The silence, when it came, was not a sound but the cessation of one. The static stopped.
It did not fade. It did not crackle away. One moment, the low, greasy hum was the bass note of reality, vibrating in the teeth and clouding the edges of every thought. The next, it was gone.
The sudden void was louder than the noise had been.
In the mason's yard, Corvin's hammer hung in mid-swing. The chant—"The stone fits the stone. It is enough."—died on his lips. The absence of the drone left a ringing in his ears, a profound stillness that felt both terrifying and sacred.
On the walls, the guard opening her mouth to report the morning mist found she had nothing to push against. Her statement, "The air is wet," came out not as a defiant fact, but as a simple, awed observation.
