The word still echoed in Lendro's mind like an incantation:
Shenzo.
He hadn't spoken in minutes. He couldn't. The taste of the name lingered in his mouth like metal ancient, rusted, and far heavier than it should've been.
Across from him stood the man who'd said it. Green eyed,brown haired, and worn down like a statue left too long in the wind. The man who called himself Graiden.
Graiden's voice had the quality of someone who no longer wasted words. Every syllable he spoke had been weighed beforehand.
"You're not the first to arrive here, Lendro," he said, his arms crossed lightly, not in defense, but in restraint. "But you're one of the very few who arrived... whole."
Lendro sat up straighter in the stiff cot, the blanket still clutched like armor. "And Hitomi,and...how can you talk in my language since thats another continent?"
Graiden nodded. "Alive. Outside. Confused, but stable.And... We are more advanced than you in Shenzo... so when we are born, a device is placed in our brains that makes us receive signals from the brain of the person speaking in front of us, so we understand him even if he does not speak the same language as us.
He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to.
Graiden gestured toward the doorway. "Come. There's much you need to understand."
The hall they stepped into was narrow, low-ceilinged, carved into the bones of some long-abandoned infrastructur brick layered over stone, and stone over something older still. Light flickered along the edges, yellow and sickly. The silence was absolute, broken only by their footsteps and the hum of air vents.
Lendro followed without resistance.
They passed rusted doors, sleeping figures, makeshift shelves stacked with canned food and scavenged supplies. In a wide circular chamber, a fire cracked quietly in a barrel, surrounded by crude benches and chairs. There were people maybe a dozen some seated, some standing, most silent. The kind of people who had stared too long into the dark.
Graiden stopped by a crude map etched directly onto the concrete wall with ash and charcoal. Regions had been marked, most of them slashed over. A single symbol something like a flame caught in a spiral burned red at the center.
He tapped the symbol gently.
"That was Shenzo. The heart of the empire. My birthright. My father's bones still lie there, if they haven't been devoured."
Lendro's breath caught. "…You were a prince?"
Graiden let out a low, humorless chuckle. "Once. Before the empire fell. Before we began feeding on ashes and memory.Before... The hint"
He turned, and his voice grew firmer.
"But I didn't build this to be a throne. I built it to be a wall. A last defense."
Footsteps echoed behind them.
"Let me introduce you to those who keep this flame alive."
The first to enter was a man with sharp eyes and movements that spoke of cold precision. He was of medium height, clean-shaven, and wore a plain grey overcoat. His skin was pale, but his eyes an icy blue cut like glass beneath a mess of short, tight curls of black hair.
"This is Kaighy Sait," Graiden said, stepping aside. "Minister of operations. He handles communications, logistics, and information gathering. Nothing moves through this guild without his hand somewhere on the thread."
Kaighy didn't smile. His arms stayed folded as he studied Lendro in a silence that felt dissecting. He gave a curt nod, then turned his gaze elsewhere already done with him.
Then came a girl.
Blonde, but only just the kind of pale gold that shimmered white under firelight. Her features were soft, elegant even, but her steps were brisk and filled with purpose. Her eyes cerulean and bright contrasted starkly with her almost colorless skin. She had a kind smile, one that didn't hide anything but didn't reveal too much either.
"This is Elpha Tortioun," Graiden said, voice warming slightly. "She leads our Planning Division. Every move we make every strategy, every resource path, every fallback plan goes through her. She's no soldier, and she doesn't pretend to be. But without her, this entire structure would collapse within a week."
Elpha extended a hand toward Lendro. "Welcome," she said, her voice light but unforced. "You don't look like someone who came here by mistake."
Lendro hesitated, then shook it.
The final figure entered last. A child.
He looked almost spectral—skin white as salt, hair like powdered snow, and eyes… reddish, but not quite. They shimmered with something undefined, like old wine catching dying light. The boy was silent, small, and thin. He held a leather-bound notebook pressed tightly to his chest, as if it contained all that was left of his world.
"This," Graiden said softly, placing a hand on the child's shoulder, "is Itanium Shenzo. My younger brother. He doesn't speak much. He doesn't need to."
Lendro stared. "He's… albino?"
Graiden nodded. "Yes. Born just before the final revolt. He's not part of the military, nor do I want him to be. He stays because he has nowhere else. Because he dreams things he shouldn't. And because… some of what he writes ends up coming true."
The boy said nothing. Just turned his face slightly, his eyes lingering on Lendro with eerie calm. Not suspicion. Not fear. Something older. Deeper.
Lendro shivered.
Later, they gathered near the central fire. Graiden stood before them, arms behind his back.
"When the kingdom fell, I was still a teenager or a child at most, so we were raised in shelters, our lives were very different from what they were... When I turned 18 a year ago, I decided to establish my own guild. It's not as strong as the rest of the military groups, but I'm trying, at least"
He looked to the fire.
"Our symbol now is not the crown. It's the veil. The last line between humanity and the rot clawing beneath the continent."
Kaighy stepped forward, holding a parchment an old emblem redrawn in ink: a crescent, veiled in black, pierced by a thin line of light.
"Nayrah," Graiden said, "is not a nation. It's a promise."
He turned back to Lendro.
"You were brought here by forces we don't yet understand. But you made it through. That makes you part of something now. Maybe a soldier. Maybe a witness. Maybe more."
He paused, then asked the question again but this time not as a commander, not as a prince. Just a man trying to build something in a world of dust.
"Will you stand with us?"
Lendro stared at the flame, and for a long moment, he said nothing.
Then, quietly:
"…I don't know what I'm standing against yet."
Graiden's expression didn't change. "You will."
And behind them, the fire flickered once too high, too sudden before settling again into that slow, eternal burn.