Page 151 - DivineSparkRising II-TheMirrorofSilenceFinal

Nicholas Boothman
“For Aleph,” he said.
No one spoke. Sera rose, crossed to a cabinet,
and came back with a scrap of paper. She wrote
something, folded it, and tucked it under the mug.
Carolina stood and took Henry’s coat and put it on
her shoulders. It didn’t fit. She left it there anyway.
Rita pressed play on the five-second clip. The
silence rose from the reader and laid itself over the
room like a vow.
Something shifted. Not a sound. A permission.
On the chalkboard, without any hand touching
it, a faint word appeared as if dust had decided to
spell: HOLD.
Carolina’s eyes filled, sudden, fierce. “The word
is an action,” she said.
Rita nodded. “It always was.”
Sera opened the folded paper with the
seriousness of a priest: I WILL GO BACK FOR
THEM. No names. No virtue. Just the future
choosing itself.
Henry breathed in deep. The ache in his forearm
eased. “Serpa wanted this to be lived,” he said.
“Not performed.”
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