LIONEL ♒︎ SALT AND SEA

Leonel had been smiling at photographers for so long that the smile no longer belonged to him. It was a uniform—pressed and starched every morning—and he wore it better than any suit.

The palace ballroom gleamed like the inside of a jewel. Crystal chandeliers dripped light onto women draped in feathers and men draped in titles; everyone seemed to move in a rehearsed dance, where every step served some specific interest. Leonel knew the choreography by heart. He knew when to laugh, when to tilt his head, and when to let a hand linger a second too long on the right shoulder.

“My golden trident,” said the senator—a middle-aged woman adorned with rings—and the nickname rippled across the room. Half the guests pretended not to hear; the other half heard and smiled, because listening was simply what one did there.

He understood the meaning behind every glance: the envy of young men who would never be handsome enough; the desire of women who had long since forgotten the source of their wealth; and the cold, calculating gaze of everyone else. No one looked at him as a person; they looked at him as a coin—and coins are worth more when they stay in circulation.

So, he kept circulating.

When the senator pulled him out onto the terrace, he went without resistance. The night air was cool, carrying the scent of jasmine and distant smoke. Below, the city of Aurélia sprawled out in rows of light—as beautiful and pristine as only a city can be when those who clean it are not permitted to be seen.

She leaned in until her lips brushed his ear. Her perfume was expensive and cloyingly sweet.

“You deserve a reward for tomorrow night,” she whispered. “And I always pay my debts.”

Leonel kept his smile in place. It was the hardest part of the trade: keeping one’s face perfectly still while the rest of the body became all ears.

“The Supreme Architect has been ordering reports to be burned,” she continued, her voice so low the wind nearly carried the words away. “Box after box, from a closed-down mine in District 12. A mine that, officially, never existed.”

She walked away with the lighthearted laugh of someone who had just shared a bit of gossip about dresses, planting a quick kiss on his cheek. Leonel offered his thanks with his usual air of levity—a bow that bordered on mockery—and the senator returned to the ballroom as if nothing had happened.

He stood before the balustrade. On the outside, he remained unchanged. On the inside, something clicked into place with an almost audible snap.

It was the third piece. He had been searching for it for months—ever since he noticed the night trains departing from District 12 with no declared cargo, and later, a name erased from a registry that no one else would have thought to check. Now, a vain senator—who cared only about being remembered for her generosity—had handed him the third piece, free of charge. The picture remained hazy, but he could already begin to discern the shape of what it would eventually reveal.

When he returned to the ballroom, the warmth of the crowd enveloped him once more. He adjusted his collar, composed his smile, and began to make his way through the sea of ​​gowns. That was when he saw him.

Near the exit, standing motionless between two pillars, was one of the Supreme Architect’s personal guards. He neither drank nor spoke, his hands clasped firmly in front of him. His eyes were fixed on Leonel—unhurried, undisguised.

No words were necessary. Leonel understood the message as clearly as if it had been shouted aloud: I know where your people are.

His mother. His younger sister. The two stone houses atop the hill—the price he paid with every fake smile.

Leonel inclined his head slightly in a courteous gesture and walked past the guard as if he were merely a piece of furniture. His heart pounded so hard he feared someone might hear it.

The room he’d been given was far too large for one person. It featured silk curtains, a bed that could easily hold five, and a full-length mirror—as if to constantly remind him of who he was expected to be.

Leonel locked the door twice. He took off his jacket, then his shirt, and extinguished every light save for a small oil lamp.

From his suitcase, he retrieved a training belt—a worn, gray fabric strap that no one would ever look at twice. He sat on the floor with his back against the bed, pulled a needle and thread from the lining of his coat, and used his finger to open an inner fold in the belt.

He wrote in a code of his own invention, consisting of small, crooked symbols that looked like a child’s scribbles. Mine, District 12, reports burned, direct order from the Architect. Each secret became a stroke, and each stroke became a stitch. If anyone were to find the belt, they would see nothing more than a poorly mended piece of cloth.

He was in the middle of the third symbol when he felt the air shift.

