Page 28 of Storm of Stars

With a pack on my shoulder and a heart you know.”

Maybe they understood. Maybe they heard it. The truth under the lyrics. The message sewn into the melody. Then Briar and I sang together, our voices locking like pieces in a puzzle.Seamless. Like we were always meant to sing this one song, just this once.

“Raise your hands, raise your eyes, to the breakin’ dawn,

There’s a road past the border where the lost ones’ve gone.”

The harmony built. An aching, longing sound.

“And when the run is over, when the reckonin’s near,

We’ll sing the old verses only runaways hear.”

Someone in the audience gasped softly. Another clapped a hand over their mouth.

“Lay your tools by the riverside, leave your mark in stone,

Count the crows at midnight, you won’t be alone.”

My hands didn’t shake anymore. They held steady to the mic, firm. Certain.

“Watch for the lantern in the hollow’s bend,

It’ll burn like a promise where the shadows send.”

I looked back up. Straight at her. Archon Veritas sat like a phantom carved in gold, separated from the masses in her elevated box. All around her, the crowd roared with noise and light but she was stillness incarnate.

And I sang right to her.

“Raise your hands, raise your eyes, to the breakin’ dawn,

There’s a road past the border where the lost ones’ve gone.

And when the run is over, when the reckonin’s near,

We’ll sing the old verses only runaways hear.”

The words…our hidden anthem…poured from my mouth. I didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just held her gaze and let the truth burn its way through the melody. Briar’s voice cracked just slightly at the start of the next verse, but it made it more beautiful. More real.

“Hold fast to the names they tried to erase,

There’s a fire in the earth and it knows your face.”

Veritas tilted her head, slow and deliberate, like a predator watching a challenge rise from the dirt.

Her eyes locked with mine, burning hotter than the stage lights overhead. A furnace of curiosity, calculation. No mask of neutrality now, just something sharp and feral gleaming behind the polish of power.

“Tie a thread 'round your wrist, red as dusk, tight as kin,

When the last winner’s called, that’s when we begin.”

My voice rang out then, clear and strong as fire.

“Raise your hands, raise your hearts, to the breakin’ sky,

We’re the storm they forgot, we’re the wolves runnin’ high.”

The crowd surged. I could feel the emotion crashing through them.