The passage sloped downward, a narrow vein carved through stone, pulsing faintly with threads of silver light. The air grew colder the deeper they went, not with natural chill, but with the weight of absence — as though the world itself thinned the farther they descended.
Every step echoed too long, like sound dragged unwillingly back into silence.
Elara carried Jorn in her arms, his small body frighteningly light. His head lolled against her shoulder, lips moving faintly as though he dreamed in song. She whispered to him, though she knew he likely could not hear: "Hold on, little one. Just hold on."
Behind her, Marek trudged with his shield strapped across his back. His steps were heavy, his expression grim. Seris padded at his side, blades drawn, eyes constantly scanning the darkness beyond the silver glow. Tomas stumbled last, clutching the wall for balance, muttering fractured lines of memory as though trying to keep himself tethered.
After what felt like hours, the passage widened into a hollow chamber.
And there, across its curved walls, words glowed faintly. Thousands of them. Names.
They were written in dozens of tongues — some familiar, some lost, some little more than scratches etched into light. The silver letters flickered, sometimes strong, sometimes barely visible, as if struggling to remain.
Seris exhaled sharply. "What is this place?"
Tomas's eyes widened, filling with tears. "The Path of Forgotten Names. Those the silence has consumed, but not yet erased. Fragments clinging to the root." His hand hovered near one of the glowing names, trembling. "If they fade, it means the silence has won."
Marek scowled. "Then we're walking through a graveyard."
"No," Tomas whispered. "A memory-crypt."
Elara stepped closer, her sun-eye casting a dim halo over the wall. The letters closest to her flared brighter for a moment, as though reaching toward her. One name seared itself into her vision, refusing to dim.
Nalia.
Marek froze. He saw it too, glowing above Elara's shoulder. His throat worked soundlessly before he pressed a gauntleted hand against the stone. "That's—" His voice cracked. "That's her."
The letters pulsed once, like a heartbeat. Then they began to fade.
"No!" Marek slammed his palm against the wall, desperate. "Don't you dare take her!" His voice rose, raw and thunderous. "Not her!"
The fading slowed, but only barely.
Jorn stirred in Elara's arms. His lips parted, and the faint thread of his melody filled the chamber. The names brightened, hundreds of them flaring like stars. Nalia's among them.
Elara looked down at the boy. His eyes were half-lidded, exhausted, but his voice was steady. "They don't want to be forgotten," he whispered.
The silence shivered, the air vibrating as though in protest.
The survivors pressed on, past walls of endless names. Some were bright, some dimming, some flickering as though at war with themselves.
Seris touched one — Caelen — and her breath hitched. "That's my brother," she said softly. "He was taken by Eaters on the ridge. I thought he was gone."
Marek looked at her sharply. "If his name's here, he's not gone yet."
Her jaw clenched. "Then I'll carve him free, if I have to."
The path narrowed again, the silver glow dimming as if trying to hide what lay ahead. The silence pressed heavier, colder. The names grew fewer, and in their place, dark gouges scarred the walls — jagged slashes, letters violently ripped away.
Tomas stopped, his face pale. "This is where the silence feeds."
The survivors stared at the empty gouges. Some were small. Some stretched across entire walls, vast histories ripped out in a single stroke.
Jorn whimpered in Elara's arms, his song faltering. The air here was poison to memory, to song, to hope.
"Keep singing," Elara begged him. "Even if it's weak, keep going."
The boy nodded faintly and tried again.
At last, the passage opened into another chamber. But unlike the first, this one was not filled with glowing names.
It was filled with empty pedestals. Hundreds of them. Thousands.
On each pedestal lay the faint shape of a book, a scroll, or a carved tablet — but they were hollow, outlines of what had been. Knowledge devoured, memory stripped bare.
Marek muttered a curse. "It doesn't just eat people. It eats everything."
Tomas fell to his knees, weeping. "This is what we are fighting. Not shadows. Not Eaters. The end of remembrance itself."
