Chapter 3 : The Lesson of Silence
Moonlight seeped through the barred skylight, casting a frail shimmer of dust in a silent waltz within the Observation Class's suffocating hush. The air was dense, heavy with the grief of souls long discarded, their Echo Remnants extinguished by the System's relentless grip. Liora's question fell like a pebble into a still pond, its ripples swallowed by the void in my chest.
"What are you hiding in that void, Riven Kael?"
Her voice, sharp as fractured glass, carried a weight that pierced beyond curiosity. She knew my name—a secret carved from Velheart Sanctum's shadows, where knowledge was a blade honed for control. I held my silence, my gaze locked on hers, unraveling her presence. The defiant slant of her shoulders, the muted Seal choker at her throat, its jagged edges glinting like a scar scratched by unsteady hands—she was no outcast like me. Her silence was a dam, holding back a storm of pain and power trembling on the edge of collapse. Mine was a void, consuming all it touched, defying the System's rhythm. Our silences clashed—hers a chained tide, mine an endless abyss. The air pulsed, the room's faint runes humming softly, a shadow flickering in the corner as if the Silent Eye stirred, its unseen gaze tracing every breath.
Silence wouldn't unravel her. She wielded it with a precision I hadn't yet mastered. So, I chose words, a careful counterstrike in this quiet duel. My voice, raw and untested, scraped like broken stone against the room's oppressive stillness. "What I hide doesn't matter," I said, my words faint but edged. "What happens when that storm you've chained beneath your choker breaks free?"
Liora's coal-dark eyes held steady, but her fingers grazed the jagged Seal at her throat, a fleeting tightening that betrayed a crack in her composure. Her gaze flickered, a shadow passing through a storm, as if my question had struck a hidden fault. A bitter smile curved her lips, brief as a dying ember. "It won't break," she whispered, her voice barely stirring the dust, yet heavy with a vow forged in wounds. "I paid for that lesson in blood—a debt carved by one who defied the Silent Eye and fell, their name erased from even the shadows. Now it's your turn. They call this the Observation Class, but it's a lie. This is a cage—a vault for souls the System can't chain, not just this room but the entire Shadow Academy."
Her words cut deeper than the moonlight, hinting at truths buried beyond these walls. A rebel erased from the shadows—had Liora been their shadow, their disciple, or their betrayer? Was she an ally, a guide, or another of the System's veiled tests? My mind churned, dissecting her intent, but the answer slipped through my void like sand.
She rose, her movements fluid yet heavy, as if each step fought unseen shackles. Moonlight traced her silhouette, sharpening the frayed edges of her dark uniform and the broken Seal at her throat—a wound that refused to fade, whispering of a soul's quiet surrender to despair. The walls seemed to lean closer, their faint runes pulsing with the regrets of forgotten students, a low, mournful hum like a heartbeat trapped in stone. A pale stain marred the stone—a dried tear, etched like a scar mourning its bearer's fall. I touched it, and a cold sizzle coursed through my veins, my void surging. A vision flared: a youth, hands clawing at a shattered Seal, whispering, "Just one more time… I'll make it right." The metallic tang of his despair coated my tongue, a bitter, phantom taste. His stifled murmur echoed in my ears, heavy with defeat. Another image flickered: a girl, her scream swallowed by stone, defying the System until her Echo consumed her. Her defiance lingered, a faint spark in the dark, mirroring my own. This was no classroom—it was a crypt, a graveyard for the System's broken.
A memory stirred, sharp and unbidden: my mother, her face half-lost in shadow, whispering through a storm-swept pass: "Some doors open with silence, Riven. Find them." Had she known what I was? What cost had she paid to leave me those words? Another echo pulsed faintly in my void, unbidden—a woman's voice, not my mother's but achingly familiar, whispering, "Hold on… for me." A mother's fading hope, torn from a heart the System had crushed. The weight pressed against my chest, where a heart should have been. The System hadn't just stolen my heart—it had taken her, too, and others like her, leaving only whispers in their place. My fingers curled into a fist, a silent question forming: Would I be another scar on these walls, or something else entirely?
"These walls speak, Riven Kael," Liora said, her voice low, as if sharing a forbidden truth. "Every flawed soul cast here left their whispers, their regrets, etched into the stone. They call them Echo Remnants. What do you hear?"
