Chapter 1: THE ASH SOLSTICE PRELUDE

THE ASH SOLSTICE PRELUDEDay 0The sun curdles.Midsummer Festival.Above him, thousands of people laugh; the Midsummer Festival is in full swing—music, heat, prizes, baked treats. Once a year, they gather in celebration, though only a few remember why. This is the day the city’s founders set their first camp around the base of the tree. They celebrate what it gave them without acknowledging its actual existence. The festival endured; its purpose did not. People move through the festival, eating berry pastries grown from soil anchored by its roots. They cheer within walls raised by masons, beneath roofs held up by its branches. He acknowledges its existence; he is celebrating its existence. But he isn’t laughing or cheering.There are no pastries for him.He has walked those streets and even been recognized for his work. He once stopped by a bakery. The baker was generous and kind; he was good. Although humble, that baker talked about this very city. He wasn’t a scholar; he simply paid attention. What he noticed helped inspire the man to travel the world and see beauty, ugliness, chaos, and order. He had done the research.The first two spikes, he simply drove in. There was no moment when he needed to reconsider his theory. This third spike is consequence given form. His and theirs.Deep beneath the city he chose, surrounded by the very thing that will keep this ark alive, he stops and looks up toward the people whose lives resonate through the roots anchoring the city’s foundation—not because he thinks he miscalculated or was wrong, but because he doesn’t know whether he has the strength to be the hero.A hero saves; heroes do not damn.* * *But what if saving demands damnation?What if it lets there be a tomorrow?He stands contemplating this, his hands pressed against the dark wood, immaculately sturdy even though it lies so deep underground and has been here longer than the city. This is the final spike; the others throughout the city were easy. He only needs to drive this one in, and then they will be safe.Safe from obscurity. Safe from annihilation. Safe. It will take one more push, and he will have made the choice for them all. He has decided this will be best. He has checked; it cannot be anywhere else. For there to be a tomorrow, this must happen.He closes his eyes. “Nothing to be done.” He feels through the roots. They answer, but only with resistance. The tree does not want to go; it belongs here. He pushes through that resistance with his own.He can feel it. Life. Routine. The certainty that there will be a tomorrow, simply because there is a today.The mage tightens his jaw.The obsidian groans in his hand.Dust falls from the ceiling.Resistance.His body shudders.The roots steady.Then—An inch...That is enough. The roots shudder, desperate to stay.But—It is too late—Above them...The sun curdles.