by Nail S.
Quick Update: I'm currently going back through Chapters 1–24 for a full revision pass, tightening the pacing, dialogue, clarity, and overall reading experience. The story itself isn't changing, I'm just giving the opening everything I can before moving forward. This should take me around 1–3 days, and Chapter 25 will continue right after. Thanks for sticking with me. ❤️ ------Noah Schweiger has never told a lie in his life, not once, not even the kind that would have made things easier for everyone around him. Today he's supposed to swear the oath that holds his entire sector together, the same oath he has listened to a hundred times but never once been allowed to speak himself. His throat locks around it. In front of three hundred people, including his own father, the words simply refuse to come. For the first time, Noah understands why. Some part of him has always known the oath is a lie. They throw him through the gate nobody has ever returned through. What's waiting isn't ash. It's a road, a wagon, a scribe already writing his name onto a price list, a whole system built to swallow people exactly like him.And somewhere out there is the man who built this entire world on lies no one was ever supposed to question.
