Hades's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Hades knelt in the ash of the old Switchyard and pressed his palm against a rail buckled like a broken rib. The Last Ember, the spike blade at his hip, gave off a faint red pulse. He was here to write names on a wall, and he did not have enough names. That was the whole problem. Tomorrow the sanctuary would light its first memorial lanterns, and half the dead had no one to speak for them. His journal lay open on his knee. Thirty-one names. He knew there had been more than a hundred people the day the Switchyard fell. Melissa, his wife, had asked him last night how a sanctuary could honor silence. He hadn't answered. He was answering now, digging through burned ticket booths for anything with writing on it. Small boots hit gravel behind him. Lil Ray, his daughter, dropped a rusted lockbox at his feet. "Found it under the platform," she said. "It's heavy. That means paper." She was already gone before he could thank her, sprinting toward the next collapsed car. Ollie came slower, cradling the recording device he never put down. His son had green eyes that noticed everything, especially the things adults tried to hide. "Dad," Ollie said. "The passenger logs burned. I already checked." Hades pried the lockbox open with the spike blade. Inside: a conductor's roster, water-stained but readable. He counted. Forty-seven names. Not enough. A shadow moved along the rail line where no shadow should have been. Hades stood. The big silver husky at his side, his wasteland guardian, growled low. Then the shadow spoke. "You're missing the ones the Switchyard doesn't want remembered." Nyx Ravenfall stepped out from behind a leaning signal post, hood up, hands empty on purpose. Hades hadn't seen the scout in two years, not since a raid neither of them talked about. Nyx held out a folded bundle of paper. "Manifest from the freight side. The workers. The ones without tickets." Hades took it. His hand shook. He counted seventy-three names in a cramped, unfamiliar script. Added to what he had, the number cleared a hundred. "Why bring this to me?" he asked. Nyx watched the horizon, not him. "Because I know who erased them. And they know I know. I came here fast. That means I was followed." Melissa arrived then, her train-glass lantern swinging, breath quick. She read Hades' face before he spoke. She always did. "You got them?" "All of them," Hades said. He closed the journal on the new pages. "Every name." The husky's growl deepened. Down the far rail, three points of red light bobbed toward them in the dusk. Not lanterns. Not friendly. Hades pulled Ollie behind him and set the journal in Melissa's hands. "Get the names home," he said. "I'll hold the line."