He heard no footsteps, nor the sound of the door opening. But the window—which led to a narrow balcony overlooking the side garden—stood ajar, and a cold draft swept through the room. The silence took on a different weight: the weight of a space that was no longer his alone.

Leonel slowly raised his eyes.

There was someone on the balcony. A silhouette cut out against the darkness of the garden, too far from the lamp for him to make out anything more than its outlines. It wore neither the feathers nor the colors of the celebration.

It was someone who did not belong to that night—someone who had been standing there, motionless, long enough to have seen what he was doing.

Leonel’s fingers tightened around the strap before he had even consciously decided to do so.

He knew every type of look Aurélia was capable of, and this was none of them. There was no desire, no envy, nor the polished calculation of someone expecting something in return. It was a heavy gaze—one that weighed every gesture he made, refusing to take anything at face value. It was the look of someone who did not believe his smile.

And, by reflex, he smiled.

“If you’ve come for an autograph,” he said, in the laziest tone he could muster, “I should warn you: the line is quite long.”

The smile was perfect—rehearsed, as always. Yet, for the first time in a long while, Leonel felt as though it were entirely useless. There was no audience here to deceive—only someone looking straight through him, as if his mask were made of glass.

He thought of the guard by the hall door. He thought of his mother, his sister, the hill. He wondered if this presence on the balcony might be the next message—more direct than the first—and his throat tightened. Then, he reasoned that an envoy of the Architect wouldn’t have entered through a window, nor would they have remained silent, nor would they be watching him with such caution—almost as if they, too, were afraid.

That was what unsettled him most. He couldn’t tell whether he was facing a threat, or simply another person alone in the dark, trying to decide if he was dangerous.

The hand holding the needle froze in mid-air. The other clutched the strap against his chest.

“I don’t know what you saw,” Leonel said, his voice dropping lower; the lightness drained from it, and he was powerless to stop it. — But whatever it is, I think we both know it’s not safe for either of us to have seen it.

The wind stirred the curtain. The lamp flickered. Out on the balcony, the silhouette remained, and the distrust between the two was so palpable that it seemed to fill the entire room.

Leonel did not know the name of the person watching him. He didn’t know which side they were on, nor what they might do next. He only knew that this secret could not go with him into the arena—and that, for the first time in months, someone was truly seeing him.

And in Aurélia, that usually came at a high price.

The fire crackled softly, fed by damp branches that smoked more than they burned. Around it, the Careers sprawled like sated animals after a hunt: one wiped a blade on the hem of his shirt, another laughed too loudly, and a third counted the backpacks looted from the Cornucopia as if they were coins. The scent of iron still hung in the air—clinging to their clothes, their fingernails, their hair. No amount of water from the lake could wash it away.

Leonel stood, lingering just outside the light.

The trident felt heavy in his right hand—a new sensation. Throughout months of training, the weapon had been an extension of his own arm, an effortless extension of his very thoughts. Now, each metal prong seemed to possess a will of its own, pulling him downward—toward the earth, toward anywhere but forward.

"There," said one of the tributes from District 2—the leader of the alliance—without raising his voice.

He never needed to raise his voice. He gestured with his chin toward the edge of the clearing, where the darkness of the trees began. Leonel followed the direction of the gesture, though he already knew what he would find.

Someone was there.

Cornered against the broad trunk of a pine tree—an exposed root pressing against her back, three Careers closing in to form a semicircle—the figure breathed in short, ragged gasps. An old gash on her shoulder stained her clothing dark. Her eyes darted from one face to another, calculating escape routes that did not exist, before finally settling on Leonel. There was a question in that gaze, and he had no answer.

"Finish the job," Cassian said. "You arrived late at the Cornucopia. You owe me."

Someone let out a low laugh. Someone else stepped aside to make room.

Leonel took a step forward, then another. The grass was wet, and the sound of his boots seemed indecently loud. He raised the trident. It was a movement his body knew well: the pull of the shoulder, the rotation of the hip, the clean line toward the target. He only needed to let it happen.

