Sorin awoke to sound.
Not imagined vibrations. Not the rhythm of blood pulsing in his chest.
Real sound.
The whisper of leaves brushing in the wind. The distant hum of students' laughter. The scrape of stone. The soft rustle of his own breath.
He lay still beneath the sycamore, eyes wide, heart thundering. The garden around him—once a mute painting—now breathed with terrifying beauty. Every rustle, every tremble of life was no longer distant. It was real, and it was loud.
A sparrow darted through the sky above. Wings flapped in short bursts.
Flap. Flap.
Tears welled in Sorin's eyes.
He sat up slowly, as if any sudden movement might shatter this fragile miracle. His fingers dug into the earth. The dirt was cold, gritty—and he could hear it as he moved.
Then, without meaning to, he spoke.
"...Hello?"
The voice was cracked. Broken. Ancient—not from time, but from neglect. It startled even him.
He stumbled backward, hands pressed against his mouth. "I can speak..." he whispered again.
This time, the words rang out fully—hoarse, strange, but his. His laughter followed. It came like an accident, a sound he didn't recognize as his own until it spilled from his throat.
Above, the clouds parted.
And dawn broke.
By midday, the entire academy buzzed with rumors.
"The mute one spoke."
"He silenced fire itself."
"He's a vessel. A cursed soul. No—a chosen one."
Some whispered that the Path of Silence—a myth even among myths—had found its voice again through him. Others claimed Sorin had cracked the seal of the Trials through forbidden glyphwork. That he didn't awaken... he was unlocked.
The instructors remained silent.
But the Archmasters gathered.
And from within shadowed corridors long left untouched, cloaked figures began to move once more.
Sorin walked the halls of Academia Mutae in a quiet haze.
The world had become a storm of sound.
He could hear everything now—shoes tapping against marble, robes swishing through wind currents, the slight murmur of conversations too far for anyone else to catch. His ears, once voids, now overflowed with the chaos of life.
Every voice carried emotion—fear, mockery, wonder.
And behind the whispers, he noticed something deeper: the weight of truth.
He passed by Toven in the dining wing.
Toven froze.
Sorin stopped.
The hallway turned silent.
"I heard your lie," Sorin said.
His voice, though rough, held command. Not the fire of vengeance, but the sharpness of memory.
Toven paled. "You... you can talk now?"
"I can do more than talk," Sorin said, eyes cold. "I can listen."
Then he walked on.
Not with pride. But with stillness—a power that now followed him like a cloak.
Zira found him later that evening in the eastern garden. The same one where he used to carve his unknown symbols. The same place his name was once burned.
She kept her distance.
"You weren't supposed to awaken," she said.
Sorin sat with his back against the sycamore. "I didn't awaken," he replied. "I was heard."
Zira blinked. "By what?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But it heard me long before I ever spoke."
Zira stepped closer. Her expression was different—no longer mocking. "I'm sorry. For the list. The canvas. For... all of it."
Sorin didn't move. "I remember," he said softly. "Every silence. Every kindness you withheld. I remember how the ash felt in my hand."
Zira lowered her eyes. "You should hate us."
"I don't," Sorin said. "I endured. That was enough."
She sat beside him. "So... what now?"
"Now?" Sorin turned toward the horizon. "Now I find out why. Why I was born different. Why I see what others can't. Why silence listened when no one else did."
That night, deep beneath the academy's heart, the Council of Archmasters convened.
Velar stood in the circle of runes. "The Path of Silence has returned."
"Impossible," said Durel. "It died during the Severance Wars."
"No," murmured Velar. "It was buried. Silence isn't death. It is preparation."
Another robed figure approached, face hidden. "He traced the glyph of Unmaking. Without training. Without invocation. That's not talent. That's a threat."
"If left unchecked," another said, "he could unravel the Twelve Paths themselves."
They all turned toward the floating scroll—once blank—now etched with Sorin's name in glowing silver. The name distorted, shimmered, refused to remain still. As if the world itself couldn't decide what to make of him.
"He must be watched," Velar said. "But not controlled."
"Agreed," said Durel. "Let him walk the path. The world has begun to speak through him."
"And it will not whisper for long," the figure in the back warned.
Sorin stood at the cliff's edge.
The wind sang—not howled—against his skin.
He closed his eyes and listened. Not just with his ears, but with his soul. He listened to the earth, the sky, the invisible threads between breath and stone.
And then... a voice.
Not imagined. Not human.
"You are the echo... we have waited for."
Sorin's eyes flew open. "Who are you?"
No answer came. But something etched itself into the stone beneath him.
A spiral.
The same one he had drawn in his dreams. The same one that had appeared behind his eyes during the Trial. The same one he couldn't name... until now.
A name formed in his mind.
Vahris.
The First Echo. The silence before all sound.
He whispered it aloud. And the wind stilled.
The next morning, Sorin returned to the Ember Circle—the arena where his silence had first become sound. The instructors were there. So were the initiates.
He did not wait for permission.
He stepped into the center of the marble ring.
"Yesterday," he said, "you heard my voice. But now you will hear my truth."
He knelt and drew a glyph—one that had never been taught. One no book contained.
A spiral of unmaking. A symbol of balance inverted.
The ground rippled.
Not cracked. Not shattered. But listened.
Students gasped.
Toven stared, pale and trembling. Zira placed a hand to her lips.
Velar watched from above. His gaze unreadable.
Then Sorin stood.
"I do not belong to the Twelve Paths," he said. "Because I was never chosen."
He turned, arms wide.
"I was ignored."
A pulse of wind swept the arena.
"And now, I choose myself."
That night, as Sorin lay beneath the sycamore, he felt it again—that presence.
It spoke without words.
It showed him glimpses. A sea of stars arranged in spirals. Ancient wars fought in silence. A race of beings who sang reality into form—and one who listened it apart.
He saw himself.
Not as a boy.
But as a mirror.
A vessel through which silence could finally speak.
Somewhere, in a hidden vault below Cognara, a sealed gate pulsed once—then cracked.
A robed figure watching from afar whispered, "The Sovereign begins to stir."
And far beyond the sky, something old and forgotten opened a single eye.
The world would never be silent again.