The Ashen Accord

Love is a plague. A sickness. A violent, clawing hunger that once turned the world into ash.

That’s what they teach us.

And I believe them. Because I have seen the ruins.

The Old Cities stand like broken ribs against the sky, jagged and hollow, choked with vines and dust. Shadows prowl those streets, but they are not ghosts. Ghosts are memories. Shadows are what’s left when something is scraped clean.

They tell us the cure was simple: cut out the infection at its root.

No bonds. No devotion. No “I miss you” or “I need you” or “stay.” No hands brushing too long. No stolen glances. No desperation.

Desire is permitted—controlled. Once a month, we are granted Indulgence, state-sanctioned relief. Mechanical. Fleeting. A brief reset before we return to our empty lives.

But love?

Love is eradicated.

And if you are found infected?

They Purge you.

I used to think that was mercy.

Now I know better.

Because now, I am sick.

And I have no intention of being cured.

It starts as a mistake. A glitch.

A look, too long. A breath, too sharp.

Cassian moves through the world like a storm waiting to break. His eyes catch on mine in the ration line, and something inside me shifts.

A mistake. A crack in the foundation.

It should mean nothing.

But then I see it again. And again.

The slight tensing of his fingers when I pass. The way his mouth twitches—like he’s fighting a smile, like his body has not yet been trained to empty itself out.

We do not touch.

We do not speak.

But the way he looks at me feels like fingers pressed against my throat.

And I do not run.

The first time he kisses me, it is behind the ruins of an old courthouse, where the world once judged and condemned and executed.

Now, it is a tomb. A place no one watches.

His fingers thread into my hair, and I expect ice. But his touch is fire.

“I think about you,” he breathes, voice raw. “More than I should.”

My pulse stammers. “You shouldn’t think of me at all.”

“I know.” His hands tighten on my waist. “But I do.”

His breath is heat. His mouth is ruin. I let myself be destroyed.

The moment his lips touch mine, I understand why they tried to kill this.

Love is not gentle.

It is not soft.

It is a knife between the ribs, an altar of blood, a hunger that eats and eats and eats until there is nothing left but the taste of want.

It is an ending.

And I welcome it.

We tell ourselves we will stop.

That we can stop.

But love is not a wound that scabs over. It is a fire that never goes out.

It worsens.

Touches become longer. Kisses become desperate. We meet in the ruins, under broken streetlights, between collapsed buildings that whisper the echoes of a dead world.

We burn.

And then, we are caught.

The sirens wail.

Cassian shoves me behind him. His breath is harsh, his body tense.

“Run,” he hisses. “Run.”

But I am not fast enough.

A dart slams into his neck. He stumbles. My hands are on him before I even realize I’ve moved.

“No—Cassian—”

He reaches for me. His mouth moves.

I do not hear what he says.

Because then they take me too.

And the world goes black.

I wake in white.

A room with no corners. No sound.

They have strapped me down.

A voice crackles overhead.

“You have been infected.”

The door slides open. A woman enters. Her uniform is stark. Her eyes are empty.

“We will make you clean again,” she says.

I do not answer.

They think I do not understand what comes next.

I do.

I have seen the cured.

The hollow-eyed, the blank-smiled, the ones who walk with perfect obedience, laughter forced through static-thin lips.

They are not healed.

They are vacant.

I am meant to join them.

The woman steps forward, a needle glinting in her hand.

“This will not hurt.”

She lies.

Because this is not a cure.

This is a death.

And I do not die so easily.

They think they have broken me.

They think I am alone.

They think I will let them strip me down, scoop me hollow, turn me into something that does not hunger.

But they do not know.

Cassian is alive.

Not in my memories. Not in my dreams.

In the fog beyond the perimeter.

The place where the Purged go.

They said it was a prison. A cleansing. A cure.

They lied.

Cassian is there, and he is not empty.

And I will tear through every goddamn wall to get to him.

Because love is not a disease.

It is a war.

And I will make them choke on it.

They do not see it coming.

Because who fights for love?

Love is dead. Love is eradicated. Love is a myth they buried beneath a hundred years of silence.

But they forgot something.

Love is the first war. The first weapon. The first rage.

I am not the only one who remembers.

There are others.

Others who have felt the hunger. The spark. The wrongness of a world that demands we rip out our own hearts and call it salvation.

We have been waiting.

We will not wait anymore.

They will come for me soon.

They will drag me to the chair, strap me in, fill my veins with silence.

But they will not be ready for what comes next.

Because love is not gone.

It is in the walls.

It is in the ruins.

It is in the people who refuse to forget.

And when I escape, when I burn through their white rooms and sterile voices and hollow-eyed enforcers, when I rip open the gates and shatter the sky—

I will find Cassian.

I will unbury him.

And then, we will end this world together.

They drag me through the halls.

My feet scrape the floor. My body sags in their grip. I let them think I'm broken. That I am just another infected girl, that I will go quietly into that white void, let them scoop me hollow, turn me into another docile ghost in their perfect, empty world.

They don’t know.

They don’t see.

The walls whisper as I pass. The fluorescent lights flicker, tremble. Something old watches from the vents, from the cracks, from the places their antiseptic hands cannot reach.

The purge chambers are ahead.

I am running out of time.

And then—

Then the power cuts.

And everything goes black.

The guards curse. One tightens his grip on my arm, but I’m already moving.

I drive my elbow into his ribs. Snatch the taser from his belt.

A shock. A grunt.

He drops.

The other one is too slow.

I kick his knee out from under him. Feel the snap. His scream gurgles as I wrap the cable of the taser around his throat and pull.

It’s brutal. It’s ugly.

It is necessary.

I do not stop. I cannot.

Cassian is out there. Waiting.

The perimeter fence looms, razor-wire sharp. Beyond it?

The purge zone.

They say no one survives out there.

That is another lie.

I scale the fence. My hands bleed. My breath saws through my throat. Sirens scream behind me.

I do not stop.

I hit the ground running.

The fog is thick, swallowing sound. The ruins loom, hollow and broken. I do not know where he is. I do not know how much time I have.

But I know he is here.

And then—

A sound.

Soft. Ragged. Breathing.

I turn.

And there he is.

Cassian.

Alive.

Barely.

He’s slumped against a collapsed wall, his body thin, his skin marred with healing scars. His eyes flutter open, unfocused, dazed.

He sees me.

And the moment he does—

Something in him comes back to life.

I crash to my knees beside him. My fingers tremble as they brush his face, his jaw, the bruises along his ribs.

He leans into me.

Like he never expected to feel warmth again.

I want to break apart. I want to shatter.

But I cannot.

Not yet.

“You’re real,” he breathes, voice raw, and it’s the closest thing to prayer I have ever heard.

I grip his face. Shake my head. “I’m getting you out of here.”

A laugh—hoarse, bitter. “There’s nowhere to go.”

“Yes, there is.” I say it like a vow. “We make a place. We find a way. But I will not let them take you from me again.”

A pause.

His fingers ghost over mine.

And then—

He grips my hand like a lifeline.

And that is the moment we decide to burn the world down.

The others find us in the ruins.

The other infected. The ones who were meant to be erased, but refused to die.

They are waiting.

I see the truth in their hollowed eyes. They do not need a leader. They do not need a martyr.

They need a spark.

I stand before them, blood on my hands, Cassian at my side, and I give them the only truth that matters:

Love is not the sickness.

It is the cure.

It is rage and hunger and fire in the veins, and it is the one thing they can never fully erase.

We will not hide.

We will not run.

We will drag them into the light.

And when we are done—

There will be nothing left of their perfect, empty world.

Just ashes.

And us.

Together.