༺ The Fractured City XIII ༻
Rowan awoke abruptly, the weight of unspoken thoughts pressing upon him. The dim light filtering through the blinds cast elongated shadows across his room in the Chained Insurrection's headquarters. The silence was deafening, broken only by the distant hum of the facility.
He sat up, rubbing his temples. The events of two days prior lingered in his mind, a puzzle unsolved, a purpose unfulfilled. He glanced at his pocket watch: 5:00 a.m.
"Time marches on, indifferent to our struggles," he mused.
Rising from his bed, Rowan dressed methodically, each movement deliberate. The corridor outside was deserted, his footsteps echoing like distant memories.
As he walked, his mind wandered. The puzzle, the note, the watch—all fragments of a larger mystery. He felt adrift, seeking meaning in a world that offered none.
Ahead, a familiar figure emerged from the shadows.
"Rowan!" Viktor called out, his voice a rare beacon of warmth. "I'm just about to head out."
"For a mission?" Rowan inquired.
"No," Viktor replied, a soft smile playing on his lips. "I'm going to see my daughter."
A pang of emotion surged within Rowan. He envied Viktor's clarity, his purpose.
"You can come with me if you want," Viktor offered.
Rowan hesitated. "No… I'd ruin the moment."
"Don't be hard on yourself," Viktor said, placing a reassuring hand on Rowan's shoulder before continuing down the corridor.
Rowan watched him go, the silence returning. He felt the weight of his own isolation, the burden of unanswered questions.
"Perhaps the puzzle holds the key," he thought, turning towards Gaius's quarters.
A guard stood at the door, barring his entry.
"I need to see Gaius," Rowan stated.
"He's not to be disturbed," the guard replied.
"I'm here on urgent business," Rowan insisted, raising his voice. "Gaius!"
From within, a voice responded, "Let him in."
The guard stepped aside, allowing Rowan to enter.
Inside, Gaius and Elyssa looked up from their work. Their eyes widened at the sight of Rowan, his appearance more disheveled than before.
"You okay?" Elyssa asked.
"Yeah," Rowan replied, masking his turmoil.
Gaius gestured to the table. "The puzzle?"
Viktor stepped out into the early morning light, the city awakening around him. The streets bore the scars of time—potholes, crumbling facades, nature reclaiming its territory. Birds scavenged among the debris, a testament to resilience.
His thoughts drifted to his daughter, her fragile form etched into his memory. He recalled promises made, hopes kindled, and the ever-present fear of loss.
Turning into a narrow alley, he approached the orphanage. Three children were outside, engaged in their morning chores. Upon seeing Viktor, their faces lit up.
"Viktor!" they exclaimed, rushing to embrace him.
He knelt, gathering them into his arms. "I've missed you all."
"Why haven't you visited?" a young girl asked, her eyes searching his.
"I've been busy," he replied, guilt tingeing his words.
They chatted briefly, the children's laughter a balm to his weary soul.
As Viktor turned to leave, the youngest girl tugged at his sleeve.
"Wait," she said, holding out a small object—clumsily folded from a page of old newspaper. A paper crane.
"I made this yesterday. For your daughter. So she knows someone's thinking of her."
Viktor took it carefully, as though it were made of glass. He blinked, the corners of his vision stinging.
"She'll love it," he whispered.
He bid them farewell, the fragile crane cradled in his palm like a quiet prayer.
He bid them farewell, the fragile crane cradled in his palm like a quiet prayer.
The walk from the orphanage to his home was long, winding through alleys still wet with last night's rain. Each step echoed with memory—shadows of a time before the streets bore this much silence. The city had grown quieter over the years, not from peace, but from weariness.
The buildings leaned together like old men sharing secrets. Somewhere above, a shutter creaked in the wind. Viktor tucked the crane safely into his coat pocket and walked on, his eyes catching brief fragments of life behind broken windows: a curtain shifting, the flicker of a candle, a child's laugh.
He passed a burned-out checkpoint. The ruins of old regime slogans still clung to the concrete like the dried husks of insects. Hope is compliance. Unity is silence.
Viktor snorted softly. Not anymore.
As he approached his building—one of the few still standing without scaffolding—he slowed. He stood at the foot of the stairwell for a moment, looking up at the cracked windows, then down at his hands. The crane was still there, miraculously intact.
He exhaled, then climbed.
At the top of the narrow stairwell, he paused. The hallway smelled of rust and damp stone. A bulb overhead flickered, barely clinging to life. The door to his apartment stood like a silent sentinel—peeling paint, a bent numberplate, the old brass knob dulled by years of use.
He reached into his pocket and touched the paper crane again, its delicate wings folded in quiet defiance. Then he turned the knob.
The door creaked open.
For a moment, he stood at the threshold, listening.
The apartment greeted him with stillness. Not silence—there was the faint tick of a clock, the whirr of old ventilation—but the stillness of a room that waited. As though it had paused its breath, knowing he would return.
A soldier sat at the kitchen table, half-lit by the window's gray light. She stood at once when she saw him.
"Commander," she said quietly. "She's stable. But tired. She asked about you."
Viktor nodded. "Thank you."
