The Academy walls fell away behind them, jagged towers shrinking into the haze of dawn. For the first time since his arrival, Kael was beyond its shadow. No guards. No Council. Only Ashen Vox, a winding dirt trail, and a horizon that bled gold into endless sky.
It should have been freeing.
Instead, Kael felt the Abyss stirring inside him, restless, as if it too sensed the world had opened.
They traveled in silence at first. Vox moved with deliberate calm, staff tapping against the earth, his single eye fixed on the horizon. Kael trailed behind, the weight of his own thoughts heavy.
Finally, Kael asked, "Why me?" His voice sounded small against the vastness around them.
Vox didn't look back. "Because silence has no teacher. Only a reminder."
Before Kael could ask what that meant, they crested a ridge—and the land unfurled.
Forests stretched like oceans of green, their canopies broken by jagged black spires that pierced sky like the ribs of some ancient beast. Rivers shimmered silver under the morning sun. In the far distance, a colossal scar marred the land, a canyon that seemed to drop into infinity, its depths glowing faintly with a sickly violet light.
Kael's breath caught.
"The Abyss," he whispered.
Vox's staff tapped once. "A wound that never closed. Much like you."
⸻
By nightfall they made camp near the edge of an old ruin. Pillars jutted from the ground like broken teeth, covered in crawling moss. Kael's stomach growled, but his nerves kept him from resting.
Vox finally turned, his eye glinting in the firelight.
"Tell me, Kael Ardyn. Do you believe you control your silence?"
Kael hesitated. "I… try to. It comes when I call it."
"Fool." Vox's voice cut like a blade. "It comes when it wishes. You are a boy clutching the leash of a starving beast, thinking the leash is power."
Kael's fists clenched. "Then teach me to control it."
Vox rose, his staff striking the earth. The ruin around them groaned. From the shadows, something stirred—a low rumble, deep as shifting stone.
Kael's eyes widened as the ground split and shapes pulled free: creatures of bone and smoke, their forms half-rotted, resonance leaking from their bodies like steam from a broken pipe. Their eyes burned white, jaws splitting wide in silence.
"What are they?" Kael whispered.
"Remnants," Vox said, stepping back. "Beasts shattered by the Abyss. They cannot be silenced… unless you become silence."
The creatures lunged.
Kael barely rolled aside as claws shredded the earth where he had stood. His hand flew to his knife, but Vox's voice thundered across the ruin:
"No blades. No tricks. Show me your silence."
The Abyss within Kael roared awake, hungry, chaotic. He tried to summon it like before, focusing on the feeling of muting sound, of cutting resonance from the air—but it surged too fast, too wild. The nearest beast convulsed, its form unraveling, but Kael staggered back as the silence spread outward, gnawing at the ruin itself.
The stone around them cracked. Even the fire sputtered, choking under the weight of his resonance.
Kael fell to one knee, clutching his chest. The whispers came stronger here, sharper than ever:
Yes… unleash me. Silence the world. Make them nothing.
"No!" Kael spat through clenched teeth, forcing the pull back. The silence recoiled, fracturing. The Remnants pressed closer.
Vox's voice echoed like thunder:
"Do not resist it. Do not let it master you. Wield it. Shape the abyss into form—or it will shape you."
Kael looked up as a Remnant pounced. Instinct took over. He thrust out his hand—and silence bloomed.
Not wild, not empty.
Focused.
The creature's roar died in its throat. Its form unraveled in strands of smoke, collapsing into nothingness. The ruin shook, but held. Kael's chest heaved. The silence retreated… waiting.
Vox lowered his staff. His expression was unreadable.
"A flicker. Crude, but real."
Kael dropped to the ground, sweat dripping down his face. He felt hollow, but for the first time—also full.
And somewhere, faint but certain, the Abyss whispered approval.