Silence lingered.
Not as aftermath, but as atmosphere.
It did not retreat after the awakening. It rooted itself in the boy's shadow, threaded through his breath, settled into the marrow of his bones. He could walk, but where he moved, sound unraveled. He could speak, or attempt to, but the shape of his voice had changed. It no longer traveled through air like a thing of vibration. It bled into the world like ink into water, muting everything it touched.
The chamber of confession had been evacuated. What Choir members remained were recovering, though several would not. One had clawed their own tongue out in an effort to make noise. Another sat in a corner, repeating a name that no one remembered. The ritual was never meant to survive success. It had been performed before, yes, in fragments, in failings. But never to completion. Never with someone willing to say what the world could not hold.
And now it held him.
Ashur had returned, but not to guide. He stood at the threshold of the ruined chamber, gaze wary, arms crossed, lips set into the permanent line of one who had witnessed too many outcomes and trusted none of them. He said nothing. Not out of respect, but uncertainty. The boy, no, the Proxy, was no longer someone who could be spoken to easily.
The Proxy stood in the center of the circle, one hand outstretched. Around his fingers, threads of air shimmered, catching light that had no source. They looked like strands of silk suspended in liquid, twisting, not at his command, but in rhythm with something inside him. He could feel them now. Not sights. Not sounds. Not smells.
Presences.
Threads of memory. Forgotten names. Statements that had never been said.
The room around him had changed not because the ritual had altered the architecture, but because he could now perceive what had always been there. Unspoken things left behind by others. Regrets that had never found voice. Abandoned truths that clung like orphaned echoes to the walls.
And now they whispered to him.
Not in language. In pressure.
He stepped forward, and the room stilled further. The candles no longer flickered. Even the soft rustle of cloth and breath from the remaining Choir had vanished. His proximity ate it. Not like a monster. Not with malice. Simply by being.
Ashur approached, finally, slow.
"You can't stay here," he said.
The Proxy turned.
His eyes were darker now. Not in hue, but in depth. They didn't reflect light. They received it and refused to return it.
Ashur took another step, then stopped.
"I mean it," he said, and this time there was something beneath the tone. Not command. Not concern.
Fear.
"You're starting to... affect things."
The Proxy didn't answer.
His lips parted slightly, but no sound came. Ashur flinched anyway.
"I'm not your enemy," Ashur continued. "But this isn't sustainable. They'll come. The Wardens. The others. You won't be able to hide what you've done."
The Proxy tilted his head.
What he'd done.
He tried to speak.
He wanted to say, I didn't want this.
But the moment his throat moved, the nearest candle extinguished. Ashur winced again, as if struck by a thought too sudden to protect against.
"Enough," Ashur whispered, and looked away.
The Proxy lowered his hand.
There was a thread there. Floating. Tethered to nothing. A single strand of forgotten memory, still warm.
He reached toward it.
And it touched back.
Not physically. Not like a force. Like a recognition. As if the memory, whatever voice it had once belonged to, knew him. Had been waiting.
The world around him fell away.
He was still standing. Still present. But his senses collapsed inward. No sight. No sound. Just memory pouring into him like black oil down a narrow channel.
A child. Not him.
Sitting at the edge of a river, watching the reflection of a face they didn't recognize.
A voice whispering behind them. Don't turn around. If you turn, it will remember you.
The child did not turn.
The scene dissolved.
The Proxy gasped, or tried to. Even his own breath made no sound.
Ashur stepped forward again, slowly.
"What did you see?"
The Proxy did not answer.
Ashur rubbed his face. "You need to regain control. Anchor yourself. That thread... was a leftover echo. One of the Unspoken. They're fragments, not memories. Dangerous when touched too deeply."
The Proxy tried to nod, but even that motion felt slow, heavy. The silence in him was growing, not just as a power but as a presence. It was beginning to assert itself as identity. He was forgetting how it felt to speak. To listen. To anticipate sound.
Ashur pulled something from his coat, a small vial of brine, pale blue, sealed with black thread.
"This'll keep you tethered," he said. "Memory anchoring. Just a few drops. Let it settle behind the tongue."
The Proxy did not move.
Ashur stepped closer. Held the vial forward.
"I know you don't trust me," he said. "I wouldn't either. But if you lose yourself now, the Choir won't be the only ones affected. You'll take parts of the Realms with you."
The Proxy reached out.
His fingers passed near Ashur's.
But before contact, the air stuttered.
Ashur blinked, and for a moment, looked past the Proxy as if he wasn't there.
As if he had already been forgotten.
Then the recognition returned.
Ashur stumbled back, breath caught.
"You're... Fading," he said.
The Proxy looked down at his hands.
They were still solid.
But not consistent.
Around the edges of his form, there was blur. Not shadow. Not glow. Blur, like memory becoming unsure of what it was remembering.
The Truth of Silence had not just given him power.
It had begun to erase his presence from the world.
And the Proxy understood, in that moment, what the feather in his mouth had whispered weeks ago.
You are no longer someone to be heard.