Overview

gender-diverse protagonist and queer-coded themes, without explicit romance or sexual content.

The train crawled into Galleryreach like an exhausted animal returning to its den — slow, groaning, and reluctant to finish the journey. The iron wheels hissed against the rails as the dusk pressed its face against the windows. Embershade Silverecho watched the blurred silhouettes of rusted towers slide past, their spires slicing the bleeding light of the sunset into thin, trembling strands. It had been twenty years since Embershade last saw this city — the city of ink and glass, of words and shadows — and yet it greeted them as though nothing had changed. The air still tasted faintly of coal and forgotten dreams. The once-luminous murals that adorned the station walls had decayed into cracked mosaics, their colors bled into gray. Only the faint shimmer of old paint hinted that they had once been alive. The poet stepped down onto the platform, a thin layer of dust puffing up around their boots. They carried nothing but a leather satchel, worn smooth by time and travel. The station was empty except for a single lamplight that flickered with a tired pulse. A sign above the exit creaked in the breeze: WELCOME TO GALLERYREACH — CITY OF ARTISTS. Someone had crossed out the word ARTISTS and scrawled ASHES in dripping black paint. Embershade’s lips twitched in something between a smile and a grimace. The city had always been self-aware, prone to irony even in decay. They adjusted the collar of their long coat, feeling the cold air press against the back of their neck. The silence here was thick, but not empty — it was the kind of silence that hums with memory, that carries echoes beneath its stillness. Every step they took down the cracked marble steps of the station seemed to wake ghosts that had been waiting too long to be remembered.