Then, the light from the campfire shifted—as if the wind had turned—and the entire scene tilted. His gaze dropped, unbidden, to the leather strap the other person wore across their chest, partially hidden beneath a torn collar. A symbol was etched into it—small, worn from use, yet unmistakable.

Leonel recognized it. He had seen that same design, carved with a knife, just once before—on the underside of the strap he wore himself. And the message that came with it was clear: under no circumstances was anyone else to know.

The world stood still for half a second.

Half a second is nothing to most people. But for someone trained his entire life never to hesitate, it was an eternity—and everyone gathered around that fire knew how to measure time in heartbeats.

He pulled his strike.

Not too much—not enough to be called cowardice. Just enough so that the tip of the trident sliced ​​through the air a hand’s breadth from the other person’s chest, tore into the bark of a pine tree, and remained embedded there, vibrating. The sound of splintering wood drowned out everything else. It looked like a simple miscalculation—the kind that happens, the kind that fatigue or the darkness of night might explain.

The figure didn’t wait for anyone to challenge the mistake. They darted through the opening, collided with a shoulder, rolled over a root, and scrambled back to their feet. The cut began to bleed again as she strained her arm, leaving a dark trail on the grass as the forest swallowed her up. The branches swayed once, then fell still.

“By all the gods, Leonel!” someone shouted.

“After her!”

“Forget it,” the leader cut in.

He was looking at Leonel, not the forest. It was a lingering gaze—devoid of any apparent anger—the kind that weighs things on a scale only the observer can see.

“With a wound like that, he won’t make it past the first night,” he said, finally. “The cold will finish the job. I’m not wasting my people chasing a ghost.”

Leonel pulled his trident from the tree. The wood gave way with a wet, snapping sound.

“My mistake,” he said, his voice steadier than he’d expected. “I slipped.”

No one answered. A few shrugged. A girl from District 1 rolled her eyes and went back to sharpening her knife. The conversation gradually resumed—like a river flowing around a stone—shifting to the rotation of the watch shifts.

But, on the other side of the clearing, someone hadn’t bought the story.

The figure stood back, almost merging with the trunk of a tree, far enough away that the firelight couldn’t reach their face. A silhouette with watchful, unblinking eyes. When Leonel looked up, he felt the weight of that gaze before he even realized where it was coming from.

Someone hadn’t fallen for the charm. The easy smile that usually solved everything, the casual shrug, the ready-made joke—none of it had worked here. The person simply watched him in silence, with the patience of someone waiting for a second mistake to confirm the first.

Leonel held the gaze for a moment, then looked away—and hated himself a little for it.

He sat down near the fire, his trident resting across his knees, and held his hands out toward the flames, as if he had nothing to hide. His fingers were trembling. He clenched them into a fist and pretended it was the cold.

Saving someone, he thought. That was all it was. A split second. A blow I didn’t follow through on.

But it was more than that, and he knew it. It was the first crack in a wall his family had spent generations building—and in the Games, cracks had a nasty habit of spreading. If anyone there connected the symbol to his belt, if anyone put the pieces together, he wouldn’t be the only one to pay the price. There would be a home—a table set for four, a name etched on a door—and men in gray uniforms knocking at dawn.

The fire crackled. A canteen was passed from hand to hand, and when it reached him, Leonel took a drink that was far too long—if only to give his face something to do.

The night dragged on. They drew lots for watch shifts, and his fell in the early hours before dawn—the worst time, when the body craves sleep and the mind conjures shadows. He sat at the edge of the camp, his back to the embers, his eyes fixed on the black line of the trees. On the other side, where the figure had escaped, nothing stirred.

It wasn’t until the sky began to lose its pitch-black darkness, taking on a dingy, gray hue, that he realized what had changed.

It wasn’t the cold, nor the silence. It was something more subtle—something he sensed before he could even name it: a new tension hanging in the camp air, in the conversations that died away whenever he walked by, in the gazes that darted away too quickly. No one had said a word. No one had dared.

