Velmora has no Saints
832 Words
Cassandra's POV
There is a silence cities make when they know they're being watched. Not quiet, not peaceful a strained, tight-lipped hush like lungs holding breath under water. Velmora had that silence now.
I walked through the marketplace at dusk, hood pulled low, a basket of rusted tools cradled in my arms. I wasn’t there for produce or rumors I was testing the current. Feeling which way the wind of fear had turned since Vexen's collapse.
It had turned inward.
Conversations had grown in whispers. Walls now had eyes again. Even the beggars looked over their shoulders like the city itself might rat them out. That was good. That was necessary. Paranoia breeds caution. And caution keeps them from feeling invincible.
But not everyone was afraid.
Some were emboldened.
Some had seen the footage of Vexen screaming and carved my name into alley walls with a dagger-tip of hope. It was dangerous. It was reckless.
It was a beginning.
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The Confessional
Three hours after sunset, I knelt inside the ruined Cathedral of Saint Kariel.
Not to pray.
To confess.
To a corpse.
The confessional booth was shattered, splintered by drone fire during the cleansing riots two years ago. But I still remembered the way the wood smelled when I used to hide inside it. Back when my mother believed salvation could be whispered through a lattice window.
Now, I used it for something else.
"Forgive me, father, for I am not here for forgiveness."
I took the war journal out. Unwrapped it like a relic.
I inked a new name.
SISTER MIREN VOLKA. Educator. Indoctrinator. Trained a generation of children to burn books and fear their own thoughts. Had my poems seized. Smiled when I was arrested.
She would be next.
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The Trap
Miren lived in the Echo District, under the guise of a retired school matron. Her house was surrounded by orchids. Beautiful, delicate lies.
I posed as a journalist from the state press. Asked for an interview on her contributions to the "moral reconstruction of Velmora."
She welcomed me with wine. Her house smelled of lavender and memory.
I recorded everything.
When she described how the state "cleanses darkness from young minds," my fingers twitched around the recorder.
When she laughed about the poetry burnings, I saw fire again—not in memory, but in intent.
"The pen breeds rebellion," she said. "Better to burn the seed before it grows."
"Then let me show you what grew," I whispered.
I didn't kill her quickly.
I didn’t kill her cleanly.
I made her read a poem.
One of mine.
From the underground days.
She read it aloud, trembling. Her voice cracked on the third stanza. On the fifth, she wept.
On the seventh, she begged.
When the knife went in, she was quoting me.
---
Another Broadcast
The next day, @VelascoLives released another message.
The bullet. The name: Miren Volka.
The voice:
"Let the architects of silence hear their names echo in the dark."
It shook the government harder than Vexen's death.
Because Volka had been a saint. A symbol of education. The one they paraded in ceremonies, quoted in textbooks.
And now she was bleeding out across her orchids.
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Ezekiel Moves
Three nights after, Aris warned me not to come back.
The safehouse had been compromised.
She found a card nailed to the gate. Black ink. Silver seal.
The symbol of the National Security Tribunal.
Ezekiel was escalating.
I knew his patterns. The way he baited traps. He wouldn’t come for me with guns. Not yet.
He wanted to drive me into the light. Where the cameras could see me. Where he could shape my return into a narrative of madness.
But I was never going to play his game.
Not this time.
---
The Child in the Alley
Her name was Nira. Ten years old. Ash-streaked skin. She tugged at my coat when I passed her corner.
"Miss," she whispered. "You're her. The ghost."
I froze.
"I saw you in the screen. You held the bullet. You said the names."
I crouched low, eyes scanning. "You shouldn't say that. Not out loud."
She nodded.
Then handed me a folded paper. A drawing.
Me. Mask on. Flames behind. Bullet in hand.
"You're in my dreams," she said. "You make the bad men scared."
Then she ran.
I unfolded the picture and stared at the lines. Sharp. Violent. Red crayon for blood.
That night, I cried. Not because of guilt.
Because it meant something was breaking through.
Not just fear.
Faith.
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The Council Reacts
Velmora's rulers convened in secret. I watched from a rooftop across the senate dome. Heat-sensing lenses tracked them like prey.
Cardinal Ven Luthier. General Hadrek. And yes, Ezekiel.
I saw his face.
Cold. Calm. But his hand trembled when he reached for his glass.
They're rattled.
They should be.
I'm not writing warnings anymore.
I'm authoring consequences.
Velmora has no saints.
Only survivors.
And I'm the last one they should have let live.
- Writer
