The ruins slept beneath a bruised sky. Shattered towers loomed like the ribs of a dead god, and the air itself trembled with the weight of unsaid things.
Kael followed close behind Vox as they moved through the desolate corridors, their boots brushing dust that hadn't stirred in centuries. Every sound felt wrong here — too loud, too alive — as if the world itself had forgotten how to echo.
They came to a hall split open by time. Pillars leaned like dying men, and a faint shimmer pulsed in the center of the chamber — not light, not shadow, but something between.
Kael froze. The silence around it was suffocating. Even his heartbeat seemed to hesitate, caught in its gravity.
"Vox… what is that?"
Vox's gaze lingered on the distortion. His hand hovered near his blade, not to draw it — but as if to remind himself it was real.
"Something that should not remain awake."
The silence deepened. Kael felt pressure in his skull, like unseen hands pushing against his mind. The shimmer grew, taking on faint shape — a ring of light and shadow spinning slowly, impossibly smooth, humming without sound.
Vox stepped closer. His eyes narrowed.
"This place… it predates the Choir."
Kael blinked. "Predates them? I thought—"
"The Mute Choir was born from silence. But this…" His voice lowered, each word drawn like a blade. "This is where silence was first made."
A cold wind slid through the ruin, carrying no scent, no whisper. It passed through Kael like a memory of drowning. For a moment, he swore he heard something inside it — not a voice, but the suggestion of one. A thousand murmurs beneath the quiet, all speaking at once and saying nothing.
Kael staggered. "It's— it's alive."
Vox's jaw tightened. "No. It's listening."
The realization hit Kael like a strike to the chest. The silence wasn't the absence of sound — it was awareness. Something vast and ancient, buried beneath the noise of the world, opening one unseen eye.
Then, faintly — movement.
From the archway opposite them, the air wavered, and a figure emerged. Cloaked, masked, bone-white and cracked down the center. A member of the Mute Choir.
Kael's hand flew to his blade, but Vox's arm stopped him instantly.
"No."
The figure did not attack. It only watched, head tilting slightly as if listening to something only it could hear. Then, slowly, it raised one hand — and pressed a single finger to the place where its lips should have been.
Silence.
The shimmer at the center of the room began to pulse faster, its rhythm syncing with Kael's heartbeat. The Choir member turned, almost reverently, toward the anomaly — and knelt.
Kael's breath caught. "They're… worshipping it?"
Vox shook his head. "No. Containing it."
As if on cue, the shimmer flared — a whisper, faint but vast, spilling into their minds:
"Do you hear it, little echoes? The end of sound draws near."
Kael dropped to one knee, clutching his skull. The words weren't sound — they were pressure, weight, language carved from the void itself. Vox's eyes flashed with something Kael had never seen before. Fear.
He pulled Kael back, his tone sharp, absolute.
"Don't listen. Don't answer it."
The light swelled again — and Kael felt the world tilt. Every sound — his breath, his heartbeat, even the creak of his bones — was stripped away. For a moment, he existed in perfect, horrifying quiet.
Then it stopped.
The shimmer vanished. The Choir member was gone. Only a ring of burned stone remained — and the faint echo of that whisper, like a scar on the air.
Vox stood motionless for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy, distant.
"They weren't here to kill us. They were guarding the seal."
Kael looked up, trembling. "Guarding it from what?"
Vox turned toward the empty air where the shimmer had been. The faintest wind brushed the ruins, carrying no sound — just the memory of one.
He met Kael's eyes. "From what's still below it."
⸻
As they left the ruins, the valley stretched wide and endless beneath the dying sun. The silence followed them — patient, awake, and listening.
Far beneath the earth, in that forgotten chamber, the stone ring pulsed once.
And deep in the dark below it, something exhaled for the first time in a thousand years.