"You opened the Gate of War," it said, "inside a ship that has forgotten how to fight. What do you imagine will happen now?"
Kaelen picked up a shard of glass from the plain. It cut his palm. He didn't flinch. kwntr-bab-alharh
Not with a key. With his own blood, drawn in a crescent across the threshold—because the old carvings said: War does not ask. War answers. "You opened the Gate of War," it said,
"I imagined," he said quietly, "that war isn't always a weapon. Sometimes it's a refusal. The ship is dying because we chose peace over struggle. We stopped fighting the dark. We stopped fighting the cold. We stopped fighting for each other." "You opened the Gate of War