2407 Rab 13, Briss

The Fire Potentate slammed a piece of parchment against the wooden table. Sera flinched, the sound assaulting his ears harder since he was nearer. His gaze flicked up to his father then down the arm clad in sleeves attached to the trademark vest, before finally reaching the sheet trapped between splayed fingers and the table.

A familiar symbol printed in ink peeked from between the spaces, displaying the mark Sera had come up with. It was of a heartridge, a bird known for its red patch of feathers in its chest amidst all the black. It got its name because it has a strip of black in the middle of its red patch, dividing it into two. Like a ridge. Sera had chosen the bird as their symbol because it resembled a torn heart, one beating for their territory and the other for the government.

Also like the heartridge, Sera was also calling into the night, driving those who could hear it insane, mildly annoyed, or crazy enough to relish it.

"Who dares speak against me?" the Fire Potentate growled, his face contorted into a menacing scowl. His eyes roamed the Advisers surrounding him, each holding on to the side of their seats. After all, they all knew what it was like when the Potentate was angry. "Find this criminal. Don't even bother sending him to trial. I want him sent to Gaimouth at the earliest convenience."

Sera held back the urge to wince. If his father realized it was his own son, would he still push through with that order? Most likely. It wasn't like Sera was anything to rival the power, wealth, and comfort the Fire Potentate enjoyed in the Palace. Of course, any threat to take away those things would make him lash out. Even if it was his own son.

And, if Sera was to acknowledge his feelings, that possibility made his stomach churn with dread more than he needed it to.

But he was still here, doing the work that would surely kill him if he got caught. He'd just have to make do and, well...not get caught. They're working on that, he and Darmer both.

"Find out who the Inferno is," the Fire Potentate hissed. "Topple down whatever this Ember Chronicles is! I can't have anyone mocking me with these...foolish quotes. None of you shall sleep until this heathen is bound before me in chains."

Sera sucked in his breath, schooling his face to never betray the roiling thoughts in his head. The Ember Chronicles was something he and Darmer had come up with when Sera first mentioned how he witnessed hope in the servants after reading the sheet he wrote.

"I don't think I have ever seen that expression on anyone's face before," Sera had said during the one time he had dropped by his friend's shop. He has been doing that more often these days. "And I think I want to keep writing for them but...I don't know how to reach them and more people."

Darmer narrowed his eyes at the empty air. His features arranging themselves into a contemplative stare Sera known to be the mechanic's thinking face. If anything, Sera could already see the gears in Darmer's head turning. After a few minutes, the mechanic had snapped his fingers. "I think I got it," he said, his eyes twinkling with youth Sera hadn't associated with Darmer since they met. Oh, Darmer's excited about it. "A printing press!"

Sera had never gotten it then and had resorted to gaping at his friend like the idea had sort of overloaded Darmer's brain. "What about it?"

"You wanted to reach more people in a short amount of time," Darmer had bobbed his head in an incorrigible rhythm. "So, a printing press. We can mold your page into a printing sheet then we can cackle away for the rest of the night while we duplicate copies, as many as you want!"

Sera remembered tilting his head to one side and scratching his scalp. "But wouldn't that cost too much? And it's not like we can hide a huge building from the soldiers," he reasoned. Then, he saw the conspiratorial twinkle in Darmer's eyes and his breath did an emergency hitch. "And if you're thinking of building some kind of underground lair to store all that in, forget it. I don't want you to get in trouble."

Darmer had pouted, slapping the surface of his counter. "Sucks. That's exactly what I was thinking!" he exclaimed before bracing his hips and flashing Sera a cocky smile. "Besides, I'm already in a lot of trouble by hanging out with you and even having this talk. We're in too deep now and there's no going back."

Sera had blown a breath. He didn't get to say his piece because Darmer had gripped his arms and, with the remnant of his smithing strength, lifted him off the ground a few notches. The mechanic didn't even look like he struggled.

"I have a compromise, though," Darmer had said. "We'll be keeping the underground thing," he laughed at the frown that must have painted Sera's face. "But in a different place!" he amended. "That way, we won't be sniffed out that easily. We could design the upper place to be a different kind of shop and we'll treat it as our base. Cool, right?"

