Silence had given him power.
But sound had given him weight.
In the days following his awakening, Sorin found himself walking through a world that no longer whispered but roared. Every corner of the academy echoed with meaning—from the snap of pages in the library to the metallic clang of swords in the sparring grounds.
He could hear them all.
Too well.
He covered his ears, but it did nothing. The world was inside him now. Alive. Loud.
Zira noticed his trembling hands one morning in the study wing. He gripped a cup of herbal draught, and it shivered slightly with each breath.
"Too much?" she asked softly.
He nodded. "Every word... it weighs something. Even silence has a voice now."
Zira sat beside him, placing a steadying hand on his. "You need to learn to filter. The mind is like a vessel. Too much water and it cracks."
Sorin smiled faintly. "That explains the ringing."
But he didn't tell her everything.
He hadn't told anyone about the whispers that came in dreams—or that the glyph on the stone beneath the cliffs still pulsed in his vision even when he closed his eyes. He hadn't told them about the name: Vahris.
Or how it sometimes said his name back.
In the hidden chambers beneath Academia Mutae, the Council met again.
"He speaks to the glyphs," Archmaster Velar began. "Even ones we long forgot."
"He listens to them," said Durel. "That is more dangerous. Listening is understanding. Understanding leads to change."
"The Spiral of Dissonance is not just awakening," warned another robed figure. "It is unraveling."
On the obsidian table before them, the map of the Twelve Paths shimmered. At the center, a silver spiral pulsed—twisting, warping the other paths around it.
"Balance is shifting," Velar said grimly. "And not all forces welcome it."
Elsewhere in the city, beyond the blessed boundaries of the academy, a figure moved through the lower sectors of Cognara. Cloaked in bone-thread and silence, she carried with her a blade etched with broken runes.
Her name was Maeryn.
She had once been a Keeper of the Seventh Path. Now, she was something else.
A Seeker of Silence Unbroken.
Maeryn paused beneath a crumbling archway where whispers lingered like smoke.
A memory surfaced—her younger self standing before a council, blade sheathed, vows fresh on her lips.
"Your silence will preserve the balance," they had said.
But the silence she'd found had consumed, not preserved.
She tightened her grip on the hilt.
"The boy lives," said the voice in her earpiece.
"Then the balance tips," Maeryn replied. "And I must become the weight."
Back at the academy, Sorin stood again at the edge of the Ember Circle, alone beneath a sky bruised with twilight.
He pressed his palm against the marble. The same spiral glyph unfurled beneath his hand.
He didn't speak.
Instead, he listened.
And through the wind and stone, a thousand echoes spoke:
You were never meant to be silent.
You are not the end.
You are the break.
Sorin staggered backward, breathing hard. The glyph shimmered like heat.
His fingers trembled.
A sudden pulse of pain struck behind his eyes. He fell to his knees.
And then he saw it:
A vision.
The world undone.
Paths burned. Skies inverted. The Twelve Thrones shattered.
And a spiral of light—neither divine nor destructive, but aware.
In its center stood a figure with his face. Not him. But more than him.
A question echoed in his mind:
Will you hold what you shatter? Or will you shatter with it?
Zira rushed to his side hours later after he failed to return for evening meals. She found him unconscious, his hand still glowing faintly with glyph-light.
She took him to Velar.
"He's unstable," Zira whispered. "Something is wrong."
Velar placed a warding stone at Sorin's chest. It dimmed. Then blinked. Then shattered.
"He's beyond wards now," Velar murmured. "And that means he's nearing the threshold."
"Threshold?"
"The point of no return."
In Sorin's dreams, Vahris spoke more clearly now.
"You are the sovereign not of silence, but of what comes after."
"I don't understand," Sorin said.
"You will. When the gate opens."
"Which gate?"
"The one you already broke."
He awoke with a jolt. The night sky blinked above. Stars arranged in spirals.
"Zira," he whispered.
She appeared beside him. "I'm here."
He looked at her, eyes bloodshot but clear. "I need to leave the academy."
Her breath caught. "Why?"
"Because whatever is calling me... it's not inside these walls."
She touched his arm, hesitant. "Just promise me something."
"What?"
"Don't become what they fear."
He smiled sadly. "I already am. But I won't stop there."
And so began the first unraveling.
Word spread fast. The silent boy who now spoke in glyphs and dreams had left the bounds of Academia Mutae. Some said he went to find the origin of silence. Others claimed he went to seal it again.
Velar stood at the highest tower, watching the distant shadow of Sorin disappear into the spiral canyons.
"The Sovereign walks," he said.
Durel approached. "And what walks behind him?"
Velar did not answer.
Far beneath Cognara, in a vault sealed by threads of forgotten oaths, a second gate cracked.
And Maeryn stood before it.
She drew her blade, and the spiral shimmered.
"Come then, Sovereign," she whispered. "Let silence choose between us."
Far across the continent, an ancient monastery stirred.
Monks of the Spiral Order—long thought extinct—lit their forbidden flames.
Their Oracle, blind since birth, opened her eyes for the first time in decades.
"He has awakened the Third Spiral," she said.
The monks bowed. "Shall we prepare?"
The Oracle did not answer immediately. She stepped outside, stared at the dark sky, and whispered, "Prepare to listen. The world is about to scream."
Far above them, stars realigned.
And in the deep, the Third Gate stirred.