The woman used to smile at her.
Not out of pity. Not out of obligation. Just kindly.
Like an older sister would. Like someone who expected nothing in return.
She would braid Dawn's hair too tightly, then fix it again when she noticed the wince. She would hum while hanging linens, let Dawn sneak the sweet tea when no one else was watching.
Back then, she was warmth.
Back then, the world still moved.
But after the sky turned violet, after the men were gone, after the sermons and the stillness and the Violet Halo...
Something changed.
The woman didn't stop smiling exactly. She just stopped smiling at her.
Stopped seeing her.
The softness didn't vanish—it calcified. Hardened into devotion. Into duty.
And when the Ignitors came, she didn't hesitate.
No warning. No questions.
Dawn wasn't given to them in anger or fear.
She was handed over with calm hands, like a tool being returned to its shelf. Like garbage set aside for collection. Something to be dealt with.
Dawn remembered screaming.
She remembered the cuffs, the marble echo of her own heels, the way her throat burned and her voice kept tearing itself apart.
She remembered Daus—already marked, already silent.
She didn't understand it all, not then.
But she understood enough.
Daus hadn't chosen faith.
She'd chosen her.
And now, the trade bound them both.
If Dawn made noise, Daus would suffer.
If Daus faltered, she would.
A tether made of sacrifice.
Of love neither of them had asked to prove.
And sometimes, in the quiet, Dawn wondered if that was all family ever was—survival negotiated in whispers. A protection that became a prison.
She folded the cloth in her lap again, though it was already perfect.
Somewhere down the corridor, footsteps passed—measured, mechanical.
And then… a voice.
Smooth. Composed. Unmistakable.
She knew that voice. Had known it long before the cuffs. Long before the screaming.
Before everything turned violet and silent.
Sister Raleth.
The one who handed her over.
The one who smiled when Daus said yes.
"She's been kept idle too long," Raleth said evenly. "No assignment. No purpose. No contribution."
She stood with her hands folded before her, posture immaculate. Her voice was not urgent. It didn't need to be. It had the weight of rightness behind it.
Across from her, the Mother Thren nodded once—barely.
"She's cooperative," the Mother offered.
Raleth's smile was slight. "Cooperation is not purpose."
A pause.
"She could serve more usefully elsewhere," Raleth continued. "The outer workforces need hands. Silent ones. Willing ones."
"She hasn't been evaluated for labor."
"She won't need to be. She's compliant. And she's broken enough to listen."
The Matron looked up, eyes narrowing just slightly.
Raleth softened her tone.
"What I'm saying is: she's no longer sacred to anyone but Daus."
She stepped closer, hands still calmly folded.
"And as long as she stays here—within reach, within sight—Daus will never become what she could be."
"She will remain loyal to the wrong person."
Raleth turned toward the window, watching the violet sky hold its breath outside.
"Hope is a dangerous thing to leave lying around."
Mother Thren's hand hovered over the prayerbeads, unmoving now.
"She hasn't caused disruption," she said, slower this time. "Her silence is a kind of service."
Raleth didn't flinch. "Silence is not obedience. And stillness is not loyalty."
A pause passed between them like the edge of a blade.
"She is the reason Daus still looks backward," Raleth continued. "And as long as that bond remains within reach, Daus will never become what she's meant to be."
Thren exhaled—soft, tired. Her fingers resumed the beadwork, slower now. More for rhythm than prayer.
She didn't speak.
But she didn't argue again.
Raleth saw what she needed to see.
Not permission.
Just hesitation.
That was enough.
She bowed her head—not reverently, but with finality—and turned toward the door.
The next step wasn't negotiation.
It was correction.
Daus had stopped rereading the symbol days ago.
She didn't need to see it anymore. It was etched in her thoughts now—not as a shape, but as a question. One that never quieted, no matter how many duties she completed or how perfectly she followed routine.
Every step she took on the platform felt a little too smooth. Every command she obeyed felt just slightly disconnected from her body, as if she were watching someone else glide through the rituals of obedience.
The paper still sat where she had hidden it.
She should've burned it.
She should've reported it.
But she hadn't.
And that truth was beginning to stretch under her skin.
It made her hesitate at doorways. It made her glance sideways without reason. It made her aware of things that shouldn't have mattered—how close she stood to Maris, how many times their assignments overlapped, how her sister's chamber hadn't been mentioned in the logs all week.
She wasn't disobeying.
But she was no longer at peace.
So when the alert chimed, she straightened faster than usual.
"Chamber Theta. Report to Sister Raleth."
That was all it said.
No explanation. No context.
Just her name.
The platform turned toward the internal wing, but her thoughts spun in directions the orders didn't cover.
Had someone seen something?
