The Hall of Silence did not belong to the world of men.
It belonged to memory. To absence. To despair.
Beneath the Crimson Dominion, where even the deepest dungeons ended, the ground gave way to a cavern chiseled from forgotten scripture. The walls were not stone but black glass etched with runes. The floor was a perfect circle of iron, lined with veins of blood that never dried. From the ceiling hung chains that pulsed faintly, like veins in a corpse that refused to rest. There was no light, yet the chamber glowed faintly from the circle itself, as though the memory of fire lived in its bones.
Into this place, they had cast her.
Selene—Illyria once, but she did not know—lay against the cold, her wrists shackled in black-silver, her ankles fastened, her small body bent beneath the weight of the enchantments that gnawed at her soul. She was not awake when she was brought here. But she woke when the circle began to breathe.
And when it breathed, it drank.
---
At first, she thought it was only sleep. A heaviness in her head, the way dreams sometimes cling too tightly. But then came the loss. A flicker, so small she almost did not notice. The memory of warm bread—her hands clutching the crust while smoke curled from the fire—snuffed out like a candle.
She frowned. Why did her stomach ache when she could not remember what food tasted like?
Then another flicker. The sound of laughter, clumsy and hoarse, when she had swung a sword too heavy for her arms. She had fallen, pouted, and someone—someone—had reached to lift her up. But the hand dissolved into smoke.
The circle pulsed.
She gasped, clutching her head. Something was wrong. Something was leaving. She forced herself to cling to it, but the harder she tried, the quicker it slipped. The runes ate it whole. And she was left clutching emptiness.
"Dad…" she whispered. The word stung her throat. She didn't even know why she spoke it.
---
The air turned heavy. The chains tightened.
Her chest ached. Her heart pounded as if it knew what her mind did not: she was unraveling. She stumbled forward, dragging her shackles, and fell on her knees.
"Dad!" she screamed.
The sound echoed only inside her head. The Hall returned nothing. No echo, no mercy. Her throat burned raw, but she screamed again, louder. "Dad! Don't leave me! Please!"
She slammed her fists against the stone, wrists splitting open, blood mixing with the old stains of countless souls before her. Her voice tore until it cracked. Until no sound came out but broken gasps. She clawed at the chains until her fingers bled. She slammed her head against the cold iron, as though she could break herself free through pain alone.
But the circle pulsed again.
And another star went out inside her mind.
---
She saw her memories as a sky of stars.
Each one lit with warmth, with joy, with fragments of a self she could not name.
One by one, the stars blinked out.
The warmth of arms holding her when she cried. Gone.
The voice that once muttered about possession and daughter in the same breath. Gone.
The first time she wrote the word dad with shaky hands. Gone.
Each time she reached for a star, the runes devoured it. Each time she clutched at a light, her hands came back empty.
"No!" she screamed, though she no longer knew what she was refusing. "No, no, no—"
Her words dissolved into sobs. Sobs dissolved into silence.
She collapsed on her side, staring at the black walls. They were smooth as mirrors, but they did not reflect her. Instead, they showed fragments of what was being taken: a girl laughing, a girl crying, a girl whispering don't go. Each image appeared for a heartbeat, then shattered into shards that sank into the walls.
She was being hollowed.
---
Time lost meaning. She did not know if it was hours, days, or centuries. Her body lived, her senses intact, but her self was being skinned alive.
Sometimes she laughed. A broken, breathless sound that scraped her throat raw. She laughed at the absurdity—how she could still cry when she no longer remembered why. How she could feel grief when she no longer had a name for what she grieved.
Other times, she curled like a child, whispering syllables. Half-words. Pieces of names. "Da… Da… Da…" until even the shape of the word felt foreign.
She scratched at her own skin, trying to carve the word before it disappeared. She traced it into her arm with bloodied nails. DAD. But when the circle pulsed again, even the meaning slipped. She looked at the letters and felt only emptiness.
Her tears dried. Her laughter vanished. What remained was silence.
---
Inside her head, she wandered corridors. Endless halls of black doors, each holding a memory. She ran barefoot, chains dragging behind her. She flung open doors—saw flashes of warmth, faces blurred, voices she longed to hear—but every time she opened one, the runes swept in and erased it. The door shut. The key dissolved.
She screamed until her throat shredded.
She pounded on doors until her hands broke.
She begged, sobbed, clawed, but the labyrinth only lengthened.
She fell to her knees, surrounded by endless doors that would never open again.
And she laughed, softly, like someone losing her mind.
---
Yet… not all light died.
In the blackness, in the labyrinth, there was one star. A faint flicker, trembling, but stubborn. Not a face. Not a voice. Not even a name. Only warmth. A thread that glowed like a coal refusing to die.
She crawled to it. Her hands trembled. She held it to her chest, whispering, "Don't go. Please… don't go…"
The star pulsed weakly.
The runes surged, trying to devour it. But this one would not break. It flickered, dimmed, wavered—yet it clung to her, and she to it.
Her body slumped. Her eyes closed. Her tears had dried long ago. Her voice was gone. But in her hollow chest, one ache burned.
She did not remember who she had lost.
But she remembered the pain of losing them.
And that pain became her last resistance.
---
She lay there in the Hall of Silence, chains coiled like serpents, eyes half-open but seeing nothing. Her body was a vessel. Her memories stripped. Her joy erased.
But in her hollow heart, one wound remained.
It would not heal.
It would never heal.
And so she screamed again, silently, with her soul—
a scream that touched no one, reached nowhere,
but was hers.
---
The torches of the Hall of Silence guttered as heavy steps echoed down the spiral stair. Veythar descended with his council—dukes in crimson cloaks, barons in black iron. The air smelled of iron and dust, old blood baked into the stones.
Illyria hung from her chains, head bowed, hair veiling her hollow eyes. She no longer wept. She no longer moved. The silence around her was so deep it was almost a presence.
"Her mind is blank," muttered Vaelor Kryne, adjusting the silver rings on his gaunt hand. "Five years of the void torn from her. She no longer resists. She is an empty chalice."
"An empty chalice," echoed Malrick Thorne with a bitter smile. "Perfect to fill with our will."
But Gareth Drael scowled, his voice a rumble: "Empty or not, she carries the blood of gods. The husk may yet bite."
Veythar raised a hand, and silence fell heavier than the stone. His gaze lingered on the chained girl, lips curling.
"For years Azeriel starved us of this weapon. He called her daughter. He hid her in forests, let her play at innocence." His voice hardened. "But she is not child. She is blade. And a blade has only one fate—"
"—to be drawn," Elvaris Nyx finished, his eyes glittering.
The king nodded once. "Begin step two."
Chains rattled as soldiers approached, unfastening only her arms. Her body slumped forward like a broken doll. A sword was placed at her feet, gleaming with runes.
"Strike her," Veythar commanded.
A soldier hesitated, then slashed her arm. Flesh parted, pale blood beading like starlight. For the first time in hours, her body shivered—an unconscious glow running beneath her skin. The chamber held its breath.
"Again," the king said.
Another cut. This time, her hand twitched toward the blade at her feet. Not will, not choice—instinct alone.
The lords leaned forward, hungry, fearful. The torches flared as though the chamber itself felt her stir.
Veythar's voice dropped, soft as poison:
"If pain can carve a god, then let us carve until nothing remains but a weapon."
Her fingers brushed the sword's hilt.
The Hall of Silence trembled.