Chapter 5 The sound under the stone

The Valley of Noise had no paths. Only jagged slopes, cut by fissures that seemed to have been shaped by screams frozen in time. Nothing grew. No moss, no lichen, not even the ash beetles that used to nest in the warm crevices. There, the air didn't smell damp or mineral: it smelled ancient.

Asha descended with measured steps. She wore a single leather glove on her right hand and a live lantern in her left. The light danced dimly, as if unwilling to illuminate the place. As if afraid to!

"And is there a sealed memory here?" she asked the air.

Ezkhar, following a few steps behind her, nodded without looking back.

"Not just any memory. This is one of the original ones. It was sealed when the first Keepers began to split."

"Was it sealed... or hidden?"

The old man smiled from the right corner of his lips.

"Sometimes, hiding is a way of sealing. And other times, it's an act of cowardice."

The final crevice gaped like a mouth at the foot of the cliff. The living lamp trembled, its flame dwindling to a thin, bluish coil. Asha felt the weight of Aeolina's bracelet on her wrist. It pulsed slowly. Distrustfully.

They entered.

The cavern spiraled downward. There was no sound. Not the touch of their footsteps, not their breathing. It was as if the valley devoured any vibration. Suddenly, Asha understood why it was called the Valley of Noise: there were no sounds because everyone was trapped.

"What's down here?" she whispered.

Ezkhar didn't answer. He stopped in front of a low altar, covered in layers of hardened black ash. There were hand-drawn symbols, clumsy but ancient. One of them, carved into the rock with petrified blood, looked very similar to Aeolina's... but inverted.

"What is that?"

"The symbol of the Fractured Ward," Ezkhar said. "Those who would be neither part of the Empire nor part of the rebels. They believed that fire should have no master. That's why they were eliminated."

Asha knelt before the stone. She felt the ashes vibrate, just as they had in training. But this wasn't like before. It wasn't a single memory. It was an amalgamation, an interweaving. As if thousands of thoughts had been compressed onto a single surface.

"If you touch it," Ezkhar warned, "you won't be able to let go."

Asha didn't respond. She removed her glove. She placed her hand on the stone.

The world shattered.

It was like falling without weight. As if her body were still in the cavern, but her mind was being drawn toward a dark light that didn't illuminate, only devoured.

And then, the screams came.

Thousands.

Neither men nor women. Dissolved voices. Forgotten Keepers, martyrs to a nameless cause. They spoke in a broken language, but Asha understood with her body. She felt their pain, their betrayals, their last thoughts before being sealed.

At the center of the vision, a girl.

Small. With eyes the same color as the stilled fire. She watched the Keepers die. She didn't cry. She only held a spark in her hand. And buried it in the stone.

A seed of fire.

Asha understood: that was what the memory held. Not a fact. Not a specific memory.

But a choice.

"What did you see?" Ezkhar's voice brought her violently out of the trance.

Asha gasped. There was blood from her nose. The veins in her left arm were tinged with ash. But her mind remained clear.

"A girl planted fire," she whispered. "But not to light it... but so no one else could light it."

Ezkhar closed his eyes.

"So you saw the root."

"What is this memory?"

The old man leaned toward the altar.

"It is the choice to renounce the flame. The Fractured Keepers believed that, to end wars, they must seal the fire itself. Trust no one to use it. Not even themselves."

"And they failed?"

"No. They managed to seal it. But in doing so, they sealed themselves as well. This stone is her tomb. Her scream. Her legacy."

Asha felt the memory still trying to seep into her. Not like other times. This one didn't seek to control her. It only wanted to be remembered. Not once. Always.

"What do I do with this?"

Ezkhar sat up slowly. Her tired eyes seemed heavy with centuries of guilt.

"Contain her without merging with her. Integrate her into your web. If you can do that, the other flames will awaken more easily. If not..."

"I will be consumed."

"No. Worse. You will be neutralized. Like them."

Asha closed her eyes.

She placed her palm back on the stone. This time, she didn't try to resist. Nor did she allow herself to be carried away. She listened. The voices no longer shouted. They murmured. They whispered ancient words to her: renunciation, boundary, balance, sacrifice.

She didn't respond with words. But with fire.

Aeolina's bracelet burned briefly. The ash surrounding the stone began to crack, and a thin thread of light escaped through a crack.

The seal wasn't broken.

It opened.

Asha withdrew her hand. On his palm, a new symbol remained, etched in living ash: a spiral within a circle. The seal of the Fractured.

Ezkhar nodded solemnly.

"You've contained the root. Now you can hold the next node. But remember: every sealed memory demands space within you."

Asha looked at him. She was pale. But firm.

"I still have space."

As they left the cavern, the noise returned.

Not with sound.

With meaning.

The stones of the valley were no longer silent. They murmured their approval.

And beyond the cliff, somewhere on the continent, another flame was ignited.

As if, remembering the first sacrifice, the web of fire began, slowly, to awaken.