his side. “We’re from the Outskirts. Hear me, guards!” He speaks each rule like an oath. “If one of you loses the will to fight, we don’t kill! If one of you changes your mind, we don’t kill! If one of you thinks for yourself and looks behind the curtain, we don’t kill! But if you try to kill us—end us—torture us—force us—or strip us of our worth—” His voice cracks like thunder. “WE WILL END YOUR LIFE, CLEAN AND SWIFT!”

A ripple of confusion passes through the guards at the strange, conditional mercy.

Bootsteps ring out from behind the guards. Rizario strolls into the square with an assassin from Alpas at his side—lean, hunched, twin blades humming. Green particles gather where Rizario walks—the air itself seems to cool.

“So.” Rizario says, smiling. "You children are rebelling. Your parents never learned either. You’d like everyone to believe our income is made off of the curse of red dust. If we’d lived by your parents’ ‘guidance,’ I’d never hold office today. We’d still have instability, big crises, even more deaths! You can’t stop the mines! If the stones stop coming, we all die!”

Mersa laughs once—sharp, pained. “We want to lower the rates, not stop it completely! How hard is it to UNDER—”

He stops. Eyes lift to window after window where faces glower back with open disgust. He exhales slowly. “Rizario.”

Rizario’s smirk twitches as Mersa looks at him in disgust.

“I don’t know what lies you fed them,” Mersa says, voice gone cool, “but I promise we’ll cut you down anyway. You stacked your bets here, hoping we’d break today.” He sweeps through the square. “My proposal stands, guard! It’s the choice of each and every one of you! But I finally get it. We’ll take your power, Rozario, publish every document, tear down your whole tower, and let everyone see. If they still close their eyes then, they’ll learn the consequences the hard way. And they won’t get to blame my father or I. They’ll blame you and your nobles—because you kept them dumb! I BELIEVE IN JARATHIA!”

“We would fall under your leadership!” Rizario purrs. “Just like your father, you would fail us a—”

“Attack.” Mersa says—quiet as snowfall. “Follow the rules.”

His line surges. The wall of guards meets them head-on.

Rizario trembles when Mersa’s death-cold glare pins him in place. He draws two rusty knives—pale light floods his skin and the air at his side crystallizes, tiny halos of ice forming on the hilts.

“RIZARIO IS MINE!” Mersa shouts.

He sprints. A wedge of guards tries to cut him off—he slides between them like water, blade flashing, severing forearms and spear-shafts, leaving men screaming, but alive. The head guard barrels over with his greatsword—steel meets ice.

“STAND DOWN!” the captain roars, driving Mersa back a step.

Mersa’s palm brushes the man’s cheek, then his neck. Frost blossoms like white flowers. The captain’s head shears clean off, the body keeling over in slow surprise.

Arrows hiss from the tower balconies. Behind Mersa, crimson light domes lift upward—some bandit casters forming a shield that turns the volley into dust.

He reaches Rizario—twin knives ready—when the Alpas assassin appears in a blur, twin blades crossing to catch Mersa’s strike. Metal screeches against metal. Frost races along the assassin’s steel—he answers with a flare of heat that keeps the blades from shattering.

Steel sings as the assassin parries, eyes bright with a hunter’s thrill. “Never thought Jarathians had this kind of power.” He says, admiring the clean precision of Mersa’s strikes. “Impressive.”

Green dust blooms between them. In the same breath Mersa coughs up blood—behind him a knot of soldiers choke and spit up blood onto the stones too.

“But dead is dead!” the assassin murmurs. “Sayonara.”

Mersa stops his breaths, ice fogging from his lips.

Rizario bolts for the tower, panic breaking his composure. “Impossible—we shut them down so long ago! He had no way to get this strong! What’s WRONG with him?”

Mersa doesn’t let him vanish. He knifes his way forward, through the green dust.

“He ignores me?” The assassin snarls, then widens the cloud with a sweep, advancing closer once more. The green haze thickens—Mersa’s aura flares bluer, colder.

“You want to die, Alpas slave?” Mersa threatens.

“Oh? You know me, then.”

“We always know.” Mersa flicks his arm—and the approaching toxin freezes midair.

“It’s useless. You’re weak, waste of Alpas.”

He slashes. The assassin meets each cut—blade on blade, murderer against murderer. They break apart, study each other—his knives lined in sickly green, Mersa’s in polar blue.

A clash.
Another.
Again—until the recoil drives them skidding back, sweat slicking Mersa’s face.

I need Rizario dead, but I can’t leave this one behind. No holding back then—kill him fast, then follow up the tower. End it. With all my remaining strength!

He risks a glance. Out on the square, his ragged line and the guard wall butcher one another without mercy.

