The first pilgrims arrived at dawn.
Jiko was in the archives, studying pre-Severance neural mapping when the Broker Collective's alarms sounded. Not an attack, but something unexpected: a crowd gathering at the Memory Den's hidden entrance.
"How many?" he asked the central Broker, who'd come to inform him personally.
"Thirty-seven so far. More arriving by the hour." The masked figure's voice was carefully neutral. "They're asking for you. By name. Calling you the Guilt Eater."
Jiko felt his conscience twist with responsibility. He'd known this was coming, but knowing and experiencing were different things. "What do they want?"
"What everyone wants. Freedom from weight. They've heard you can take guilt without being crushed by it, and they're desperate enough to find you despite the risks."
"Desperate how?"
"See for yourself."
They walked through the Den's corridors to an observation point overlooking the canyon entrance. Below, people clustered in small groups. Jiko could see their Marks even from this distance—black stains covering arms, necks, faces. Too much guilt, accumulated beyond their capacity to bear.
"They're dying," Jiko said quietly.
"Crystallizing, technically. Another few weeks and they'll be statues. Frozen in moral weight they can't process." The Broker gestured at the crowd. "Word spread about what you did for Mother Kess's camp. How you took thousands of Marks and survived. Now everyone who's drowning in guilt thinks you're their salvation."
"I'm not a savior."
"Tell them that." The Broker turned to leave, then paused. "The Collective is neutral. We provide sanctuary, not judgment. But we also don't appreciate attention. This crowd will draw notice from factions we'd prefer to avoid. You have three days to decide what to do with them. After that, they become a threat to our neutrality, and we'll remove them."
"Remove how?"
"However necessary." The Broker's voice was cold. "Three days, Guilt Eater. Choose."
Jiko stood alone, watching the desperate people below. His conscience screamed at him to help, but his analytical mind saw the impossibility. Thirty-seven people now, more coming. If he helped them, word would spread further. Hundreds would come. Thousands. More than he could possibly help before the Sanctum's forces found him.
But if he refused, they'd crystallize. Die frozen in their own guilt because he'd chosen efficiency over compassion.
There was no good answer.
He found his companions in the communal space, already debating the situation.
"We can't help them," Marik was saying. "It's too dangerous. The moment Jiko starts absorbing guilt out in the open, every faction in the Dominions will know exactly where he is."
"So we let them die?" Ven challenged. "Just abandon them because helping is inconvenient?"
"It's not inconvenient, it's suicide. The Sanctum is hunting us. The Testimony wants Korrin. We're already on borrowed time." Marik looked at Jiko. "I know it's harsh, but we have to think strategically. Saving thirty-seven people isn't worth destroying our chance to change the system for millions."
"Unless you're one of the thirty-seven," Korrin said quietly. "Then it's worth everything."
"That's emotional thinking, not tactical."
"Good. We need emotional thinking. Pure tactics is how the Testimony justified atrocities." Korrin stood. "I vote we help them. All of them. Even if it's dangerous."
"I vote we don't," Marik countered. "We stick to the plan, stay hidden, finish the research."
"I vote we help," Ven said. "But carefully. Screen them, take the worst cases, send the others to carriers who can help them."
All eyes turned to Jiko. His conscience and analytical mind were at war, neither offering clear answers.
"What does Syla think?" he asked.
The Echo materialized from shadows. "I think you're all missing the obvious solution. These people are desperate enough to find you. That means they're motivated. Committed. Exactly what a revolution needs."
"What are you suggesting?" the Cartographer asked from the doorway. He'd been listening despite his exile from the team.
"Recruit them." Syla's eyes glittered. "Help them, yes. But in exchange, they join your cause. Become followers, soldiers, witnesses. Build an army of the guilty who've been freed."
"That's manipulative," Ven said.
"It's practical. They want freedom from weight. You want to change the system. Those goals align." Syla looked at Jiko. "Help them because it's right. But also because it serves your purposes. Mercy and strategy don't have to be separate."
Jiko felt something click. His conscience and analysis finding agreement through Syla's perspective. "She's right. We help them, but we also recruit them. Not coercion, just offering them purpose after freedom."
"And when the Sanctum finds us because we're openly helping people?" Marik asked.
"Then we're ready. We finish preparations faster, move our timeline up, confront them before they expect it." Jiko felt certainty settling over him. "We were always going to fight eventually. This just makes it sooner."
Korrin nodded. "Aggressive timeline. Risky but defensible. I approve."
"I don't love it," Marik said. "But I see the logic."
"Then it's decided." Jiko stood. "I'll go down and meet them. Explain what we're doing, offer help in exchange for joining our cause. Anyone who accepts gets their guilt taken. Anyone who refuses gets directed to carriers who can help them."
"I'll come with you," Ven said. "You'll need someone to organize them, screen for infiltrators, manage the logistics."
