The Hall of Judgment had never been so crowded.
The Square of Echoes overflowed with people, though no herald had summoned them. Farmers, merchants, beggars, children—they gathered as though pulled by an invisible tide. Rain dripped from cloaks and faces, yet no one left.
Inside, torches lined the walls, burning low. The three Triarchs sat upon their dais, faces masked in silver. At the center chair—the Seat of Silence—sat Kirin Vane. His robes were plain, his eyes hard as stone.
A herald's voice rang across the hall:
"Frido, son of no house, is brought to stand in final judgment."
Chains rattled as he was led in, though his hands were not bound. The Tribunal had learned that shackles did not humble him—they only humbled themselves.
Frido's cloak was soaked from the storm. His bare feet whispered against the polished floor. He looked neither left nor right, yet every eye followed him.
---
The Charges Reframed
The Justice of the Word rose first. Her voice cut like glass.
"You stand accused not merely of rebellion, but of corruption. You have turned silence into a banner. You have made men disobey kings without command, desert armies without fear, abandon duties without oath. You have made absence louder than presence. Such power cannot be permitted."
The Justice of the Crown followed. His tone was heavy, deliberate.
"You have not spoken, yet you have spoken louder than any king. You have not ruled, yet you have bent nations. If left unchecked, your silence will replace law itself. The Accord cannot endure it."
Finally, Kirin Vane leaned forward. His gaze did not leave Frido.
"And I say this: you are what I was meant to be. You are silence incarnate, but you do not wield it—you let it wield you. And that is why you must be broken. Not killed. Broken."
The words rippled through the hall like poison.
---
The Chamber of Mirrors
The Tribunal did not sentence him immediately. Instead, they led him deeper beneath the Hall, into a chamber known only in whispers: the Chamber of Mirrors.
Here, silence was not respected—it was distorted.
The walls were lined with polished obsidian, black mirrors that reflected not light but shadow. Every movement echoed strangely, a whisper stretched into eternity.
Frido was placed at the center.
The Justice of the Word's voice followed him inside, though she did not enter.
"You believe silence is strength. Here, we will show you its true face."
A scribe struck a small gong. The sound was faint—yet it multiplied, echoing endlessly in the mirrors until it became a roar. Then it faded into silence again.
But not empty silence.
A false silence.
One that pressed against the skin, suffocating.
---
The Breaking Attempt
Frido sat cross-legged. He did not flinch.
The Tribunal's method was cruel, though not violent. They filled the chamber with endless imitations of silence:
– The silence of graves, heavy and cold.
– The silence of dungeons, hopeless and hollow.
– The silence of betrayal, sharp as knives in the dark.
Each crafted by ritual, by design.
Voices whispered behind the mirrors—his own memories twisted. His mother's voice calling and fading. The laughter of children replaced by screams. The ringing of his bell drowned in ash.
It was meant to unravel him, to force him to cry out, to beg for sound.
But Frido did not break.
He pressed his hand against the floor and closed his eyes.
The false silences pressed against him, but he listened past them. Beneath them. To the faint rhythm of tapping from below, the prisoners still reaching for him.
He breathed.
And in his chest, silence lived—not as emptiness, but as presence.
---
Kirin's Interruption
At last, the obsidian doors opened.
Kirin Vane entered. Alone.
The Tribunal allowed it, for he was their chosen Voice of Silence.
He circled Frido slowly, like a wolf circling prey.
"I see it now," Kirin murmured. "They cannot break you because you do not fight them. You let their silence wash over you, and you remain. That is not defiance. That is faith."
Frido raised his gaze. Calm. Steady.
Kirin crouched, his eyes level with Frido's.
"You think I do not understand? I carried silence once. It drowned me. I turned it into a blade because it was the only way to breathe. But you…"
He leaned closer, voice low.
"…you make silence breathe for others. That is why they fear you. And why I…" His voice faltered. "…why I envy you."
For the first time, Kirin's mask cracked.
But only for a heartbeat.
He stood sharply, slamming his staff against the stone. The echoes broke the rhythm in the floor. The prisoners fell quiet.
"You cannot keep this," he spat. "Your silence will turn against you. They will make it your tomb."
Frido's eyes softened. He lifted the cracked mask he carried—the one he had once placed before Kirin—and laid it gently on the floor again.
His message was clear:
What you dropped, I still carry.
---
Mirea's Defiance
While the chamber echoed with shadow, Mirea stood outside with Yllara and Loras.
She could not hear what was happening, but she knew. Her heart pounded as if tethered to Frido's.
"They mean to erase him," she whispered. "To make his silence a weapon against himself."
Yllara's hand tightened on her shoulder. "Then give his silence words. If they steal his voice, lend him yours."
Mirea hesitated. She had never spoken her truth aloud—not fully. But she remembered her dream of bells, of Frido turning as if he had heard her across the stars.
She stepped forward into the crowd.
Her voice rang out, trembling at first, then strong:
"They try to bury him in silence. But do you not hear? That silence is ours. It belongs to every one of us who has been silenced by kings, by taxes, by swords! He carries it for us because we could not carry it alone!"
The square erupted. Farmers shouted. Merchants raised fists. Children cried out, "We hear him!"
The phrase spread like fire across the stones.
The Tribunal, hearing the noise from below, sent guards to scatter the crowd. But the words had already taken root.
---
The Tribunal Splits
In the high chamber, the Triarchs argued bitterly.
The Justice of the Crown slammed his staff. "The people will riot. If we kill him, they revolt. If we keep him, they gather. He is a plague!"
The Justice of the Word hissed, "Then let us brand him heretic. Strip his name, erase his record. Let history forget."
But Kirin spoke over them, his voice dangerous.
"No. If you erase him, you erase me. And I will not allow that."
The judges froze.
They had thought Kirin their ally. Now they realized he was no one's.
---
The Silence Unbroken
In the Chamber of Mirrors, Frido stood at last.
The false silences pressed against him, but he did not bend.
He pressed both palms against the obsidian wall. Slowly, deliberately, he breathed.
The mirrors should have reflected emptiness. But instead, the flame within him burned brighter, casting light where none had been.
The obsidian cracked. A single fracture split the wall from floor to ceiling.
The Tribunal gasped.
The silence they had forged was breaking.
And it was breaking for him.
---
Closing Scene
When Frido emerged from the chamber, the crowd outside was still roaring. Guards struggled to contain them, but their voices were drowned by a rhythm of tapping—prisoners beneath striking stone in unison.
Frido walked slowly into the square. He raised no hand. He spoke no word.
But the people fell silent as he looked at them.
Not a fearful silence.
Not an imposed silence.
A chosen silence.
The kind that bound hearts together.
Kirin watched from the steps of the Hall, his expression unreadable. His voice carried only to himself.
"You will either save us… or destroy us."
And as snow began to fall once more over Dorthvale, the Tribunal realized their trial had failed.
They had tried to break him with silence.
Instead, he had made silence break them.
---
End of Chapter 60