The rain didn't cleanse the air.
It only made the silence heavier.
Kael sat beneath the hollow curve of an ancient tree, the bark slick and black with moisture. His hands trembled faintly — not from cold, but from the memory that still pulsed beneath his skin. The voice hadn't left him. It lingered like a faint vibration behind every heartbeat.
Vox stood a short distance away, his cloak weighted by water, eyes fixed on the horizon where lightning coiled between clouds. He hadn't spoken since the sealing.
When he finally did, his voice was low, almost reverent.
"Once, I thought silence was mercy. But now..." He turned slightly, gaze finding Kael. "Now I see it's hunger."
Kael looked up, eyes hollow but alert. "What was that thing, Vox? Really?"
Vox didn't answer. Instead, he knelt and drew his finger through the wet soil, tracing the sigil the Choir had used. It pulsed once — faintly, like a dying ember.
"What you saw beneath," he said, "wasn't the origin. It was the echo of something older. The Abyss remembers everything it consumes — voices, worlds, even gods. The Choir believes if the world ever truly listens to it again, it'll unmake itself."
Kael's breath fogged in the chill air. "Then why do I feel it calling me?"
"Because," Vox said quietly, "it knows your name."
The words hung between them like a wound.
⸻
The Academy – Two Weeks Later
Rain drummed on the rooftops of Ardent Spire Academy, washing dust from banners long faded by sun. Inside the vaulted halls, whispers followed one name — Kael Ardyn.
He had vanished without trace.
Some said Vox had taken him beyond the Resonant Frontier. Others claimed the boy had been consumed by the very silence he wielded. But those who had seen him fight — those who had seen his resonance bend the air itself — knew better.
Veyron sat alone in the training yard long after sunset, fists bruised and bloodied, eyes fixed on the cracked stone where Kael used to stand opposite him. The rain hit his shoulders, but he didn't move.
"He's not gone," he muttered under his breath. "He's getting stronger."
The instructors had begun to notice him — the once-overconfident student now training long past curfew, silence and discipline replacing arrogance. Every punch he threw echoed with frustration, and something else — respect.
He stared at the horizon beyond the spire walls. "Next time we meet, Kael... I'll make sure you're the one chasing."
Lightning flared. For a brief second, his reflection in the puddle below didn't match his motion — the faintest shimmer of power stirring.
⸻
Back on the Path
Kael and Vox had crossed into the northern marshlands, where the air grew thin and metallic. The trees here bent away from the wind as though afraid to listen.
Kael's silence had begun to shift — less passive, more alive. The forest sounds died where he walked, frogs and insects vanishing into stillness.
Vox watched him carefully. "Your resonance is changing. The Abyss didn't just touch you — it marked you."
Kael frowned. "Then why did the Choir save me?"
Vox hesitated. "Maybe because you're not their enemy... yet."
Before Kael could respond, the ground beneath them trembled — a pulse like the one from the chasm, but sharper, more deliberate.
Vox's expression darkened. "That wasn't the Abyss."
A sound followed — not a roar, not even a whisper, but a vibration that made the bones hum.
Kael turned toward the fog.
Shapes emerged — slow, graceful, and human only by approximation. Cloaked figures with masks not of silence, but of resonance itself. Their garments shimmered faintly, each ripple pulsing with invisible frequency.
Vox took a step forward, his tone measured but tense. "These aren't Choir."
The tallest among them tilted its head, and through the veil of mist came a voice — harmonic, distorted, layered like the echo of a thousand speakers.
"Silence touched one who should not have been born. The world shifts off its axis again."
Kael's pulse spiked. "Who are you?"
The figure smiled beneath the glass mask.
"We are what remains when sound devours itself. When the Choir falls silent, we sing what's left."
Vox's hand moved toward his weapon. "Resonants," he murmured. "Aberrant class..."
The leader's voice deepened into something ancient, almost tender. "No. Not resonants. Reverbs."
The storm split open above them — lightning flashing through clouds like veins. Kael felt his resonance stir, instinctively flaring.
The lead figure extended a hand toward him, not in attack — but invitation.
"Come, child of the Abyss. Let us hear the silence you've stolen."
And before Vox could react, the rain froze midair.
Every droplet hung suspended, gleaming like tiny mirrors.
Kael's reflection stared back at him from a thousand points of light — each one whispering his name.