Of course, leave it up to Darmer to have thought this through to the finest details in just a few minutes. Where would Sera be without him?

"Okay, fine," Sera brushed his friend's grip away from his limbs. He'd like to keep them, after all. "How about the distribution? We can't just drop all of it in the local messenger bins. They're bound to be discovered."

Darmer had taken the task of sorting the issue out in his head once more. "How about we post it somewhere?"

"Post it?" Sera didn't need to hide the terror that had laced in his veins. "How would we do it? During the night?"

"If we need to, why not?" the mechanic had shrugged. "Or, we could post it as we go along in our daily lives."

Sera narrowed his eyes. "In broad daylight," he said with an apprehensive tone.

Darmer didn't catch it and just nodded. "In broad daylight," he repeated.

Sera had thought it was stupid and would get them caught in no time. But, they pushed through with all of their plans, even going as far as "accidentally" dropping the pamphlets while they walked and not bothering to pick it up. They'd hang out in crowded places, where it's impossible to tell where and from whom stuff came from, and set off the figurative bomb there.

On his way home, in the middle of the night, long after the torches had snuffed out, Sera would take a jar of vistem glue, one of the most potent of its kind in Lanbridhr, slather a sheet of parchment with it, and chuck it at the nearest wall, window, or door he passed by. By Darmer's advice, he made sure to add some in alleys out of his way just to throw off soldiers who might be tracing the prints' location.

The printing press had also come nicely, thanks to Darmer's contacts in Alkara, the inventing hub. He told Sera he had made up an excuse in starting a logo design business for the companies around Lanbridhr and nobody asked questions.

Sera had done his research and found an abandoned building in the records of one of the Advisers in the Cabinet. The last activity recorded in that property was well over a hundred years ago. It only took a little bit of tampering with documentation, but Sera had made it seem some upstart merchant had bought the property some time ago, and had failed to utilize the place.

By Lanbridhric Estate Laws, failure to use one's property for twenty years would transfer the ownership to the government. And well...Sera was part of the government and he could make use of the little influence he had to handle estate issues. That way, these tampering wouldn't be easily traced.

Besides, it's not like the Adviser would even notice he had a missing property in his ledgers. As far as Sera was concerned, none of these bumbling fools ever checked their assets and just focused on grabbing more and more. If it bothered said Adviser, Sera could just reason he was disobeying the Estate Law first-hand so it really wasn't his to begin with. Then, it would seem like the Adviser was practicing hoarding and corruption and would involve a lot of their hidden crimes coming into the light.

So, yeah. The adviser wasn't going to open his mouth anytime soon.

When Sera told Darmer how he managed it, the mechanic had slapped his back with a hearty laugh. "Look at you doing what they're doing back to them," he said. "I don't believe in retribution brought by the gods but this sure looks like it."

Sera remembered nodding along at the sentiment, his insides curling. No matter what lens he viewed his actions under, it all came back to the same thing. He was being a criminal to go head-to-head with one. Did he like it, though? He wasn't sure.

During the time it took to establish their presence in the territory, Sera had watched the people's response to the prints. Some burned it as soon as they caught a sliver of the paper used. Others stopped to read but eventually tore it down, shook their heads, and continued walking. Sera doubted his words ever made it through those people.

But, a huge fraction of the sprites Sera had observed read the whole print with a seemingly reflective stare and walked away with fingers tapping their chins or hands buried deep inside their pockets, thinking. And that's what Sera wanted to induce out of his people. To get them to think and reflect about the state of their territory. Make them aware of the freedom they have a right to but was being curtailed.

Think. Reflect. Understand. After that, Sera would have no hardship calling them into action. A race that doesn't think and blindly follow wasn't what Sera wanted his people to become. It was worse than a shameful death.

Now, seated in the very same place as the government he was going against, with the Potentate marching around the room, fuming about the mess Sera had created, he felt an ounce of pride in succeeding in running these people around in circles. With him managing to rile up both the Potentate and the people for entirely different reasons, hope outweighed the terror.

Sera didn't care what happened to him. What's more important was that he might have just found himself a way to save Neylan. And thousands of other people along with him.

Hope. It was a dangerous feeling. But Sera would go to Calaris and back so his people could be free to feel it.