Her words were a blade, testing the edge of my void. I closed my eyes, not sinking into my emptiness but reaching into the room's heavy air. The whispers from the corridor were louder here, a fractured murmur of lost souls. Despair, thick and suffocating, from one trapped for years, realizing no door would open. Obsession, a mind unraveling as it chased a broken Seal, repeating the same mistake a thousand times. And fear—not of the System, but of the self, trembling in its own shadow, dreading its own power.
"Despair," I whispered, my voice steady. "A soul crushed by captivity. Obsession—a mind lost to a shattered Seal. And fear… of one's own power, cowering in the dark."
Liora's mask cracked, her eyes flickering with a spark of raw astonishment, like lightning in a storm. "You don't just hear," she said, her voice a breath. "You dissect. Your void listens too much."
Her words stirred a faint echo of my mother's voice, but her gaze pressed harder, as if she saw something in my void I couldn't yet grasp.
"Here's your first lesson, Heartless," Liora said, her voice cold as frost, cutting through the room's weight. "Your power isn't to forge Echoes—it's to devour them. The emotions others wield are your prey. Nihira and her kind know this. They caged you here to shape you into a blade, a tool to erase their greatest mistakes."
Nihira. The name echoed from the instructors' debate, a shadow at the heart of the Shadow Academy. My mind flickered to the vision of the defiant girl, her scream silenced by the System, and the mother's fading hope, her whisper now part of my void. Were they Nihira's mistakes, or something more?
"They'll drag you to the Silent Echo Graveyard," Liora continued, her voice sharp and unyielding. "They'll demand you consume rogue Echoes, each one strengthening you. But each one will carve a stranger's pain into your soul. That's the price."
She pointed to a trembling echo in the room's corner, its pulse faint but palpable, a shimmer in the moonlight. "Don't just listen, Heartless. Reach with your void. Draw that whisper in. Silence it."
Her words were a challenge, not a command, a spark daring me to claim my power. For the first time, someone was guiding my void, not to chain it but to wield it. I closed my eyes, focusing my emptiness like a blade. I extended it toward the corner, my void an invisible hand. The fear-whisper was cold, sticky, lonely—a child's terror, fleeing their own shadow in a dark corridor. I seized it, pulling it into me. A vision surged: a child, eyes wide, running from their fractured soul, their scream swallowed by stone. The terror flooded my senses—my chest tightened, my breath caught, a phantom pulse thundered where my heart should have been. Another echo lingered, unbidden—a mother's voice, faint and desperate, "Hold on… for me." Its weight sank into my void, merging with my own loss, a scar I couldn't name. My knees buckled, the room spinning as the whisper's agony seared into me. Then, silence. My void had answered, but its silence whispered a question I couldn't face: Was I devouring their echoes, or were they devouring me? Or was the System weaving my void into its own design, a leash disguised as power?
"Do you see?" Liora asked, her tone sharp as a blade's edge. "Each echo you take steals a soul's last scream. That's the price."
Her words pressed against my chest, where a heart should have been. My mother's voice echoed: "Some doors open with silence." Was this the door she meant? Or had I opened a cage I could never escape?
Liora stepped closer, her eyes piercing my void. "Here's your final lesson, Riven Kael," she said, her voice a whisper that burned. "Own your silence. Devour their echoes on your terms, not theirs. The cost will scar your soul, and you alone will bear it."
Her words were a warning, a spark of rebellion. My path was clear: become the System's tool or carve my own truth. But what if my truth was worse than their chains?
The heavy wooden door groaned open, its soulless creak shattering the silence like glass. A figure entered—not human, but a mechanism cloaked in flesh, moving with the System's unerring precision, draped in a gray robe that drank the moonlight. In their hand, a pitch-black ledger pulsed with a soul-deep chill that devoured memory. The Shadow Registrar, Elvian Marque. The runes flared briefly, as if the Silent Eye tightened its gaze, a cold weight settling over the room, the air thickening with an unseen, biting frost that clung to my skin.
Their eyes locked onto me, dismissing Liora as if she were a shadow cast by the System's indifference. Their voice, cold and metallic, sliced the air: "Anomaly One. Your observation is over. The Head Instructor awaits."
The words hung like a sentence, a summons to a fate I could not yet see. My void stirred, whispering a question I couldn't answer: Would I find my door, or would my void become their grave?