Snow fell again — not in a flurry, not in a storm, but in a slow, steady hush that blanketed the land like a mother's hand over a fevered brow.
The camp below the bell had grown overnight.
More than a thousand people now surrounded Frido's tower — not organized in rank or role, but gathered by belief. Makeshift tents lined the ridges. Prayer flags flapped softly in the wind. Small fires dotted the field like stars come down to rest.
Yet, despite the peace… there was a fracture.
It began with a whisper.
And like any splinter, it was hard to see at first.
---
A man named Sarin Ghal stood near the southern slope.
He had once been a messenger for the Duke of Varnath, but his lord had died early in the border war — a senseless death blamed on poor communication, though Sarin believed otherwise. He believed the war was wrong. That much aligned him with Frido.
But belief, untended, becomes brittle.
And Sarin had not come for peace.
He had come for proof.
He wanted the boy to speak.
To shout.
To break the vow and prove once and for all that silence meant nothing if it refused to scream when truth demanded it.
---
That morning, Frido stood beneath the bell, as he always did, as the sun rose.
He watched as Loras organized volunteers to distribute bread, water, and blankets.
He watched as Mirea helped children tie new ribbons to the base of the bell — each one with a name written on it. Not of the dead.
But of those they wanted to save.
One name stood out to Frido: "Tilda" — a child's scrawl, probably someone's sister, or friend, or perhaps even a pet.
Frido tied it higher than the others.
Because the smallest hopes deserved the strongest branches.
---
Sarin Ghal watched from the shadows of a tent, eyes narrow.
He whispered to a small group beside him — mostly young men, disillusioned, eager to act.
"He will not speak," Sarin said. "He waits for the crown to fall into his hands. But we need action. This is a moment. Not a monument."
One of the boys asked, "Should we confront him?"
Sarin's voice was like flint on bone.
"No. We show the others he bleeds. That will make his silence hollow."
He rose and walked toward the bell.
---
Teren saw him first.
Sarin moved calmly, smiling, as if part of the vigil.
But Teren had been a soldier too long not to feel the shift in a man's weight when he carried more than words.
He followed.
From behind, he saw the glint of the blade — not large, not for killing.
For cutting.
---
Frido didn't move as Sarin approached.
Didn't shift when the man reached out.
Didn't flinch when the blade was drawn.
Only when the steel touched the side of his arm — a clean, symbolic gash — did Frido react.
He stepped back.
Held the wound.
Blood welled up in red against pale skin.
Gasps echoed through the field.
Someone screamed.
Children cried.
Guards ran.
Teren tackled Sarin to the ground with enough force to break a rib.
Loras came running moments later, sword drawn.
But Frido raised a hand.
He stepped forward.
Still bleeding.
And knelt beside Sarin.
The man spat. "What—what is this? Pity?"
Frido shook his head slowly.
Then dipped his finger in the blood.
And wrote on the ground beside them:
> "If I scream, you win.
If I strike, you prove nothing.
But if I forgive… you will never forget me."
Sarin's face twisted — rage, shame, fear.
All of it.
He was dragged away, not by Frido's command, but by the weight of his own actions.
No one clapped.
No one cheered.
Because the silence afterward was sacred.
---
Later, in the healing tent, Mirea stitched the wound with trembling hands.
"You could've died," she whispered.
Frido shook his head.
She looked at him. "Why do you keep doing this?"
He wrote:
> "Because if I don't… someone else will die in my place."
Her hands stopped stitching.
Then rested on his.
"You've carried too much, Frido. Let us carry some of it now."
He wrote nothing.
But leaned his forehead gently against hers.
And stayed there, breathing slowly, like a tree refusing to fall.
---
That night, a small boy climbed the bell tower.
No one noticed him at first.
He had no shoes. Just frost-bitten feet and a bundle under his arm.
When he reached the top, he looked out at the camp below.
Then opened the bundle.
Inside: a wooden flute, cracked along the stem.
He played it — off-key, fragile, but pure.
The sound floated down.
Frido looked up.
So did Mirea.
And soon the entire field went quiet again — not out of fear this time, but in awe.
Because a child had done what no army could.
He'd made silence sing.
---
Far beyond the hills, Kirin Vane sat by the fire once more.
A raven landed on his shoulder, carrying a message.
The failed cut. The blood. The vow upheld.
Kirin did not smile.
But he whispered, "Then it's time."
He turned to his men.
"Tomorrow, we end this."
And in the distance, thunder rolled — not from the sky.
But from the march of a silence that was about to be shattered.
---
End of Chapter 51