The alliance remained intact—four, five, six bodies, sleeping or pretending to sleep around the dying embers. But that night, a new member had joined their ranks—one with neither name nor face, who neither ate nor slept, and who sat among them with the calm of someone intending to stay.

Distrust.

Leonel tightened his grip on the handle of his trident and waited for the sun to rise.

The sand was too hot to be real.

Leonel realized this the instant his feet touched it. Back home, even at high noon, the beach held a deceptive coolness just beneath the surface—as if the sea had left a secret behind before retreating. This sand was dry and obedient, crafted grain by grain by someone who had never known what it felt like to sink one’s heel into a real tide.

Even so, the scent was perfect. Salt, seaweed, the metallic dampness of the breeze. Someone had gone to the trouble of studying his childhood.

He stopped in the middle of the stretch of sand, his trident hanging from his right hand, his chest rising and falling in short, sharp breaths. Fifteen paces ahead, {{user}} had also come to a halt. The two of them were all that remained. The cannons had fired so many times over the last few days that the silence between them now felt strange—like a room from which all the furniture had been removed.

Leonel knew something was wrong before he even saw the camera.

First came the hum—thin, like a mosquito—and then a small, round shadow crossed the sand before him, coming to a stop right at eye level. Drones usually circled, constantly shifting their angles, always vying for the best framing of a death. Not this one. It remained perfectly still, its lens fixed on him, the small red light above the glass not even blinking.

It’s looking only at me.

An artificial wave broke just a few meters away, long and languid. He didn’t tear his gaze from the lens.

“What do you want?” he muttered.

In response, the drone rotated slowly, and a holographic screen unfurled in the air, shimmering against a sky painted in the hues of late afternoon. Leonel first saw the white light of a stage. Then, the chair. Then, the girl sitting in it, her wrists resting in her lap, wearing a dress far too bright for such a place.

Ísis.

The trident nearly slipped from his fingers.

She was ten and a half years old, and she still bit her lower lip when she was afraid. She was doing it now. Her eyes searched for something just out of frame—someone to tell her what to do—but found nothing. Behind her, on a massive screen, the Capital’s emblem spun slowly, golden and indifferent.

The air left Leonel’s lungs as if he’d been struck by a blow.

“No,” he said—the word coming out low, almost like an apology. “No, no, no.”

A crackle of static tore through the silence. It came from nowhere—from a speaker hidden among the artificial dunes—and the voice that followed was dry, polished, and unhurried. Leonel had never heard it before, yet he knew exactly to whom it belonged; only someone accustomed to being obeyed could speak with such a tone.

“Finish what you started, or she’s next.”

That was all. No elaborate threats, no theatrical cruelty. The simplicity was the cruelest part.

Leonel looked at {{user}}. It was a fleeting glance, yet it hurt more than any wound he had ever sustained in the arena. There was no hatred in it—and that was precisely what made it all unbearable. He felt no anger toward anyone there. He simply saw another person, standing on the same deceptive sand, likewise trapped within a game that was never meant to have any winners.

And then, he understood.

He felt the realization dawn on him slowly, like a lamp being lit in a darkened house. The days spent hunting, the traps, the hunger, the allies who had fallen—all of that had been merely the prologue. They had kept him alive, nurtured his name on the screens, turned him into the favorite, the face of the advertisements, the pride of the District. It had all been leading to this moment: a man alone on a beach that felt like home, forced to choose between a stranger and the only family he had left.

The game had never been against the other tributes.

It had been against him. It always had been.

He took a deep breath, and the scent of salt filled his chest. He thought of his mother, who had taught him and his sister how to read the tides by the color of the foam. He thought of his father, who used to say that the sea belongs to no one—and therefore demands a price from everyone. He thought of Ísis learning to swim—laughing, spitting out water, too stubborn to accept a life vest.

He raised his trident.

The drone reacted, adjusting its focus; somewhere far above, in a control room, fingers raced across panels. Leonel saw the lens contract, waiting for the strike. Waiting for the spectacle.

