The Last Silence
Silence came again to Noctyrrh—but this time, it did not threaten.
It arrived gently, like snowfall that never touched the ground.
The stars dimmed one by one over several nights, not vanishing, only retreating, as if the sky itself were exhaling after holding breath for centuries. People noticed. They always did. But there was no panic now, only questions passed hand to hand.
Lumi felt it first.
Not as truth, not as command—but as an absence shaped exactly like her old power.
At twenty-two, she had learned to trust uncertainty. Still, this quiet tug unsettled her. She walked alone beyond the city, past the fields where new shoots pushed stubbornly through blackened soil, until the night grew so still it seemed to listen.
"Is there something left you need?" she asked softly.
The night did not answer with words.
It answered with memory.
She saw Noctyrrh as it had been—bound, frozen in endless shadow. She saw Blake as a boy, blade too heavy for his hands. She saw herself standing at the edge of endings, again and again, always choosing others first.
The silence pressed closer—not demanding, but asking.
Lumi understood.
Some endings required witnesses.
She returned to the city and found Blake at the eastern wall, watching the sky dim as if bracing himself for loss he could not name.
"It's not the curse," she said before he could speak. "It's the echo."
Blake turned, tension etched into his shoulders. "And echoes fade."
"Yes," Lumi replied. "If we let them."
They stood together as the city lights flickered—human now, fragile and sufficient.
"I won't stop you," Blake said quietly, already knowing this was goodbye shaped like choice.
Lumi reached for his hand, grounding herself in warmth, not destiny. "I won't leave. I'll just… listen. One last time."
She walked to the highest tower as dawnless night deepened around her. There, she spoke—not as a truth bearer, not as legend.
Just as Lumi.
"You don't need me anymore," she whispered into the dark. "And that's how I know you'll survive."
The silence lifted.
Not abruptly.
Tenderly.
The stars returned—fewer, dimmer, real.
Below, Blake felt the shift like a loosening knot. He closed his eyes, trusting what he could no longer see.
Lumi descended from the tower lighter than she had ever been.
The last silence had passed.
What remained was waiting.