Chapter 3 The language of those who burn

The Temple of Ashes had no domes or bells. It did not reach for the sky like the towers of the dead gods. It emitted no sacred sounds or offered loud prayers. It was a sanctuary of silence. A living cavern that breathed smoke and exhaled history.

Asha was led by two silent Obsidian Keepers through a spiraling corridor. Every step she took distanced her from the world she knew. There were no whispers or chants, only the scrape of feet on burnt stone and the distant tapping of hot water falling on what had once been marble.

As they descended, the walls changed: they were no longer carved blocks, but living rock, black as the moonless night. The air was charged. Not just with heat or steam, but with something older: memories, unspoken emotions, unanswered questions.

As they reached the central hall, Asha froze. Not out of fear, but out of reverence.

The Temple was a labyrinth of curved passages, low chambers, columns covered with spiral writing, like ash that had settled into letters. Small braziers floated in the air, without ropes or supports, emitting a cold, bluish flame that didn't burn the skin, but pierced the gaze.

There were others like her: silent slaves, all marked. They moved like shadows. They washed the corridors, polished the obsidian, wove with ash mixed with human hair. And no one spoke.

Asha understood instantly: here, words were dangerous. The voice was a weapon. And memory, a fire that must not be stirred.

"This is your cell," said one of the Guardians. The voice was hoarse, as if it hadn't spoken for years.

She nodded, saying nothing.

"Do you speak?"

Asha stared at him, then lowered her eyes and shook her head. Slowly, deliberately.

The other Keeper chuckled faintly, without mirth.

"One more mute. Better that way."

They handed her a gray robe of coarse linen and a stone carved with her new number: 317-K. They assigned her three tasks: to maintain the cleanliness of the Hall, rearrange the ritual powder cylinders, and assist in the collection of residual memory in the Crypt of the Voiceless.

Asha silently accepted.

For the first few days, the pretense was simple. No one pressured her. No one expected explanations from a mute. Her muteness was like an invisible veil that protected her. She learned to listen unnoticed, to observe gestures, routines, secrets.

In the Echo Hall, she discovered that the walls not only contained inscriptions, but also murmured. When she ran her hand over certain lines, they were activated: floating memories, condensed thoughts, voices from the past still seeking embodiment.

Once, while scrubbing a canal filled with liquid ash, she heard a woman's voice calling her daughter's name. "Asha," she said. The same intonation her mother had used the last time. Her skin prickled.

Was it a coincidence? Or was she being called from the other side of time?

In the chamber of ritual dust cylinders, she discovered the forbidden names. Each cylinder contained bone dust and sealed memory. Some bore labels with ancient symbols: an inverted eye, a tear of fire, a hand pierced by roots.

One day, her coworker-a young woman with a hardened face and a severed tongue-passed her a cylinder and signaled: do not open it. Asha nodded. She understood. Knowledge here was not liberation. It was condemnation.

At night, Asha slept in a damp cell, shared with three other slaves who also didn't speak. They communicated with movements, glances, and breathing. One of them taught her a hand dialect. Asha memorized each gesture as if it were a poem: danger, watchman, shadow, fire.

In the Crypt of the Voiceless, the atmosphere was even more oppressive. The ceilings were low, supported by pillars carved with mouthless faces. There, the loose fragments were stored: wandering memories, screams that would not dissipate, thoughts of the dead that refused to rest.

Asha wore a resin mask to avoid inhaling the living ash. She learned to use tongs and obsidian jars to capture the floating essences that still sizzled like ghostly embers. Each fragment was saved, labeled, and sealed. Some burned, others wept. Some screamed soundlessly. One even laughed.

One night, as she worked alone, one of those fragments stirred violently as she drew near. It was different. Denser. More human.

The essence flung itself toward her, piercing the mask. It entered through her eyes, her skin, her burning mark.

And then she saw.

A figure burning from within. Not a person, but an incarnated idea. Kael.

She watched him walk across a field of black glass. His shadow multiplied. He didn't speak, but the embers around him formed words.

"Don't speak. Listen. Remember. Don't be afraid."

Asha fell to her knees. She wept silently, her mouth clenched, her body trembling. She knew that if she screamed, someone would come. If she spoke, she would cease to be invisible. So she didn't.

When she recovered, she put the jar away and returned to her cell. She didn't sleep that night. Nor the next.

The days melted into ash and fire. She began to notice disturbing details: symbols that only appeared in certain lights, noises only she heard, scents that followed her even when she sealed them away.

An old slave pointed a trembling finger at her one day and drew a circle with three lines inside. It was the symbol of the Ancient Bond. The same one her mother had painted on her forehead with charcoal the night she left.

"You are marked for memory," the old man said. And she died the next day.

Weeks passed. Asha became just another shadow in the temple. But she listened more than anyone. She knew when the Keepers of High Fire arrived. She knew which slaves murmured forbidden names in their sleep. She knew there was an underground network that believed in the prophecy of the "Remembering Fire."

A living fire that could restore the world's erased history.

She knew, too, that her name had not been a coincidence. Nor her mark. Nor her visions.

Asha, the mute, was not mute. She was simply waiting for the exact moment when remembering does not mean dying.

The temple had swallowed her.

But it had also ignited her.

And she, like fire, waited for her moment to burn.