The path east was a wound carved into the earth.
Once, it might have been a riverbed. Now it was dry, littered with black stones and bones polished smooth by ash-winds. The survivors moved in silence, the glow of Marek's lantern a small circle of defiance against the endless night.
Elara leaned on Seris for support, her strength returning in faltering sparks. Each step jarred her ribs, but she refused to be carried. The sun-eye still glowed faintly, enough to keep the shadows at bay.
Jorn clung to Nalia's cloak, wide-eyed but quiet. Too quiet for a boy his age.
The spires rose ahead.
They were immense, jagged pillars, fractured and tilting, as though giants had tried to pull them from the ground and failed. Faint glyphs shimmered across their cracked surfaces, pulsing in rhythm with a heartbeat not their own.
Tomas stopped dead in his tracks, staring. "This is it," he whispered. "The first lattice-anchors. This is where the silence began."
Marek frowned. "Speak plain."
Tomas's lips trembled. His eyes never left the spires. "The old texts said the spires sang once — not with silence, but with light. They were meant to hold the world together. To guide the sun across the sky." He swallowed hard. "When the Citadel rose, the song was stolen. Twisted. That's why the spires broke. That's why the winters never ended."
The group stared at him.
"You knew this," Marek said, voice low and accusing.
"I suspected." Tomas's voice cracked. "But seeing them… it's worse than I imagined. The spires don't just hold the silence. They bleed it."
Elara pressed her hand against one of the spires. The stone was cold, but beneath it, she felt vibration — faint threads pulsing, memories coiled inside like worms in marrow.
She saw flashes: thousands kneeling as the spires glowed, voices raised in worship. Then screams, fire, the world shuddering as the song was stolen. And over it all, a voice whispering: the Citadel hungers.
She jerked her hand back, gasping.
Seris caught her. "What did you see?"
"History," Elara whispered. "But wrong. Broken. Like the spires."
Marek's jaw tightened. "Then we'll break them further. If destroying these things hurts the Citadel, that's reason enough."
"No," Tomas said sharply, almost shouting. His face twisted with fear. "If you shatter them completely, the threads will unravel. Everything — memory, thought, even the sun's fire — will be torn apart. The spires are chains, yes, but they're also the only thing keeping the world from collapsing."
The silence that followed was heavier than the lattice itself.
Far below, Kael felt the spires too.
As the keepers dragged him deeper into the Citadel, he felt vibrations shudder through the chains. He raised his head, teeth bared, sensing Elara's touch on the stone.
"They've reached the anchors," the reflection hissed, its crown flickering erratically. "If they disturb the balance, the silence will devour them first."
Kael smiled through bloodied teeth. "Then you're afraid."
The reflection's eyes narrowed. "No. I am inevitable."
Night deepened. The group camped in the shadow of the hollowed spires, their shapes blotting out the horizon like the bones of gods.
Jorn finally broke the silence. His voice was small. "Mama… will the spires sing again? Like Tomas said?"
Nalia kissed his head, holding him close. Her voice trembled, but she forced the words. "Maybe. Maybe one day."
Elara stared into the darkness between the spires, her sun-eye flickering faintly. She thought of Kael, of the keepers, of the threads winding tighter.
"The spires are singing," she whispered to herself. "We just can't hear it yet."
And in the distance, carried on the wind, came a faint hum.
Not ash-song. Not the keepers' hymn.
Something older. Deeper. Waiting to be heard.
The campfire burned low, but none of them truly slept. The spires loomed like sentinels, their fractured silhouettes glowing faintly with hidden veins.
Tomas sat cross-legged, muttering fragments of old scripture under his breath. His eyes were fever-bright, reflecting the glyphs etched into the stone. "They were built to sing the sun across the sky," he whispered. "Three hundred and thirty-three spires, forming the Circle of Light. Each one an anchor. Each one a promise. Until the Citadel stole the song."
Seris sat nearby, sharpening her dagger. She cut him a sharp glance. "You sound like a priest."
He almost laughed. "I used to be. Before I burned the temple down."
That silenced the camp more than the ash-wind ever could.
Elara shifted, propped against Seris's shoulder. Her voice was weak, but steady. "You said the spires bleed silence now. Can that be undone?"
Tomas shook his head slowly. "Not by us. The silence isn't absence. It's hunger. It feeds on memory, light, and song. If you break an anchor, it spills that hunger like a flood. The old texts warned of it. Whole valleys swallowed in a night."
Nalia's voice cracked. "And yet we're sitting beneath one."
Marek's hand tightened on his sword-hilt. His gaze roamed the shadows between the spires, every nerve taut. "Then tell me why it hasn't killed us already."
Tomas looked at him, and for once, had no answer.
The hum came again.
Faint at first, like a vibration in the chest. Then a low resonance, pulsing through the stone, setting teeth on edge. Jorn whimpered in his sleep, curling tighter into Nalia's arms.
Seris was on her feet instantly, bow drawn. "Do you hear that?"
"Not hear," Tomas murmured. His face was pale. "Feel."
Elara forced herself upright, the sun-eye flickering faintly. She reached out, palm against the cold stone of the spire. Her breath caught.
The hum was not the keepers' hymn. Not the ash-song.
It was something older.
Voices, countless, layered together. Not words, but remembrance. A chorus of what had been lost.
She saw glimpses: fields of green, skies blazing gold, children laughing beneath the light of a sun that moved across the heavens. Life. The world as it had been.
And then, fire. The Citadel rising, devouring the song, twisting it into silence.
She staggered back, clutching her chest. "They remember."
"Who?" Seris demanded.
"The spires," Elara whispered. "They remember everything."
Far below, Kael froze.
Through the chains, through the keepers' hymn, he felt it — the echo of the spires stirring. His head snapped upward, as if he could see through the Citadel's weight to the broken towers above.
The keepers faltered in their song. Their veils rippled, their voices shuddered.
The reflection hissed, its crown sparking with unstable light. "No… not them. They cannot awaken."
Kael's lips curled in a grin, savage and bloodied. "Then that's exactly what they'll do."
Back at the spires, the hum deepened into a resonant thrum. The ground shook faintly, cracks crawling outward from the stone roots.
Marek raised his blade. "What's happening?"
Tomas's voice broke. "They're trying to sing again."
The survivors huddled close, eyes wide, as the spires glowed brighter, glyphs burning with forgotten fire. The hum filled the air, filled their bones — and for the first time in countless years, the silence wavered.
And then… a voice slipped through.
Soft. Clear. Impossible.
"Elara."
The fire snapped, throwing sparks into the night.
Elara's heart seized. She knew that voice. Kael.
Her sun-eye flared bright gold, answering.
The spires were no longer just stone. They were bridges.