"And I'll provide security," Korrin added. "In case any of them are Sanctum agents."
They descended to the canyon entrance together. The crowd fell silent as Jiko appeared, thirty-seven faces turning toward him with desperate hope.
He recognized the look. He'd seen it in the deserters' camp, at the Penance Halls, in Mother Kess's eyes. The look of people drowning who'd just spotted a lifeline.
"My name is Jiko," he said, his voice carrying across the canyon. "Some call me the Guilt Eater. I can take your guilt, it's true. But I need you to understand what that means."
They leaned forward, listening intently.
"I'm not a savior. I'm someone trying to fix a broken system. The Severance made morality into weight, and people weaponized that weight for power. I want to change that. Remove the weaponization, let people experience guilt without being crushed by it." He paused. "I can help you. Take your guilt, free you from the weight. But in exchange, I ask that you join me. Help me change the system so others don't suffer like you have."
"What does joining you mean?" someone called out. A woman, perhaps thirty, with black Marks covering her arms.
"It means you become part of a revolution. Help us prepare, support our work, stand with us when we confront the powers that profit from your suffering." Jiko met her eyes. "It's dangerous. The Choir Sanctum has declared me the First Heretic. Anyone helping me risks death or worse. But if we succeed, we change the rules for everyone."
Silence. The crowd processing his words, weighing freedom from guilt against the danger of revolution.
"I'll join," the woman said finally. "I'm dying anyway. At least this way my death means something."
Others nodded, voiced agreement. Within minutes, all thirty-seven had agreed to join. Some from conviction, others from desperation, but all committed.
Jiko spent the next six hours absorbing guilt. One by one, they came to him, extending arms covered in black Marks. He took their sins, felt the weight flood into his conscience, analyzed and stored each burden.
Murder, theft, betrayal, abandonment. The usual catalog of human failing. But also smaller sins, the kind that crushed people through accumulation rather than magnitude. A parent's neglect. A friend's cruel words. The thousands of small cruelties that added up to unbearable weight.
His conscience processed them all, finding that balance between feeling and analysis that let him bear weight without being destroyed by it.
By evening, he'd absorbed approximately four thousand Marks. The thirty-seven pilgrims stood clean, unmarked, freed from the burden that had been killing them.
And they looked at him with reverence that made his conscience uncomfortable.
"Don't worship me," he said, addressing them as a group. "I'm not divine. I'm just someone with a unique ability trying to use it well."
"You saved us," one man said. His name was Daven, a former merchant who'd accumulated guilt through years of exploitative trades. "You took weight that was killing us. How is that not salvation?"
"Because salvation implies completion. I freed you from guilt, but that doesn't make you good. It just gives you a chance to choose goodness going forward." Jiko felt his conscious conscience working, seeing morality as both real and constructed. "What you do with that freedom defines you, not the freedom itself."
They didn't seem to fully understand, but they nodded. Ven organized them into groups, assigned quarters in the Den's outer sections, began coordinating their integration into the revolutionary effort.
Jiko returned to his chamber, exhausted and heavy with four thousand new sins. His conscience was straining, the weight approaching his capacity again. He'd need to find a way to release some of it soon or risk crystallization himself.
But for now, he'd given thirty-seven people a chance at life. His conscience told him that was worth the cost.
The next morning brought news from the Brokers: more pilgrims had arrived. Sixty-three this time, drawn by word from the first group. And scouts reported hundreds more traveling toward the Memory Den, all seeking the Guilt Eater.
"This is accelerating faster than expected," the central Broker said. "Our neutrality is already compromised. The Sanctum will notice the traffic patterns eventually."
"How long do we have?" Jiko asked.
"Days. Maybe a week if we're lucky." The masked figure leaned forward. "You need to make a decision. Continue accepting pilgrims and risk exposure, or close the gates and turn them away."
Jiko looked at his companions. Ven was coordinating the integration of the first group. Marik was managing supplies, calculating how many people they could support. Korrin was training the new recruits in basic tactics, preparing them for the confrontation he knew was coming.
And Syla watched it all with her too-large eyes, delighted by the chaos.
"We continue helping," Jiko said. "We knew this would draw attention. Let it. We'll use the attention to make our statement impossible to ignore."
"Then you'd better work fast," the Broker replied. "Because the Sanctum's forces are mobilizing. Our informants report three Saints and two hundred soldiers heading this direction. They'll arrive within five days."
Five days. Less than a week before the confrontation Jiko had been preparing for became immediate reality.
His conscience and analytical mind agreed: there was no more time for careful preparation. The revolution was starting now, ready or not.
"Gather everyone," Jiko said. "All the pilgrims, all our team, everyone. It's time to explain what we're really trying to do."
They assembled in the Memory Den's central chamber, nearly a hundred people now. The original companions, the thirty-seven freed pilgrims, the Brokers watching from their alcoves, even the Cartographer attending from the periphery.
