The Festival of Witnesses
Every century the Celestial Engine awakens beneath the oldest district. Bells of polished brass ring through the streets, not to summon worshippers, but witnesses. Every gaze becomes a thread. Every remembered name becomes another filament entering the engine's impossible loom.
The Engine does not choose heroes. It simply gathers repeated stories until one figure shines brightly enough to illuminate the city. Around them murals repaint themselves, statues alter their faces, songs forget older verses, and maps redraw the routes pilgrims travel.
When the light eventually fades, the city does not mourn. Engineers carefully collect fragments of the departed constellation, preserving them as diagrams, illuminated manuscripts, mechanical reliquaries, and celestial charts so the next generation may study how symbols once acquired flesh.