Aridi -

“Then let them come and take it,” he said. “But tell the Overseer this: the seed did not choose his walls. It chose the cracks.”

But that morning, something shifted.

The Overseer’s men arrived at dusk. They carried torches and chains. “The water belongs to the Citadel,” their captain said, and his voice was dry as old bones. Kaelen stepped in front of the spring. He had no weapon but the memory of thirst. “Then let them come and take it,” he said