Jiko stood before them, feeling the weight of their attention, his conscience processing the magnitude of what he was attempting.
"You came here seeking freedom from guilt," he began. "I've given that to many of you. But freedom from weight isn't enough. The system that made you suffer is still operating. Tomorrow, next year, a decade from now, others will accumulate guilt they can't bear. Will suffer. Will die."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"I want to change that. Not by being everyone's savior, but by fixing the system itself. The Empathy Engine that broke the world, it can be reprogrammed. Modified so that moral weight isn't weaponized. So people can experience guilt without being crushed by it."
"How?" someone asked.
"By understanding how the Engine works, finding its flaws, and carefully correcting them. It will take time, expertise, resources. But it's possible." Jiko looked at each face. "And it will require all of us. The research team studying the Engine. The pilgrims who've experienced the system's cruelty. The soldiers who'll protect us while we work. Everyone contributing what they can."
"The Sanctum will stop you," Daven said. "They profit from the current system."
"They'll try. They've declared me the First Heretic and sent forces to kill me. But if we stand together, if we show the world there's an alternative to weaponized morality, we can win." Jiko felt his conscience affirming this. "Not through violence, though violence may be necessary. But through proving the system is wrong. Through being the change we want to see."
"That's a nice speech," a voice called from the back. "But speeches don't stop Saints."
General Korrin stepped forward. "No, but strategy does. I've fought for the Testimony for twenty years. I know how the Sanctum fights, how they think, what their weaknesses are. And I'm willing to teach you."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Korrin's reputation preceded him—the guilt-scarred general who'd built the Iron Testimony's military power.
"Why would you help us?" someone asked.
"Because I'm tired of what I've become. Tired of bearing weight I didn't need to carry, of enforcing a system I no longer believe in." Korrin showed his arms, still covered in thousands of black Marks despite the ones Jiko had taken. "I want redemption. And helping you fix what I helped break is how I'll earn it."
The crowd was silent, processing this. Then the woman from the first group, the one who'd agreed first, stood.
"I'll follow the Guilt Eater," she said. "I'll stand against the Sanctum. Because he gave me my life back, and I want others to have that chance."
Others stood, voiced agreement. Not everyone—some were too afraid, too uncertain. But enough. A core group willing to risk everything for the chance at systemic change.
Jiko felt something shift. This wasn't just his revolution anymore. It was theirs. Collective ownership, collective risk, collective purpose.
"Then we prepare," he said. "Five days until the Sanctum's forces arrive. We use that time to fortify, train, plan. And when they come, we show them that moral weight doesn't have to control us. That people can choose to be good without being crushed into it."
They dispersed to their tasks, energy and purpose replacing despair and fear. The Memory Den transformed from neutral sanctuary into revolutionary headquarters, everyone contributing what they could.
Jiko found Syla watching from the shadows, her cracked face showing something like pride.
"You're good at this," she said. "Leading. Inspiring. Making people believe in impossible things."
"I'm terrified," Jiko admitted. "In five days, people are going to die. Maybe me, maybe them, probably both. And it's because I couldn't stay hidden."
"No. It's because you chose to fight instead of accepting injustice. That's not cowardice, that's courage." Syla moved closer. "And when the fighting starts, when it gets bad, remember: you're not alone. You've got an army now. Small, inexperienced, terrified. But yours."
"Will you fight with us?"
"I'm an Echo. I don't fight for causes." Syla's smile was sharp. "But I'll fight for you. Because you're interesting, and I want to see where this story goes."
Jiko felt gratitude warm his chest. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. Wait until we survive." She dissolved into shadow, leaving only her voice behind. "Five days, Guilt Eater. Make them count."
Jiko returned to his chamber late that night, exhausted and heavy with the weight of four thousand sins. He lay in bed, processing everything that had happened.
One week ago, he'd been planning careful, patient research. Months or years of preparation before confronting the system.
Now he had five days before the Sanctum's army arrived. An undertrained militia, incomplete knowledge, and responsibility for dozens of lives.
His conscience told him this was right. His analytical mind told him the odds were terrible.
Together, they agreed: they'd do it anyway.
Because some things were worth fighting for, even when the fight seemed unwinnable.
Outside his window, the Memory Den bustled with activity. Pilgrims training with weapons they barely knew how to hold. Researchers compiling data from the Engine. Tacticians planning defenses against superior forces.
The revolution had begun.
And the Guilt Eater would lead it, ready or not.
Five days until everything changed.
Five days until they proved that moral weight could be challenged.
Five days until the First Heresy became real.
He closed his eyes, trying to rest before the coming storm.
And dreamed of a world where guilt was just weight, not truth. Where people could be good without being crushed by the attempt.
It was a beautiful dream.
He just hoped he'd survive long enough to make it real.