Instead of attacking, he spun the weapon in the air and drove it into the sand.

The impact made a dull, definitive sound. The three metal prongs sank halfway in, and the shaft vibrated for a moment before falling still—upright, solemn, like a marker planted at the edge of a territory.

Leonel took a step back. He held out his empty hands toward the camera.

"My name is Leonel," he said. The voice that emerged was no longer that of the favorite, nor the trained soldier, nor the frightened boy who had boarded the train on that first day. It was an older voice. "You know me." For months, they’ve been telling everyone who I am. Today, I’m going to tell everyone who you are.

The loudspeaker crackled, menacingly. He paid it no mind.

“Seventeen years ago,” he continued, “there was a fire in District Four. They claimed it was an accident in the fuel depots. Three hundred and twelve people died. I was three years old. My family lost their home, and my grandfather lost everything else.” He swallowed hard. “It wasn’t an accident. It was an order. Signed, dated, filed away. I know, because I saw the file.”

The drone’s lens vibrated slightly. He could almost hear the rising panic on the other end, as someone struggled to decide whether to cut the feed.

“I saw it because they took me there,” Leonel said. “Before the Games. They said it was part of my training—that the favorite needed to know the history of the Capitol. They showed me entire rooms; I thought it was out of pride, but it was just carelessness. They trusted me so completely that they forgot I knew how to read.”

A wave crashed behind him, and the cold—the real cold—water rose to his ankles. He felt a strange tightness in his chest. That water, at least, didn’t lie.

“The Supreme Architect ordered District Four to be burned to clear the way for the northern mines.” His voice no longer trembled. “District Seven was emptied for the same reason, and District Nine as well. Those who remained were labeled ‘resettled,’ and after that, no one ever asked about them again. The production figures you see on your screens every month are false. The reserve silos have been empty for three years. You go hungry because they spend the winter selling what belongs to you.”

The loudspeaker erupted in static, and the dry voice from before returned—no longer calm:

“Cut ​​the transmission. Cut it now.” But Leonel kept talking—louder, faster—knowing that every word was a coin tossed into a bottomless well, and that perhaps only one or two might ever reach anyone.

“The grain convoy that ‘disappeared’ in District Six—do you remember? It didn’t disappear. It was diverted. The deaths in District Eleven weren’t caused by an epidemic. The census figures...”

The sound cut out.

He saw the drone’s lens go dark. He saw the red light blink off. But he didn’t stop. Even without knowing if anyone was still listening, even without knowing if his words were still traveling through the cables to the homes, the town squares, the mess halls—he kept going. Because while the broadcasts could cut the audio, they couldn’t erase what people had already seen: the Capital’s favorite, the golden boy from every poster, standing with a trident driven into the sand, his hands open, looking up at the sky and saying no.

Somewhere very far away, on a giant screen that was no longer his, a girl in a light-colored dress lifted her head.

Leonel couldn’t see it. But, for an instant, he felt as though she were looking back.

Then, the loudspeaker died completely.

The silence that followed was not the same as the silence from before. Previously, there had been the constant hum of the arena: the programmed wind, the drone of the machines, the faint music the Capital played incessantly beneath everything else. Now—nothing. Only the sound of the waves, his own breathing, and the dry creak of the trident’s shaft yielding to the wind.

Leonel stood motionless, his hands still open, his heart pounding so loudly he felt it could be heard for miles.

And that was when he heard it. First, a very low sound—coming from somewhere beyond the dome, beyond the painted sky, beyond the artificial dunes—a siren. Long, deep, rhythmic. It wasn’t the siren of the cannons, nor the one that signaled the end of each day. It was something else. Older. More urgent.

He had never heard it before.

But, for the first time since arriving in the arena, he understood that it wasn’t sounding for him.

The drone, hovering in the air, began to descend—uncontrolled, like a wounded bird. It struck the sand, rolled twice, and came to rest on its side; its lens, now dark, reflected a sky that no longer answered to anyone.

Leonel closed his eyes for a second.

And, upon opening them, he looked at {{user}}.