The silence stirred again, stronger than before, as if angered that they had seen its hoard of nothing.
And from the far end of the chamber, a sound rose — deeper, darker than the Choir.
Not song. Not a heartbeat.
A slow, steady breath.
As though the silence itself had begun to breathe.
The sound of breath filled the chamber. Slow, steady, impossibly vast — as though something older than the world itself slumbered just beyond the stone. Each exhalation tugged at their lungs, stealing air. Each inhalation pulled at their minds, as if the silence meant to drink their thoughts.
Elara staggered, clutching Jorn tighter. Her sun-eye flared against the dark, but even that golden light bent under the rhythm of the breathing. She whispered through clenched teeth, "It's… inside us. Trying to unmake us."
Seris pressed her palms to her ears, but there was nothing to block. The sound was not in the air. It was in her skull. "It's digging through me," she gasped. "Showing me things I never wanted to remember."
Her eyes went distant, glassy.
Marek seized her shoulder, shaking her hard. "Stay with us!"
But when she looked up, she didn't see him.
She saw Caelen. Her brother. Standing whole, alive, smiling as if no shadow had ever touched him. "Seris," he whispered, his voice warm, perfect, real. "You don't have to keep fighting. Just let go. Come with me."
Her dagger slipped from her hand, clattering against the stone.
Across the chamber, Marek reeled as well. He saw Nalia before him — her hair bound with the ribbon he had given her, her smile soft, her hand reaching. "You've carried this pain too long," she said. "Lay down your sword, Marek. Rest. You don't need to bleed anymore."
His grip on the blade faltered. The ache of years pressed against him, tempting, sweet.
Tomas had fallen to his knees, weeping. Visions of old students, friends, lovers — all whispering to him from the hollow pedestals. "Come with us," they begged. "Be remembered only in peace."
Elara shook as the silence pressed against her mind too. She heard her mother's voice, tender and cruel all at once: You were never strong enough, Elara. You should have died with us. Come, and stop pretending you belong.
Her knees buckled.
Then Jorn stirred.
The boy's eyes fluttered open, heavy with exhaustion. His lips moved again, and the faintest thread of melody wove into the air. The silence hissed, the breathing stuttering, uneven.
The names on the walls flared brighter, hundreds at once. The illusions wavered.
Seris blinked, her brother's form flickering, hollow. Marek's Nalia faltered, her smile twisting before it vanished. Tomas's crowd of beloved faces dissolved into dust.
Elara gasped as her mother's voice cut off mid-word. The pressure on her skull lifted, if only slightly.
Jorn's voice cracked, but he forced himself to keep singing. His song was no longer just melody — it was resistance.
Elara rose to her feet, fire filling her chest. She shouted into the chamber, her voice raw and furious. "You'll not have us! Do you hear? You'll choke on us before we give ourselves!"
Her sun-eye burst with light, golden fire tearing across the pedestals. The breath shuddered, staggering as though wounded.
Marek gritted his teeth and lifted his sword again, finding his resolve. "You can steal her memory from the stone, but not from me," he growled. "Never from me."
Seris spat on the ground, reclaiming her dagger. "If you want me, you'll have to fight me. And I'll carve your name on the wall myself."
The chamber trembled, furious. The breathing deepened, echoing from every surface. For an instant, the survivors thought the walls themselves might collapse.
Then — silence.
Not the all-consuming silence they had known, but a pause.
A waiting.
The pedestals dimmed, the names flickered, and the silver passage ahead blazed brighter — as if the silence itself had opened the way further, daring them to descend.
Elara held Jorn close, whispering into his hair. "Rest now. We'll carry your song until you wake."
The boy closed his eyes, a faint smile on his lips. His melody lingered like an aftertaste in the air, keeping the chamber at bay.
The survivors looked at one another, broken yet bound tighter than before.
And together, they stepped into the deeper dark.