Had Maris spoken to the wrong person?
Or—worse—had she waited too long, and Raleth had simply felt it? The fracture beneath the surface.
She adjusted her robes, pressed her shoulders back, and entered the corridor.
Chamber Theta loomed ahead—quiet, sealed, patient.
Sister Raleth had always known how to speak softly while cutting deep. Her voice never rose. Her hands never struck. But she had rewritten Daus's life with a single gesture, and had never once looked back.
To most, Raleth was a high voice of order.
To Daus, she was the one who smiled while the brand was burned into her wrist.
Her platform glided forward in practiced silence, but each length of corridor pulled something tighter in her chest.
It wasn't panic. Not yet.
But there was tension in her breath. The kind that came from knowing how quickly everything could change—how easily they could take her sister, her place, her name.
She didn't know what Raleth wanted.
But she knew it wouldn't be nothing.
And beneath the stillness she wore like armor, something deeper stirred—
Not defiance. Not faith.
Just the quiet, gnawing edge of uncertainty.
The door sealed behind her with a quiet finality.
Chamber Theta was empty of warmth, empty of judgment. A room that didn't need walls to keep you in—it only needed her.
Sister Raleth stood with her hands calmly folded, eyes soft, voice even.
"Daus," she said, as if speaking to a child who had wandered too far from home. "You're here. Good."
No title. No formality. Just that.
She didn't ask how Daus was. She didn't need to.
"You've done well," Raleth continued. "You've stayed the path. Even when it hurt you."
A pause. Measured.
"Especially when it hurt you."
She moved a step closer, slow and "caring".
"I want to talk to you about your sister."
Daus said nothing.
Raleth smiled—tired, patient, forgiving.
"She's going to be reassigned. The outer workforce needs hands. She's capable, and we all must serve."
Another step.
"You should be proud of her."
Stillness.
"Do you remember," Raleth said gently, "what you were before you came here?"
The question didn't need an answer. It was meant to sting.
"You were a mess, Daus. A frightened girl clinging to something broken."
She tilted her head.
"But we saw something more in you. Something worth saving. And we gave you this life. This chance to matter."
Her tone softened further—like someone explaining reality to a child too naive to understand.
"You don't get to keep both things. No one does. Not in a world this fragile."
She reached out and laid a hand lightly on Daus's shoulder.
"I know it's hard. But this is the right thing. For both of you."
And then—almost tender:
"You should be grateful, Daus. Not everyone gets to be saved."
She smiled again, the warmth of it hollow and bright.
Raleth's hand lingered for a moment longer than necessary. Then she stepped back, the warmth in her voice already cooling.
Daus didn't flinch. Didn't speak. Her posture held.
As it always did.
But inside—beneath the robes, beneath the name—her thoughts pressed hard against the walls she'd built around them.
She didn't feel grateful.
She didn't feel saved.
She felt the weight of her sister's name wrapped around her ribs like a second tether. One they both wore. One that had never loosened.
And now, they wanted to pull it tight.
She said nothing. She gave Raleth no signal. No defiance. No grief. No sound.
Because here, stillness was safety.
And she had learned—long ago—how to disappear without ever leaving the room.
The door unsealed with a soft hiss.
"You may go."
Daus inclined her head slightly—just enough. No eye contact. No protest.
Just protocol.
She left the room as she'd entered it: quiet, contained, unreadable.
But her platform felt slower beneath her feet.
She moved through the Temple's outer ring in silence, the corridors dimmed to their nighttime glow—soft violet, shadowless.
The day was done. Her report had been filed. Her path was clear.
But her mind wasn't.
The door was still echoing behind her. Not the sound—just the weight of it. The soundlessness that came after being told, again, that obedience was her only virtue.
She passed a side corridor near the linen storerooms.
Maris was there—alone—carrying a bucket of rinsewater, sleeves rolled to the elbows, her motions precise but careful. Always careful.
She didn't look up.
She didn't need to.
They had arrived on the same day.
Daus, branded and silenced under the guise of salvation.
Maris, condemned and cataloged before she was old enough to fight it.
The Order called it purity. Protection. Harmony.
But if they knew what had quietly bloomed between the two of them—even in silence—it would be labeled blasphemy.
Maris would be punished for tainting what the Ignitors deemed holy.
Daus would be taken for re-education.
And yet…
Somehow, without words, they had found each other.
In shared glances.
In slight delays.
In the moments that could be denied if questioned.
Daus didn't stop.
But her eyes lingered.
And for one breathless moment, she realized it wasn't just her sister who made her hesitate anymore.
It was her.
And that terrified her more than anything Raleth could ever say.
Because hesitation was how it started.
Because even a pause could be mistaken for disobedience.