The memory of Kael was a shield, but it was also a weight. Lyssa carried it now not as a private grief, but as a weapon, and the responsibility made her shoulders ache. For three days, they had moved like ghosts through the blighted outskirts of Stillwater. The land itself was a patient, telling them everything they needed to know. Farmsteads stood empty, not ransacked, but neatly abandoned, tools put away, doors left open as if the occupants had simply stepped out for a moment and forgotten to return. Fields were overgrown with a uniform, grey-green weed that seemed to absorb sound. The air grew heavier, the psychic hum of the Gentle Dark a constant, low-grade pressure against the mind, a stark contrast to the violent silence of the Tolling Bell.
They crested a final, wooded rise, and Stillwater lay before them.
The city was built on the shores of a vast, namesake lake, its waters usually a vibrant blue. Now, the lake was a sheet of dull, leaden grey, perfectly still, reflecting a sky that seemed bleached of color. The city walls of dark stone were intact, the gates open. No guards walked the parapets. No smoke rose from the countless chimneys. No sound traveled the distance to their hiding place. It was a city of the dead, but without the stench of decay. It was clean, orderly, and utterly silent.
"The heart of the silence," Kaelen murmured, his voice hushed with a kind of reverent horror. "Gods. It's worse than I imagined."
"It is not a heart," Arden corrected, his eclipsed eyes fixed on the city. His hand rested on the hilt of Dawnbringer, but he did not draw it. Here, in the very throat of the enemy, its light would be a screaming beacon. "It is a mouth. And it is waiting to be fed."
Lyssa pointed a trembling finger towards the main gate. "Look."
A line of people, perhaps two dozen, was shuffling slowly and orderly through the open gates. They moved with a placid, unhurried gait, their heads bowed. They were not being forced. They were arriving. Pilgrims, coming to take the Quietude.
"Feeding it," Kaelen said, the disgust clear in his voice.
"We go in with them," Arden stated. It was not a suggestion.
Kaelen looked at him, aghast. "Through the front gate? Arden, they will know you the moment you step inside."
"Will they?" Arden turned his gaze from the city to the Captain. "They see me as a concept. A legend of noise and conflict. They do not look for a man covered in road dust, his power banked to an ember." He gestured to the line of pilgrims. "We will walk as they walk. We will be still, as they are still. We will not fight the current. We will let it carry us in."
It was a terrifying plan. It required a surrender of will, a mimicry of the very state they had come to destroy. But looking at the impenetrable silence of the city, the utter lack of any other point of entry, Lyssa knew it was the only way.
They left the horses tethered in a secluded copse, a silent promise to return. They shed any outward sign of aggression. Kaelen hid his ruined sword beneath his cloak. Arden wrapped Dawnbringer in a coarse, grey blanket, turning the legendary blade into a shapeless burden. Then, they joined the end of the line.
The silence was a physical presence. It pressed in on their ears, a weight that made it hard to breathe. The pilgrims around them did not speak, did not look at each other. Their faces were smooth, their eyes downcast. There was no anxiety, no anticipation. Only a profound, empty peace.
Lyssa fought to keep her own face neutral, to keep her steps slow and measured. Inside, she was screaming. She focused on the memory of her brother's laugh, holding it in her mind like a secret flame. She saw Kaelen's jaw clenched so tight a muscle twitched in his cheek. He was a man of action, and this passive infiltration was a special kind of torture.
Arden was different. He seemed to fold into the silence, his own immense presence shrinking until he was just another weary traveler. His breathing slowed to match the rhythm of the pilgrims. His gaze, when she dared a glance, was not defiant, but observant, absorbing every detail.
They passed through the massive, open gate. The shadow of the archway fell over them, and the temperature dropped sharply. The air inside the city was cold and dry, like that of a deep cave.
The street beyond was immaculate. Cobblestones swept clean. Windows shuttered. No refuse, no stray animals, no children's toys left in the street. It was a city preserved in amber. People moved along the streets, but they moved like parts of a slow, silent machine. Their footsteps made no sound. Their faces were all variations on the same theme of serene vacancy.
They had taken only a dozen steps into the city when a woman stepped out from the shadow of a nearby building.
She was the one. The pilgrim from the spire. Her hood was down now, revealing a face of serene, ageless beauty, framed by hair the color of polished ash. Her eyes were the same light-eating blackness as the Shrouds, windows to the void she served. She held a new carving in her hands—a small, perfect replica of the Stillwater gate.
She did not look at Kaelen or Lyssa. Her entire attention was fixed on Arden.
She smiled. It was not a threatening smile. It was a smile of welcome, of profound understanding.
"Warden," she said, her voice a whisper that seemed to originate inside their own skulls. It was smooth, gentle, and utterly chilling. "You have come. We felt your approach. The great, discordant note, drawing nearer."
She took a step closer, her gaze sweeping over the wrapped form of Dawnbringer.
"You have brought your noise with you," she observed. "You cling to it still. But you are here. That is the first, and most important, step."
She extended a hand, not in a gesture of attack, but of invitation, towards the silent, waiting city.
"Welcome," the Speaker said, her void-eyes holding Arden's. "Welcome to the peace you have always fought against. Let us show you what you have been missing."