The first torch landed just past midnight.
It hit a tent on the southern edge of the camp — a place where monks had been singing wordless hymns. The flame took fast. Canvas curled. Heat roared.
Screams followed.
But not of terror.
Of warning.
Teren was the first to reach the blaze. He kicked down the burning post, tore open the tent flap, dragged the monks out by their robes. His hands scorched. His breath smoke-filled.
Frido arrived next, barefoot, still in his sleeping clothes.
He didn't look at the fire.
He looked at the line beyond the ridge.
And saw them.
Over a hundred black-cloaked figures.
Eyes glowing like embers.
Kirin Vane stood at their center.
Face uncovered.
Hair gray, scarred across his cheek from a battle that had no victors.
Frido stepped forward.
But Kirin didn't charge.
He walked.
Alone.
Carrying no weapon — only a staff crowned with a shattered symbol of the fallen Temple of Silence.
---
Behind Frido, Mirea ran to him.
She grabbed his hand. "You can't stand out there alone!"
Frido looked to her.
Then to the flames.
Then wrote in her palm:
> "If I run now, they will burn."
She couldn't speak.
So she let go.
Not because she wanted to—
—but because she trusted him.
---
Kirin stopped twenty paces from the bell.
His army spread wide behind him — some lighting torches, others dragging oil-soaked bundles toward the tents.
"You," Kirin said, pointing the staff like a spear. "The boy who turned soldiers into singers. Poets. Cowards."
Frido didn't move.
"You think silence is strength?" Kirin shouted. "Then let it save you now!"
He raised the staff—
—but Frido raised one hand.
Palm out.
A signal.
Not surrender.
Not defiance.
But invitation.
The crowd watched.
The torches paused.
Even Kirin hesitated.
"You dare…" he hissed. "Invite me?"
Frido stepped forward.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
No weapon. No shield.
He wrote on a cloth, lifted high in both hands:
> "I remember what you were.
I do not believe you are only what you became."
---
Kirin's mouth twitched.
A tremble — not fear, not anger, but something deeper.
Recognition.
"You know nothing of me," he spat.
Frido shook his head.
Then slowly bent down, pressed his palm to the snow, and began to draw — with water from the melted edge of the fire.
A symbol.
The old mark of the Temple of Silence — unbroken.
Kirin's eyes widened.
"How do you know that?" he whispered.
Frido pointed to the sky.
Then to himself.
Then held up a cracked mask — the same one Kirin had left behind years ago in the ruins.
Frido had found it.
He had carried it.
Kirin's silence.
Not as a trophy.
But as a memory.
---
The fire crackled louder now.
Some of Kirin's followers began to shift, uncomfortable.
One dropped his torch.
Another fell to his knees.
Frido raised the mask high.
Then placed it in the snow.
And stepped back.
A simple gesture.
But Kirin flinched as if struck.
He looked at the flames.
The people holding hands.
The candles lining the ridge.
And finally…
…at Frido.
"You think this makes you better?" Kirin growled.
Frido shook his head.
Then wrote:
> "It makes me the one who stayed."
---
Kirin turned to his men.
"Burn it."
No one moved.
"I said—"
But one voice interrupted.
Not Frido's.
Teren's.
Loud. Clear.
"You've already burned the world once, old man. If you want to try again, go through me."
Loras stepped beside him.
So did Mirea.
Then dozens more.
People from all walks — healers, children, travelers, queens — all formed a line between Frido and the fire.
Not one of them held a weapon.
They only stood.
Unmoving.
Unbreakable.
---
Kirin raised his staff.
Roared.
And dropped it.
The broken symbol cracked further against the earth.
He turned.
And walked away.
Some of his followers followed.
Some dropped their cloaks in the snow.
One whispered, "I forgot why we started."
Frido knelt in the snow.
And drew a new mark.
A circle.
Unbroken.
Around a flame.
---
Later that night, as the fires were put out and the crowd began to breathe again, Frido sat beside the bell once more.
He didn't sleep.
He held the cracked mask in his lap.
Not to mourn what had been.
But to remember what almost returned.
Mirea came to him.
Sat close.
"You could've died."
He looked at her.
And this time…
He reached out.
Touched her face.
Not in farewell.
Not in fear.
But in quiet presence.
She leaned into his hand.
And whispered, "I love the way you fight. Without striking. Without scarring."
Frido smiled.
And pointed to the bell.
Then to her.
> You're the reason it rang.
---
End of Chapter 53