The silence that followed wasn't just absence—it was presence.
A waiting.
As if the second voice beneath the pedestal wasn't bound by time, but by permission. And now that I'd spoken—now that I had named the trespass—it had begun to listen.
My breath clouded in the stillness.
The trees did not move. No wind. No birdcalls. Even the insects had stilled, as though they, too, had been asked to wait.
I pulled my hand away.
The warmth of the stone lingered on my palm, pulsing like a heartbeat that did not belong to me.
I whispered, "What are you?"
The voice did not answer.
But the ground did.
A small crack appeared along the side of the pedestal, thin as a thread of ink. It ran downward, jagged, and then split into two.
Dust drifted from the seams.
The forest exhaled.
And for the first time since I'd come to this world, I felt something open.
I didn't tell Elna.
Not yet.
She watched me more these days. Not with suspicion, but with worry. As if something in me had begun to shift—and she was trying to understand if it was a sickness or a secret.
We shared our bread. Shared the window each night. But not our thoughts.
Not always.
Fenn had taken to sleeping by the fire, curled up like a pup. Sometimes he talked in his sleep. Soft mutterings. Half-formed sounds.
Once, I caught a word that made me freeze.
"Ka'seren…"
The same word the voice had spoken.
Fenn didn't remember saying it.
But he smiled at me the next morning like he knew.
The market that week was louder than usual.
A merchant from the Middle Ring had come down to the Dustwall—rare as snow. He brought trinkets wrapped in silk, small vials that glowed faintly blue, and a square machine that spun when you whispered to it.
People flocked to him like moths.
I didn't.
Not at first.
But something he said caught my ear as I passed.
"Language is memory," he told a group of children, showing them a page filled with odd symbols. "Even forgotten words leave footprints."
I stopped walking.
The merchant caught my gaze and smiled.
"You look like someone who's seen footprints."
I didn't respond.
He held up a charm—a disc of carved bone tied with black thread. "For luck," he said. "Or for listening."
I didn't buy it.
But I watched how the symbols on it curved—like the ones in the book. Like the ones the stone had shown me.
The merchant left by sundown.
I never saw him again.
But the words stayed.
That night, I returned to the pedestal.
The cracks had grown.
Something beneath it breathed.
Not literally—but in a way deeper than lungs. Like the earth was stirring. Like it remembered being something else once, long ago, and my presence was a finger brushing across its dreaming mind.
I placed both hands on the stone this time.
And whispered.
"I'm not afraid."
It wasn't entirely true.
But courage, I'd learned, didn't mean not fearing.
It meant choosing to step forward anyway.
The second voice returned.
Low, distant, layered like wind through hollow trees.
It didn't speak words.
It unfolded them.
A stream of sounds that melted meaning into me—not through ears, but through marrow.
Images flashed behind my eyes:
A city, but not Dustwall. Older. Sharper. Built of bone-white towers and bridges of light.
A book—vast, endless, bound in chains of red thread.
A gate. Locked. With a mark that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Then, a single word burned itself across my thoughts.
"Unbound."
I gasped.
And the stone split.
It didn't shatter. It parted, like two hands opening.
Beneath it was a hollow space.
No deeper than a child's grave. Carved stone. Lined with moss. And at its center, resting as if untouched by time, was a mask.
Simple. Pale. Shaped like a human face, but smooth, without mouth or eyes.
I reached down.
The moment my fingers touched it, the forest roared.
Not with sound—but with memory.
A scream echoed through the trees, ancient and long-forgotten. The birds fled. The wind returned, violent and cold. Leaves flew like knives.
I clutched the mask to my chest and ran.
I didn't stop until I reached the edge of the fields.
I hid the mask beneath the floorboards in our home, wrapped in an old cloth that once held dried roots. It felt warm even there, like it remembered being touched.
I lay awake for hours that night.
The voice didn't return.
The book didn't glow.
But my dreams did.
In them, I wore the mask.
And saw through its empty eyes.
Not my home. Not the Dustwall. A place where stars hung close and buildings hummed with breath. People moved without touching the ground. Children sang in a language I almost understood.
And behind them all was a shadow.
Tall.
Crowned in flame.
Watching me.
I woke to Fenn staring at me.
"You were talking in your sleep again," he said.
"What did I say?"
He frowned.
"Not words."
He paused.
"More like... a song."
The next day, the priest came to the Dustwall.
He only came once a year.
Tall man. Pale robes. Clean hands.
He didn't smile.
He walked through the streets and said blessings in the old tongue. Everyone bowed. Some offered coins. Most offered silence.
When he passed me, he stopped.
Stared.
Then whispered a word I'd never heard before.
But I understood it.
"Marked."
He said nothing more.
And walked away.
I waited until nightfall to uncover the mask.
It pulsed faintly now. Like it was waiting too.
I traced the edge of its curve with my thumb and whispered, "What do you want from me?"
And though no voice answered—
The book opened on its own.
A new page.
A new word.
"Begin."