Guild Central Hall — Secure Strategy Wing.
The walls were lined with quiet. The kind of quiet you find in rooms where people used to shout, but learned not to. The large table was oval, made of old ironwood etched with the rings of every policy ever passed by a previous High Chair. Today, no one touched it.
The Tribunal sat.
But not all of them.
Three chairs remained empty.
One had been vacated without notice.
One had been revoked quietly.
One had been burned—figuratively and literally—by its last occupant after a private message leaked regarding Donnie's "rhythm propagation."
The man at the head of the table, High Arbiter Tallen, didn't look like a leader. He looked like a judge who forgot which crime he was supposed to prosecute.
But when he finally spoke, the room listened.
> "The test has failed.
The observation has failed.
The redirection effort has failed.
We are no longer dealing with deviation.
We are dealing with doctrine fracture."
No one interrupted.
Tallen continued.
"We've lost command of narrative, containment, and rhythm logic. Students are now repeating movements they haven't been taught. Instructors are falsifying flow reports. One zone reported four unique builder mutations in a week—none of which passed through Guild approval."
He stood.
"The boy didn't create chaos. He gave structure to rebellion. He gave form to disobedience."
A lower-ranking official cleared her throat. "Should we send elite trace suppressors?"
Tallen shook his head. "That's what he expects. No. We send something else."
Another voice, older, colder, asked, "What?"
Tallen looked straight at the center of the table.
"A signature."
---
Back at the tower, the weather had shifted.
It wasn't raining.
But the clouds were dense, heavy, unbroken—like something had chosen to sit in the air and wait.
Donnie felt it before anyone else.
He wasn't drawing.
He wasn't training.
He was sitting on the roof, one leg over the ledge, eyes fixed on the distant mountain to the west.
Veera found him there.
"You're waiting again."
"No," he said. "I'm listening."
"To what?"
"To whoever just made a decision."
She didn't ask how he knew.
She didn't have to.
She felt it too.
The figure arrived just before dusk.
No trace ripple preceded them.
No tension in the field warned of entry.
They appeared the way stories do—all at once.
Not from the treeline.
Not from the ridge.
But from within the tower's own perimeter, walking slowly from between two stacked trace boulders that had been untouched for weeks.
Veera was the first to see them.
Lora saw her reaction and turned.
Kaito followed suit.
Mara stepped outside, silent but alert.
By the time Donnie came down from the roof, the figure had already reached the center of the courtyard.
They wore no combat gear.
No Guild armor.
Just a long dark coat, a narrow mask made of faintly glowing stone, and a sealed scroll in one hand.
Donnie didn't ask who sent them.
He already knew.
The figure stopped and lowered their arm, holding the scroll in both palms like an offering.
Donnie stepped forward alone.
"Is that for me?" he asked.
The figure nodded but said nothing.
No voice.
No gesture.
Just silence.
Donnie took the scroll, turning it once in his hands.
There was no wax.
No symbol.
Only a single word burned into the band across the parchment.
Comply.
He broke the seal.
---
The scroll didn't explode.
Didn't hum.
Didn't shimmer with trace energy.
It was paper.
Real paper.
Which made it more threatening than anything digital.
It meant the Guild had taken time.
The message was hand-written.
Neatly.
Without flourishes.
Without compassion.
> To Donnie Reeve,
Your teachings have destabilized three known trace development protocols.
Your rhythm architecture has infiltrated six unregulated learning zones.
Your personal techniques have resulted in over 200 unrecorded builder events.
You are hereby classified as a Class-2 Rhythm Hazard.
You are to cease all training.
You are to dismantle your field circle.
You are to return to Ridgewood for full recalibration.
You have seventy-two hours.
After which the Guild will no longer use discretion.
—High Arbiter Tallen
Donnie folded the scroll once.
Then again.
Then a third time.
And handed it back.
The figure didn't react.
Just took it.
And walked away without a word.
---
Kaito muttered, "They didn't even bring a backup. That's how confident they are."
Veera asked, "What are you going to do?"
Donnie's answer came without hesitation.
> "Nothing."
Donnie stood in the center of the courtyard long after the figure disappeared.
No one said anything.
The message had already said enough.
He didn't crumple the scroll.
Didn't burn it.
Didn't display it like some trophy.
He simply let the final fold rest in his palm and then handed it to Mara.
"I need you to hold this," he said.
"Why?"
"So I remember it's real."
Mara took it without question.
Veera stepped beside him, voice low.
"They've never used that classification before. Class-2 Rhythm Hazard?"
"It means they can attack without tribunal approval," Donnie replied. "Means they can frame me as a threat to structure. To peace."
"To everything."
Donnie nodded.
---
He gathered everyone in the main chamber that night.
Not for defense planning.
Not for strategy.
But for clarity.
"The Guild sent a deadline," he told them. "They gave me seventy-two hours to stop building. To shut this down and return for recalibration."
He let that sit.
Nobody moved.
Nobody asked what he was going to do.
Because they already knew.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "But I'm not asking you to stay."
One of the younger students—Aris—raised a hand.
"If we stay, what changes?"
Donnie looked at her.
"Nothing," he said.
Then looked at all of them.
"Except everything."
---
Outside, Mara stood on the tower's highest ledge, wind pulling lightly at her coat. She unfolded the scroll once more and stared at the word written cleanly across the top.
Comply.
She shook her head and murmured,
"No. You should have written: kneel. That's what you really wanted."
She held the scroll between two fingers, paused—
—and tore it.
Right down the middle.
Then dropped the halves into the wind.
---
That night, Donnie opened a fresh page in his sketchpad.
But he didn't write anything.
He drew.
A spiral.
Wide.
Broken.
Then repaired.
In the center, he placed a mark.
Not his own.
Not Mara's.
Not the Guild's.
A blank space.
Waiting.
---
End of Chapter 28
© Anthony Osifo 2025 – All rights reserved.