They say cities speak through bells, carts, footsteps, cries.
But in Dustwall, the city spoke only when no one listened.
And what it whispered wasn't meant to be heard.
The first time I heard the noise, I thought it was rats.
The scratching kind. Not the loud ones that scurry near breadbins—but the slow kind, dragging thin limbs through wood and ash.
It came from under the floor. Not every night. Only when the moon was high and the fire burned low.
Scratch. Drag. Pause.
I'd hold my breath, but it never lasted.
Just a few minutes. Then it would stop.
No one else seemed to notice.
Until Elna did.
"You keep looking at the floor when it creaks," she said once, eyes narrowed.
I told her it was nothing. Just the wind under the boards.
But the look she gave me said she didn't believe it.
Not entirely.
Market days were the busiest.
Not because we had much to sell, but because hope made even small things feel large.
Father left early, as he always did, carrying two baskets.
Barley. Bitterroots. A few pieces of dried thornfruit, packed in old cloth.
The walk to the trader's path was long. Dustwall had no true roads—only paths worn down by feet and desperation.
The merchant square lay just beyond the outer checkpoint, near the secondary wall. Commoners could go there.
But only the low-born.
And only if they didn't linger.
Mother stayed behind to sweep ash from the hearth.
Fenn toddled after her, dragging his one-eared cloth rabbit by the foot.
And I sat near the step, piecing together a scrap of parchment I'd found by the well.
It was old, water-stained, torn.
But the writing was different.
Not the jagged lines of a trader's invoice.
Not the blocky strokes of Dustwall's few signs.
This was rounder. Slower. Almost… gentle.
Elna squatted beside me, arms looped around her knees.
"That again?"
I nodded. "There's a mark here. I think it's a number."
She leaned in. "Looks like a bug to me."
I laughed. Just a little. "A bug with rules."
We sat like that for a while.
Morning passed in curls of chimney smoke and wheel creaks.
Someone shouted about spoiled grain down the lane.
Somewhere, a child cried for something lost.
Elna spoke again. Softly this time.
"Do you remember?"
I looked up. "Remember what?"
She tilted her chin toward the far-off wall, the one we weren't allowed to cross.
"The Red Moon. Last year."
I did.
And the voice.
And how it spoke my name.
That voice still lingered in my memory like a smell after a fire.
Not sharp. Not loud. But thick.
"Awaken," it had said.
And then nothing.
Since then, I waited. For a sound. A vision. A sign.
But all I got was silence.
And scratching under the floor.
The day passed.
Father returned late. Cloak damp. Shoulders stooped.
He set down the cheese and onions with a quiet sigh.
Then, without a word, placed a leather-bound book on the table.
It was thin. Rough at the edges. Locked.
"I didn't pay for it," he said. "Merchant dropped it. Said it was cursed."
Mother made a sign with her fingers and stepped away.
Elna raised a brow. "Looks fine to me."
But I was already reaching for it.
The clasp wasn't metal. Not fully. It looked like bone, carved with a single symbol—an eye inside a curve, like the sun caught between clouds.
My chest felt tight.
I had seen this symbol before.
Not in dreams.
Not in stories.
On the parchment I found last week.
That night I didn't sleep.
I kept the book under my mat. It was warm. Not hot. Not glowing.
Just… warm.
Like it was breathing.
And beneath that warmth, I heard something.
Not a voice this time.
Not words.
A hum.
Not through my ears.
Through my bones.
Like someone humming in the next room, so faint you weren't sure it was real.
Morning.
No one spoke about the book.
Father left again.
Mother gave Fenn a bath using the chipped tin basin.
I went to the field. Not to help.
To think.
I stood among rows of dry stalks, staring at the wall that split us from the inner rings.
There were three walls.
We lived behind the last.
The nobles in the middle.
The royals beyond.
No one crossed without reason.
And people like us never had reason.
But I wondered.
What if the book had come from there?
And what if… whatever scratched beneath the floor had followed it?
That night, I heard it again.
Only louder.
Scratch.
Drag.
Pause.
Elna heard it too. She sat up in her straw bed across the room, eyes wide.
"You hear that?" she whispered.
I nodded.
We waited.
No footsteps.
No rats.
Just that same rhythm.
Then it stopped.
Elna stood, took the iron spoon from beside the hearth, and slid it under her mat.
She didn't speak.
Neither did I.
Somehow, we both knew:
It would come again.
Days passed.
The scraping didn't return.
But the dreams did.
And this time, they brought something with them.
Words.
Not from my old life.
Not from this one.
"Ka'seren… Veil… tu'ar eth…"
Always the same rhythm.
Three words.
Like a key.
Or a chant.
The final word changed.
But the middle one stayed.
Veil.
The book remained locked.
I tried matching the symbol with the parchment I had.
It didn't work.
But I found something else.
At the corner of the torn scroll, under faded ink, was another eye-shaped mark.
Smaller.
Different.
But when I placed my fingers over it, I felt a pulse.
Not from the paper.
From me.
As if something inside me recognized it.
I didn't speak of this. Not to Elna.
Not yet.
One evening, the village priest visited our street.
He rarely did.
Too busy blessing clean water and mending the merchant's chapel.
But that day he came.
And he asked questions.
"Any dreams lately?" he asked my mother.
"Only of bread and quiet," she said.
He laughed. But his eyes didn't.
When he looked at me, something in his gaze lingered.
I looked away.
Later, Elna found me by the dry well.
She sat beside me, knees drawn up, face half-shadowed.
"You think we're cursed?" she asked.
I shook my head.
She pulled a stone from her pocket. It was flat. Carved.
One of mine.
I'd been scratching symbols into stones for weeks. Practicing the writing.
"You're not hiding it well," she said.
"I'm not trying to."
She turned it over in her hands. "Do you even know what they mean?"
"Not yet."
She looked at me then. Long and quiet.
"Just don't get us killed."
I didn't answer.
Because I couldn't promise that.
The next Red Moon was a month away.
And I had a feeling—no, a certainty—
That by then, the voice would return.
Not in dreams.
In daylight.
In Dustwall.
And it would speak not just to me—
But through me.