He closed the door behind him, letting the lock click back into place. The soldier stepped aside as he passed, her posture shifting from formality to quiet empathy.
He moved through the apartment slowly, reverently. The curtains were drawn but thin, filtering dawn into pale bands. The furniture was modest, worn, but clean. A drawing sat on the table—his daughter's, no doubt. A crayon sun beamed unevenly over stick-figures holding hands. He paused to touch it.
Then he went to her room.
He tapped gently once, then pushed the door open.
"I'm here," he said softly.
A frail voice came from within. "Come in, Papa."
And he did
He entered, finding her pale and frail, yet smiling.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, taking her hand.
"Tired, but better now that you're here," she whispered.
They spoke of dreams and memories, their bond transcending words.
Rowan nodded, lowering himself into the chair like a man preparing to listen to a sermon no one else could hear. The dim oil lamp on Gaius's desk cast a weak, amber glow, just enough to reveal the old note, the strange symbols etched into it like fossilized thoughts. Beside it lay the pocket watch, still ticking backwards. Always backwards.
He stared at it for a long moment.
11:42.
It hadn't changed. It never did. That stubborn hour and minute—frozen in retreat, as though time itself refused to advance in this place. A metaphor, maybe, or a warning. Or a key.
Rowan ran a hand through his hair, leaning forward, elbows on the desk. He unfolded the note with care. The creases were already worn—he had studied it too many times before—but something about the early hour, the quiet, the aching stillness in the back of his skull made the symbols seem different this time. Not less mysterious, but less distant. Less alien.
"I've been trying to read it like it's a message," he said softly, almost to himself. "But it's not. It's… a shape. A mechanism."
Elyssa looked up from the far corner, her legs tucked under her in the worn armchair. "A mechanism?"
Rowan didn't answer immediately. He turned the note in his hand, tilting it toward the light. Some of the lines were solid, bold strokes. Others—fainter. Hair-thin. Meant for folding?
"There was a time," he muttered, "in the old quarter—before the riots—when prayers were written in geometric patterns. You didn't read them. You folded them. And once you did, the god would answer."
"Did it work?" Elyssa asked quietly.
Rowan smiled faintly. "Only if you folded them right."
He brought the pocket watch closer. 11:42.
It was more than just a time. No one gave meaningless times. He narrowed his eyes.
"Eleven forty-two," he murmured. "That's a hundred and forty-two degrees."
He looked back at the note. In the far corner, barely visible under the ink patterns, a compass rose had been pressed faintly into the paper, its lines nearly dissolved by time.
Rowan's pulse quickened.
He drew a light arc from the compass point to one edge of the page—then folded carefully, aligning the crease to match the angle. The note bent with a whisper.
The symbols overlapped.
A circle met a line. A triangle covered a faint star. Then he folded again, mirrorwise, and the page grew smaller—thicker. The shapes no longer made sense when viewed individually, but as a composite…
"It's aligning," Rowan said. His voice was hushed. "The folds… it's becoming something else."
Gaius stood behind him now, silent, watching with furrowed brow.
Rowan folded once more. The paper was now a layered hexagon. One last fold—
He turned it toward the lamplight, letting the sharp crease cast a long, thin shadow on the table.
It formed a silhouette.
Tall, narrow. Angular near the top. A wide base and a pointed steeple—no mistaking it.
A tower.
And not just any tower.
Rowan swallowed. "That's the old clock tower."
Elyssa stood, crossing the room. "The one in the northern ruins?"
He nodded. "I remember it from when I was a kid. We weren't allowed near it. Too unstable. Too strange."
"There's a mark here," Gaius said, pointing. "A symbol in the fold. It's not random."
Rowan unfolded one edge and saw it—an owl, etched with almost imperceptible ink, tucked in the negative space created only when the fold was made precisely.
"The envoy," Rowan whispered. "He meant for this to be found only when it could no longer be ignored."
Elyssa looked at him. "So what now?"
Rowan sat still, the weight of understanding crashing down on him. Something had changed. Not just in the paper. In him. The folds had reshaped more than ink and fiber—they had reshaped something in his thinking.
"We go," he said finally, his voice low but certain.
"To the tower?"
"To whatever's inside it."
The Corridor Before Dawn
The sky beyond the hallway windows had begun to pale into ash, but the city below still slept. Rowan and Elyssa moved quietly down the corridor, their coats half-fastened, weapons tucked away. Gaius had stayed behind—his role was to hold the fort, to prepare.
"You really think the tower's part of the Owl's plan?" Elyssa asked as they reached the last stair.
"I don't know," Rowan admitted. "But it's part of something. I can feel it."
She hesitated. "You look different."
Rowan glanced at her. "How so?"
"Like you're not trying to pretend you're fine anymore."
He didn't reply. What could he say? That something about the silence of folding paper, the inevitability of each crease, had touched a part of him untouched by noise or noise-makers? That in that moment of quiet focus, he had remembered who he was before all of this?
He smiled, barely.
"Let's just find out what the Owl wants," he said, pulling his coat tighter. "Before the sun fully rises."
And together, they stepped into the shadows of the dying night, the shape of the tower burning in Rowan's mind like a wound that had never fully healed.