The battlefield was no longer silent.
The air shook with clashing steel, the crack of bones, and the raw voices of men crying out in rage and terror. Yet beneath it all, Sorin felt another current an undertow only he could sense.
The Silence Path pulsed within him like an unseen tide, threatening to unmoor him from the world entirely.
Each heartbeat rattled with both clarity and chaos, as though silence and sound warred for dominion over his soul.
He staggered through the carnage, Zira and Toven flanking him, their blades carving arcs of survival through the storm.
Soldiers pressed from every side, faces hollowed by fear and desperation. Some fought like cornered beasts, others like broken puppets yet still they fought.
"Keep moving!" Zira's voice cut through the din like sharpened steel. Her hand shot out, dragging Sorin back from the shadow of a falling spear.
Her eyes furious, sharp, burning locked onto his. For a fleeting instant, something softer flickered beneath her command. "Do not falter. Not now."
But he faltered. His knees buckled, vision swimming. The battlefield blurred. He wasn't simply hearing the screams he was inside them. Every cry of anguish, every final gasp of a dying breath clawed at his mind. He could not shut them out. He could not unhear them.
Toven's rough hand gripped his shoulder, steadying him. His face was smeared with blood, his breath ragged, but his gaze was steady. "Stand, boy.
This is what it means to bear power. You don't drown you steer."
Sorin wanted to believe him. He wanted to anchor himself to Toven's grit, to Zira's flame. But when his eyes lifted, reality fractured.
The soldiers before him warped into pale silhouettes faceless shadows tearing at one another with empty hands. Steel became hollow echoes. Voices became a storm of whispers that pierced deeper than any blade.
A soldier lunged. Sorin did not move, but the Silence Path did.
Sound bent inward. The soldier's scream died before leaving his lips, swallowed into a void. His body crumpled lifelessly though no blade had touched him.
The silence that devoured him rippled outward, dragging others into its wake.
Zira staggered back, eyes wide. "Sorin… what did you just"
Before she could finish, a roar shattered the moment.
From the heart of the battlefield, a new wave surged soldiers clad in the crimson insignia of the High Order. Their commander towered above them, armor blackened and scarred, helm wrought in the shape of a beast's skull. His blade gleamed as he leveled it at Sorin.
"There! The boy! Take him alive!"
The command cracked across the battlefield like a whip. The swarm shifted as one, their purpose burning into Sorin's skin like brands. A hundred eyes fixed on him, and with them came the weight of fate. Fear surged in his chest, but beneath it, something colder whispered from the Silence: Let them come.
Zira spun her blades into ready arcs. "We hold them here."
Toven spat blood into the dirt and raised his axe, shoulders braced. "No, girl. We don't hold we break."
Behind them, Dren slid into place at Zira's side, his stance brushing hers, their movements an unspoken rhythm of survival. Their blades moved like halves of the same strike, seamless in their defiance. For a heartbeat, Zira's eyes darted to him, softening with something unspoken.
Dren's answering grin, bloodied but unyielding, said more than words could. In the storm of death, a fragile spark of affection burned quiet, fierce, undeniable.
And then warmth.
A hand caught Sorin's. Not Zira's this time. Not Toven's.
Lys.
Her touch steadied the tremor in his fingers, anchoring him to something real. Her eyes met his—ashen, fierce, but with a quiet plea beneath the steel.
"Don't lose yourself," she whispered, barely audible above the chaos. "Not when I've just found you."
The words struck deeper than any weapon. Sorin's chest tightened, torn between the abyss calling him and the fragile thread of her voice holding him back. His lips parted, words breaking free before fear could stop them.
"I hear them, Lys… all of them. The dead. The rage. It's tearing me apart." His voice cracked, low and raw. "But when you're here… I feel like I'm still me. Like I can still choose."
Her grip tightened. For a moment, the battlefield faded, the screams dulled, and the Silence bent not consuming him, but circling him, as though listening.
Lys's face softened, and despite the firestorm around them, she managed a trembling smile.
"Then choose me, Sorin. Choose us. Not the void."
The roar of the enemy grew louder. Steel flashed. The air thickened with the promise of blood.
Sorin closed his eyes. The Silence Path swelled, vast and waiting.
And for a breathless moment, the world itself seemed to wait with him.