The wind carried the Bell's residue long after its toll faded, stirring the dust across the empty town square. Nima's breath came in sharp gasps, her fingers trembling as they brushed the handle of her blade. The figure who had spoken vanished into the house again, as if their presence was nothing more than another echo in this place of stillness and weight.
Dmitri was silent beside her, his jaw clenched, eyes scanning the buildings. "We're being watched," he said finally. "I can feel it."
Nima nodded. She could feel it too—an ambient gaze, ancient and patient, as though the very air had grown sentient. She turned back to the statue. The woman holding the broken bell had her eyes cast downward, lips parted in song that could not be heard, yet the longer Nima stared, the more it felt as if sound was escaping the cracks.
"Where are we really?" she asked aloud, her voice strained.
"This place isn't just a town," Dmitri muttered. "It's something else. A fragment."
"A fragment of what?"
"Of something the world forgot."
A memory stirred in Nima's mind—Velreth's words in the chapel, the mention of the Loom, the threads, and the idea of a song that shapes fate itself. This town wasn't merely abandoned. It was preserved. Hung on the thread of time like a puppet waiting to be noticed again.
You will not leave until the Song has been completed.
The words from the hooded stranger rang like a prophecy. Not just a warning, but a promise. They weren't guests here. They were ingredients.
A sound interrupted her thoughts—barely audible, like fabric brushing against stone. Dmitri whirled, pulling out his knife. Nima followed his gaze and caught movement across the plaza. Another figure, this one taller, draped in a long red coat with a bronze mask etched with an expressionless face. It walked with calm precision, footsteps echoing hollowly through the square.
"Another one?" Nima whispered.
"No," Dmitri said, holding his weapon steady. "Not like the last."
The figure stopped ten paces away and raised a gloved hand, palm open in a gesture of peace. Its voice came not from the mask's mouth, but as a whisper threading through the air: "I am called the Echo-Sentinel. I walk in silence to keep the music from breaking."
Nima frowned. "You're one of them. One of the keepers."
"No," the Sentinel replied. "I am not a keeper. I am a guardian of lost verses, a wanderer between time-beats. The song you hear is not finished—it has been stitched over too many times. But you… you carry the true note."
Dmitri narrowed his eyes. "Why are you following us?"
The mask turned toward him. "Because your thread intersects the Weft of Awakening."
Nima blinked. "What does that mean?"
The Sentinel slowly approached, lowering his hand. "It means this place—Hollowroot—is not a place. It is a memory caught in the process of forgetting itself. And you two are anchors. New weight on an old stitch."
Dmitri looked skeptical. "And what are you doing here?"
"I am here to offer guidance. And a warning." The Sentinel stopped within arm's reach. "The Bell is not an object. It is a being. Or rather… it was."
Nima's heart skipped. "What do you mean?"
"The Bell was once a voice. A soul that sang the first chord of the world. But the world feared what it sang, and so it was silenced—broken, scattered across threads of fate. What you hear now is only the echo of its longing to be whole again."
"That makes no sense," Dmitri said, but his voice held a note of uncertainty.
"It will," the Sentinel replied. "Soon."
The Bell tolled again.
But this time, it was inside Nima's mind.
She staggered, grabbing her head as a sharp pain cut through her thoughts. Images flooded her—visions of seas turned to sand, cities of mirrors rising and falling, voices made of ink and fire whispering names she had never heard before. She saw herself, older, bloodied, walking through a glass labyrinth.
Then it all vanished.
She opened her eyes and gasped. Dmitri was holding her steady, his voice faint in her ringing ears.
"Nima! Say something."
"I saw…" she swallowed hard. "I saw something. Places. Versions of me. A thousand paths."
The Sentinel nodded slowly. "You touched the Inner Ring of the Song. Not many survive that."
"Why am I seeing this?" she asked, still dizzy.
"Because the Song wants you to know what it was before it became what it is. It wants to be remembered."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then the Song will find another voice. But not without consequence."
Behind them, the statue cracked. A line split down its center, and with a slow groan, the stone face of the robed woman fell to the ground, shattering. Inside was not hollow space, but a spiral staircase descending into darkness.
Nima stared.
"It's inviting us in," she whispered.
"It always was," the Sentinel answered.
Dmitri glanced from the shattered statue to Nima. "You don't have to go."
"Yes, I do," she replied. "If we're going to understand what this Bell is… if we want to stop whatever's coming… we have to go deeper."
They descended into the unknown, each step creaking beneath their weight. The spiral was long, longer than it should have been, descending below the foundations of the town, deeper than any mine or crypt. The walls were lined with silver inscriptions that pulsed faintly with light, like veins of living metal. Nima couldn't read them, but her mind ached trying to.
Finally, the stairs ended in a massive chamber.
It was spherical, like the inside of a great dome. The floor was a mosaic of fractured glass, suspended above a churning void of white mist. In the center stood an altar of root and bone, and above it—suspended in the air—was a heart-shaped object made of broken brass, humming with soft, discordant music.
The Heart of the Bell.
She knew it instantly.
The Sentinel stepped aside. "This is the Echo Core. A shard of the original soul of the Bell. One of many. Each one calls to its other selves. But if this one wakes fully, the others will find it."
"And then?" Dmitri asked.
"Then the Silence will end. And the world will not know how to sing with it."
Nima approached the Core. Its music resonated with her heartbeat. She reached out—but before her fingers touched it, her mind split again.
Not into visions.
Into voices.
—She must not take it.
—She must. It's the only way.
—We are not ready.
—She is the Thread-Bearer.
—We will burn.
—We will begin.
The voices rose into a cacophony. Then, silence.
And the Core pulsed once—sending out a wave of invisible force.
Nima fell to her knees, gasping.
When she looked up, her hand was glowing. A sigil had burned itself into her palm—a spiral wrapped in a bell-like curve.
The Sentinel knelt beside her. "You have accepted the Burden of the Toll."
"What does it do?"
"It marks you. As part of the Bell. And its song. You are now one of the Singers."
Dmitri stepped forward, helping her up. "And what does that mean?"
The Sentinel stood. "It means the world will start to hear her."
They stood in silence, the only sound the soft humming of the Core. The chamber felt smaller now, heavier with what had just occurred.
"I didn't ask for this," Nima whispered.
"No Singer ever does," the Sentinel said. "But the Song is awake now. It cannot be unsung."