Seven banners stood in the earth, spaced with care.

The Argalin eagle screamed. It was a short, ruined sound, cut off almost as soon as it left the bird’s throat. The Argalin speaker drew the eagle closer to their chest as the sound echoed across the circle and then died.

The bird did not struggle. Its wings were folded tight, talons wrapped and stilled. Where its eyes should have been, pale clouding caught the light and gave nothing back.

The banners marked the circle unevenly, placed for obligation rather than display. Bayakhun filled the outer ring in numbers that read as weight, and Ramdur stood where they always did, steady and unspeaking. The Korshun were present but quiet, their work already finished.

The Proven stood inside the ring, hands empty.

“Altan,” one of the elders said at last. “Say what was seen.”

The Argalin speaker inclined their head. “A pillar,” they said. “Fire. Golden-white. Far to the west, along the Spine.”

“How far?” someone asked.

“Far enough that the cloud took the color before the ground did,” the speaker replied. “Brief enough that anyone who looked away missed it.”

They loosened their hold slightly, letting the blinded eagle be seen.

“The birds turned before the light reached its height,” the speaker continued. “They scattered as if something below had struck upward.”

The Ossrajin rose next.

“There are no bones,” their speaker said.

They knelt and placed a funerary token on the ground between the banners, clean and unmarked, meant to be named later.

“Varosk,” they added, after a moment. “Capital of the Zakhar Republic. Whatever happened there did not leave itself behind. There is nothing to read. Nothing to place.”

The token remained where it lay. Empty. Murmurs had already started.

One of the Shavultai approached without hurry. They set a pair of forge tongs beside the token, laid open, gripping nothing.

“You do not strike metal that has not cooled,” the Shavultai speaker said. “Land answers violence in its own time. Whatever erased that city has not finished speaking.”

“And if it speaks again?” a Volkhai voice asked.

The Volkhai speaker strode forward before an answer could form. They laid an axe on the ground, haft worn smooth by use, edge clean.

“We must answer first,” they said. “Bayani died under foreign roofs. Distance did not spare them. Waiting will not either.”

Now, silence tightened around the three objects.

“Choose,” the Volkhai speaker said, turning to the Proven.

The challenge was recognized. The circle shifted, expecting the familiar shape of it.

The Proven looked upon each object without moving.

After an eternity bound in a moment, they crossed the ring and set their hands to Volkhai’s banner first, drawing it free from the earth. The cloth stirred once and settled.

Each banner came next. Shavultai. Argalin. The Korshun’s banner. The Ramdur’s. The Bayakhun’s own, taken without emphasis. The weight accumulated.

Only one banner remained.

The Ossrajin banner stood pale against the ground. The Proven stopped before it, breath steady. If this banner was taken, nothing would remain unheld.

They lifted it, and it came free easily. Too easily.

The banners settled together in the Proven’s arms, balanced and complete, and the wrongness of it rippled through the circle. The blinded eagle shifted once and turned its ruined gaze away from the sky, toward the Proven instead.

No one spoke.

It was no longer a challenge of answers.

Seven banners lay in their arms, held with care.