Even if we take the power back… at this rate, we’ll have no one left to protect it. And why are they dying so fast? The green toxins are over here, don’t tell me the mist—!“

His gaze flicks to the mist—how it sinks into clothes, into skin, different than true mist. “This has to be a joke…” he says aloud. “Do the guards even know?”

“You’re dangerously smart.” The assassin replies, almost delighted. “Yes—the gas. The toxin.”

“That’s scummy.” Mersa breathes.

“He’s only protecting his power.” The assassin smiles.

Mersa turns and bellows to the guards and troops: “Fall back! The area’s toxic—TOXIC! THAT’S AN ORDER! DON’T RISK YOUR LIFE TO A SILENT DEATH!”

Heads jerk up. The fighters look down—to pale hands, to blood beading faster out of fresh cuts. A ripple of fear becomes a flood—both guards and rebels break apart and run, stumbling out of the mist.

On the steps of the tower, Rizario fumbles through keys with shaking fingers. “He knew… He knew—how? The body only reacts when it’s too late—HOW? HE KNEW IT!”

Mersa presses his palm to his chest. Frost creeps over his sternum.

“You’re freezing your organs,” the assassin observes, circling, “so the toxins can’t take hold. And you’re freezing the gas around you…”

Mersa grows colder—thin veins thread green beneath his skin. “I’m immune to red dust.” He breathes out, voice far away. “Funny, isn’t it? I already lost my life.”

“Gone mad in your last breath?” The assassin laughs.

“My soul left my body once. I know death’s freezing hold. Sometimes I thought I WAS dead, playing foolish games. But I was only blessed by her—by the Apostle of Death.” His eyes lift. “Want me to share the irony of it, just between us?”

“What are you—talking about?”

“Gremory’s Blessing — Uncertain Future.”

His veins burst white and black—his pupils invert. The icy mist kindles to a burning frost.

“We are the same—just doing what is necessary.” Mersa calmly says.

The assassin gulps and drives a knife into his own heart, pumping toxin through his body. Light ignites along his bones. In a blink he’s on Mersa, a killing cut lined up—

—and Mersa shears the blade in two, then hammers him through a storefront. The wall caves.

A family protecting their young daughter.

Mersa flinches, eyes flicking to the small girl. No—

The assassin sees it too. He stabs the parents—a single merciless thrust—and seizes the child, the edge biting into her throat. He steps back onto the plaza and waits in front of a door.

“This future mayor is very dumb indeed.” He purrs. “He’ll stop for civilians.”

“Let her go.” Mersa follows him.

The child sobs. The door the assassin kicks open is an inn—crowded with huddled townsfolk. Lanternlight rattles over their pale faces.

“Come here then, you pathetic boy.” He taunts Mersa, and the room shrinks to a single point.

“Hey.” Mersa says, hands open, voice steady. “They can’t—”

“A deal.” The assassin’s smile widens. “I count thirty souls. You’ll take thirty cuts across your back, and in exchange, I’ll let them go.”

“No. If I die, many—”

A head tumbles, the lanterns flicker. Screams swallow the room.

Mersa’s knees dip for a moment. He straightens. The little girl clings to the assassin’s arm, eyes huge, pleading.

He offers his back.

The first cut lands. Heat knifes across Mersa’s shoulders—he holds the gaze of the nearest men and women.

“You couldn’t do anything about this, my people,“ Mersa says softly, “no one told you the truth, told you anything-”

Another cut. He endures it.

The assassin inhales the room’s fear like expensive perfume.

“I’m not angry with any of you.” Mersa says to the onlookers, blood trailing down his spine. “You’re the people I want to protect. You’re MY people.”

A third cut. A fourth.

“I like exploiting the weak points of strong men-” The assassin murmurs, savoring each stroke.

A fifth.

Mersa grins through blood. “My people are not a weakness.”

Another line opens.

A man shouts from the crowd, voice cracked with disbelief. “Why protect us? We HATE you!”

Another cut.

“Because you’re my people.” Mersa answers.

A woman sobs, half-rising. “Why—stop it—I thought—you should be the villain!”

“Think!” He tells her, gentle, as the blade lifts again. “See the bigger picture! Only act then. It was never your fault.”

Steel carves him anew. Blood runs freely—his knees buckle. He exhales, eyes slipping shut and collapsing onto the floor.

The assassin lowers the girl, savoring the silence that follows. “So weak.” He says, raising the knife for another stroke. “You broke yourself for ordinary lives?”

The blade never falls.

It twitches—then buries itself in his ribs. His eyes go wide, as an unassuming woman—face streaked with tears—pushes the hilt even harder against his chest.

“He’s Torvea’s son.” She says, voice shaking but full of conviction. “He always fought for us—”

The room holds its breath in shock. Outside, the poisoned air thins.