The parchment changed.
I didn't see it happen, but I felt it.
One morning, when I unrolled it again to trace the root-shaped symbols, a new line waited near the edge. Thin ink. Not fresh, but not faded either. Like it had always been there, just waiting for my eyes to understand.
"When silence deepens, the hidden tongue begins to echo."
I whispered the line under my breath. Fenn, half-asleep beside me, stirred but didn't wake.
There were no letters I knew—only those strange symbols curling like vines and teeth—but my mind gave them meaning. Not translation. Not memory.
Recognition.
Like I'd always known how to read it. Like the scroll was reading me back.
The voice returned that night.
Not outside. Not beneath the floor.
Inside.
It didn't speak in syllables or sound, not really. Just presence. A breath beneath my thoughts. A warmth just behind the ribs. And when I closed my eyes, I saw the symbol from the scroll—tree, root, curl—glowing faint gold in the dark.
I woke with a word on my tongue.
"Varran."
It meant nothing. But when I whispered it, the lamp beside my bed flickered.
"Elna," I asked the next day, "do you believe in magic?"
She didn't look up from sharpening the old kitchen knife. "The nobles do."
"But us?"
She shrugged. "Doesn't matter if we believe. We're not allowed."
I didn't speak after that. Not for a while.
---
That afternoon, I went to Old Ralf.
He was almost blind, but his ears still worked. He remembered more than anyone in Dustwall and forgot only what he chose to.
He sat near the smithy's wall, sorting through a bucket of bent nails.
"You again," he said without turning. "You smell like questions."
"I found a scroll."
"Lots of scrolls."
"This one reads itself."
He paused. "Ah."
I waited. He tapped a nail against stone, once, twice, then dropped it in the dirt.
"You're hearing it, then?"
"What?"
"The whisper between words. Most folk don't. Most shouldn't."
I crouched beside him. "You know what it is?"
"I know enough to leave it alone."
"Why?"
"Because silence can echo too loud. And not all echoes come back the same."
When I returned home, I found Father sitting at the table.
Not eating. Not speaking. Just staring at the floor.
Mother stood in the doorway, arms folded tight.
"There was another burning," she said.
Fenn clung to her leg. His thumb was raw from worry.
"Middle ring again?"
She nodded. "No face. No name. Just ash."
Father's jaw worked, but no sound came out.
After they went to bed, I sat by the hearth.
And I listened.
Not for the voice this time.
For the silence.
The next day, I returned to the scroll.
Three more lines had appeared.
"A name is not just spoken. It is carried."
"A door is not just opened. It is answered."
"Ash clings where truth was once burned."
I traced each word. My fingers tingled.
Then I saw it—a new symbol. A closed eye beneath the tree.
I copied it onto the dirt floor.
And this time, the voice didn't wait.
It answered.
The floor hummed.
Not loudly—just a low vibration through the soles of my feet. The scroll trembled. The candle beside me bent toward the symbol like a plant seeking sun.
Then—
A soft crack.
One of the older boards shifted. Not the one hiding the box. Another. One I hadn't touched.
I leaned closer.
A thin line of light shone between the cracks. Faint. Pale gold.
I pressed my hand to the wood.
It was warm.
That night I dreamed again.
Not of the door this time.
Of a staircase.
Stone steps spiraling downward into a sea of smoke. On each step, a symbol glowed. Not carved—alive.
When I stepped onto the first, I heard the word again:
"Varran."
Then the second.
"Elysha."
Then the third.
"Kareth."
By the fourth, I couldn't hear my own thoughts. Only the rising sound of whispers.
At the bottom, I saw it—
A mirror.
But the reflection wasn't mine.
It was Yuto.
My old face.
Eyes tired. Mouth half-open in wonder. A single tear rolling down one cheek.
He smiled.
Then the mirror shattered.
I woke before dawn.
My fingers still burned with memory.
And when I opened the scroll again, one word glowed faint on the edge:
"Remember."