The village didn't sleep that night.
Lamps burned longer than usual, their light smearing across mist and riverwater. Doors stayed barred. Conversations were held in low voices that stopped whenever Kael passed.
He noticed.
He always noticed.
Kael sat on the inn's narrow steps, elbows resting on his knees, watching the glow from the windows across the square. The ringing in his ears had dulled to a steady pressure, like a hand pressed against the side of his head.
Better than earlier, he thought. Not good.
Behind him, the door creaked open.
"You're making them nervous," Senna said, stepping outside.
Kael didn't look up. "I was hoping for invisible."
She snorted. "You rang a bell in the middle of a quiet valley. Invisible was never an option."
Fair.
Across the square, Bren stood with Maera and two other elders, their heads bent together. Every so often, one of them glanced in Kael's direction.
"They're deciding what to do with me," Kael said.
"Yes," Senna replied. "And that's not a bad thing."
He frowned. "How is that comforting?"
"It means they're thinking," she said. "When people stop thinking, they start acting."
Kael exhaled slowly. "I can leave."
Senna studied him. "Would that fix it?"
"No," he admitted.
"It would make it worse," she said. "Signals don't fade because the source walks away."
Kael nodded. He'd already reached the same conclusion—and disliked it just as much.
The elders approached a few minutes later.
Bren spoke first. "We've talked."
"I'm sure," Kael said.
Maera's expression was tight. "This place has survived floods, famine, and raiders. We won't survive becoming a landmark."
Kael swallowed. "I never meant—"
"That doesn't matter," another elder interrupted. "Intent doesn't change consequences."
Senna shifted her stance slightly—not threatening, but present.
Bren raised a hand. "We're not casting anyone out. Not yet."
Kael's shoulders loosened a fraction.
"But," Bren continued, "we need this ended."
Maera nodded. "The ruin. The map. Whatever tie exists between them."
Kael hesitated. "Destroying the map might—"
"We know," Maera said sharply. "We've heard stories too."
Kael closed his eyes briefly.
This is the wrong solution, he thought. But it's the only one they have.
"Let me try something first," he said. "If it doesn't work, I'll give you the map."
Bren hesitated. "What kind of something?"
"Restraint," Kael said. "I stop using it. Stop mapping. Stop listening."
Maera scoffed. "That's your plan?"
"It's a start."
Silence stretched.
Finally, Bren nodded. "One night. If the land quiets, we reconsider."
"And if it doesn't?" Senna asked.
Maera's gaze hardened. "Then we burn the paper."
---
Kael didn't touch the map.
Not once.
He left it wrapped and sealed, tucked beneath his bed. He didn't sketch. Didn't mark. Didn't test the land.
He focused on normal things.
The sound of the river.
The smell of cooking grain.
The feel of wood beneath his fingers.
The ringing softened.
Good, he thought. That's good.
But the quiet that followed was wrong.
Too even.
Too smooth.
Senna felt it too. He saw it in the way she paced the edge of the village, blade resting against her shoulder, eyes scanning the dark.
"This isn't settling," she said quietly. "It's holding."
Kael's stomach tightened.
"Like breath before a strike?"
"Exactly."
The land didn't hum.
It waited.
Near midnight, a sharp crack split the air.
Not a roar.
Not a scream.
A tear.
Kael was on his feet instantly.
The ground near the old storage sheds buckled inward, dirt collapsing as if something beneath had been pulled away. A cold wind rushed out, carrying the sharp tang of distorted resonance.
"Inside!" Bren shouted.
Too late.
The earth split again—wider this time—and something crawled free.
Not a beast.
Not fully.
Its shape was half-formed, limbs stretching and retracting as if undecided. Its surface shimmered, reflecting bits of the village lantern light in wrong angles.
A Hollow Echo.
Kael recognized it immediately—and felt sick.
"I didn't map anything," he said aloud, panic rising. "I didn't touch the ruin."
Senna didn't look at him. "You didn't need to."
The thing lurched forward.
Kael moved on instinct—and stopped himself.
No, he told himself. Not again.
"Senna," he said. "I won't—"
"I know," she replied, already advancing.
The Echo lashed out, its arm distorting into a blade of vibrating air.
Senna ducked, rolled, came up inside its reach and drove her sword through the unstable mass where a chest should have been.
The blade passed through with resistance like thick water.
The Echo shrieked—then collapsed in on itself, dissolving into a scatter of pale fragments that sank into the ground.
Silence followed.
Real silence, this time.
Kael's knees nearly gave out.
Maera stared at the cratered earth, horror etched into her face. "You said not touching it would help."
"It did," Senna said.
Everyone turned to her.
"It delayed," she clarified. "Not fixed."
Bren looked at Kael, something like fear in his eyes. "Then what do we do?"
Kael looked at the broken ground.
At the Echo fragments already being absorbed.
At the quiet that felt less like peace and more like attention withdrawn—for now.
"We stop pretending this is small," he said softly.
"And?" Maera demanded.
Kael met her gaze.
"And we stop trying to erase it."
The elders recoiled as if struck.
"That's madness," someone whispered.
Kael shook his head. "No. It's honesty."
He straightened, exhaustion weighing heavy but his voice steady.
"If the land is responding," he said, "then destroying the record won't silence it."
He paused.
"It'll just make it scream."
The map stayed wrapped beneath his bed.
But everyone in the village knew now—
The problem was no longer the paper.
It was the echo that had learned their name.