When the last of the Eaters dissolved into ash and silence, the cavern fell still.
Only the faint hum of the root remained, pulsing like a buried heartbeat. The survivors staggered into the stillness, their breaths ragged, sweat stinging their wounds. Marek leaned on his sword, its edge blackened from striking the creatures. Seris knelt to check her quiver — nearly empty. Tomas sat slumped against the stone, lips cracked from whispering too many glyphs.
Elara pressed a trembling hand to her temple, wiping blood from her nose. Her sun-eye still glowed faintly, but the effort had hollowed her. She looked to Jorn, whose small body had gone limp against Seris's back, his hum fading into silence.
"He saved us," Seris whispered, brushing the boy's damp hair back. Her voice broke on the words.
Elara nodded, though her chest tightened. Jorn was still only a child. And already, the abyss was pulling him deeper into its song.
They gathered near the root, the towering mass of silver-veined wood. It pulsed softly in the dark, light traveling through its veins like the glow of distant stars. Up close, its surface was carved with faint markings — not glyphs exactly, but impressions. Shapes. Memories.
Elara traced a hand across the surface. Her sun-eye flared, and the impressions shifted before her gaze, rippling like reflections on water.
She saw glimpses:
A city of spires bathed in golden light, voices raised in harmony.
A people who sang to bind the silence, their voices weaving walls of sound to hold the void at bay.
And then—darkness, breaking in like a tide. Songs unraveling into screams. The silence devouring memory, leaving only roots buried in ash.
She staggered back, breath caught in her throat.
"What did you see?" Tomas asked, his voice hoarse.
"Not just roots," Elara said, clutching her chest. "This isn't stone. It's what's left of them. Their lives, their memories. The spires above are only fragments. This is where the world they built is buried."
Marek's hand tightened on his sword. "Then this… this silence is more than beasts. It's a grave-robber."
Tomas shook his head slowly, eyes haunted. "No. It's worse. It doesn't only kill. It unravels. It feeds on memory itself."
The ground trembled faintly beneath their feet, a deep shiver running through the cavern floor. The root pulsed harder, its glow flickering erratically.
Seris clutched Jorn tighter. "What does that mean?"
Elara closed her eyes. She could still hear the broken song beneath her skull, struggling to harmonize with the boy's faint hum.
"It means," she said softly, "that this root is trying to remember. And the silence is trying to make it forget."
Far below, Kael's chains rattled. His body trembled with exhaustion, but his spirit flared like fire. He felt their voices echo through the root — faint but real.
He pressed his forehead to the cold stone, a weak smile tugging at his lips. "Closer still."
The reflection in the dark sneered, its form twitching like a shadow cast by broken glass.
"They descend willingly," it hissed. "And when they reach me, they will drown."
Kael's gaze hardened. "Not if I can rise first."
Above him, the survivors stood in silence, the pulsing root casting their faces in shifting silver light. They had survived the first test.
But deeper still, the silence waited.
And the memory of the world — fragile, flickering — might yet be snuffed out.
The cavern's glow pulsed unevenly, as though the root itself were struggling to breathe. Each throb of silver light cast long shadows across the stone, warping the survivors' faces into half-forgotten ghosts.
No one spoke at first. They listened — to the hollow stillness, to the faint vibration beneath their feet. The silence wasn't empty. It was crowded. Full of whispers just beyond hearing, as though countless voices murmured at the edge of thought.
Elara touched the root again. This time, she forced herself not to recoil. Her sun-eye opened wide, golden light sinking into the fissured wood. And the world around her bent.
She saw faces.
A mother cradling her child beneath a spire of light. A soldier standing guard at a gate that no longer existed. A singer raising her voice, the melody trembling the very air. Each image flickered like a candle flame, fragile and precious.
Then, one by one, the faces twisted. Eyes hollowed. Mouths opened in silent screams. The golden spires collapsed, crumbling into ash, swallowed by shadow.
And she felt it — the silence feeding. Not like hunger of the belly, but hunger of the soul. It gorged itself on memory, stripping the people down to nothing, until even the idea of them was lost.
"Elara!" Marek's voice broke through the vision, rough and desperate. His hand gripped her shoulder, yanking her back.
She gasped, staggering against him, chest heaving. Tears ran down her cheeks, though she hadn't known she was crying.
"It's them," she whispered. "They're still here. All of them. But broken. Fading."
Tomas leaned forward, eyes wide with awe and terror. "The silence doesn't just destroy… it unwrites."
Seris tightened her grip on Jorn. The boy stirred in his sleep, murmuring words they could not understand, his breath syncing with the faint hum of the root. The silver veins brightened with each exhale, as if the root answered him.
"He's keeping it alive," Seris said softly, voice trembling. "Without him, this memory would already be gone."
Marek turned, staring at the child. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. He wanted to protect him — with steel, with blood, with his very life. But the thought gnawed at him: How long can a child bear the weight of a dying world's memory?
The cavern shook.
At first, it was only a shiver, a tremor sliding through the floor like a heartbeat gone awry. Dust rained from above. The glow of the veins sputtered, flaring too bright, then dimming to near black.
Elara pressed her palm flat against the root. What she felt was not attack — not yet. It was fear.
"The silence knows we're here," she said. Her voice quavered, but her eyes burned with resolve. "And it's afraid."
Far below, Kael's chains rattled violently, dragging across the stone. The reflection leaned close, its grin wide and broken.
"They see its memory," it whispered, "but memory will not save them. The silence is eternal. Their voices will join the rest — forgotten, unwritten, devoured."
Kael clenched his fists until blood ran from his palms. He lifted his head, eyes blazing despite the weight of his chains.
"Then let them remember me," he said. "And let that be the crack that breaks you."
The reflection recoiled, its grin faltering for the first time.
Back in the cavern, the survivors drew together. Their wounds still bled, their strength waned, but the pulse of the root grew stronger beneath Jorn's quiet breathing.
The silence would strike again. Soon.
But for now, in this fragile moment, the root still remembered.
And so did they.