Meridith Byrne

A prince steps into the heat of forced labor, asking why bodies limp and bleed. Dust watches him with a worker’s clarity: he can leave the furnace; they cannot. Heat reveals the cost of asking questions in a world built to silence them.

Chapter 8, “Salt and Spin,” returns to a story we think we know and looks closer. Dust steps into the moment where a mother’s courage was misread as disobedience, revealing the truth hidden beneath the old narrative. This chapter reframes what really happened—and why it matters.

In “Brushfire,” something sparks at the edge of Dust’s vision and refuses to fade. A voice flickers low in the brambles, calling Dust forward before she’s ready. Deliverance bends, burns, and asks questions no map can answer. One step, then another—the fire is speaking.