The battlefield lay still a graveyard of smoldering wreckage and broken cries. Where chaos had once thundered, now only silence reigned.
Not peace, but an oppressive quiet that clung to every breath, every heartbeat. It was the kind of silence that seemed alive, watching, weighing, waiting.
Sorin stood at the center, chest heaving, limbs trembling under the weight of what he had unleashed.
The echo of his power lingered in the air like a phantom scream, unheard yet felt, pressing against the minds of all who had witnessed it.
The soldiers, who had only moments ago shouted orders and clashed steel against steel, now lingered at a wary distance. Their gazes flicked toward Sorin but never lingered, as if looking too long might draw the silence into themselves.
Some gripped their weapons tighter not with courage, but with fear. Others lowered theirs altogether, bowing to something they could neither name nor resist.
"Is he… human?" one voice whispered, too soft for most ears. Sorin heard it all the same. His Silence did not only consume it revealed.
The words cut deeper than any blade. Human. The question clawed at him, echoing louder than the screams of his enemies.
He clenched his fists, unspent Silence shimmering faintly around his knuckles. It ached to spill again. It ached to devour. Forcing it back carved pain through his veins.
Every time he touched that abyss, more of himself slipped away.
Zira approached, steps measured and steady. Where others recoiled, she stood firm, though unease flickered in her eyes. Ash streaked her cheek, her blade still dripping but her gaze was fixed on him alone.
"You saved them," she said at last, her voice steady though hushed. "Whatever they whisper… you turned the tide."
Sorin looked past her to the soldiers faces pale, some wide with awe, others shadowed with dread. Their silence spoke louder than gratitude. He was no longer one of them. He was something apart.
A savior. A monster. A weapon.
None of the masks fit the boy he once was.
"Do you believe them?" His voice cracked despite his effort to harden it. "That I'm… no longer human?"
Zira's lips parted. The battlefield's smoke curled between them like a veil. She stepped closer, close enough for him to see the faint tremor in her jaw. "I don't care what you are, Sorin. I care who you are. And that…" Her fingers brushed his arm, hesitant yet firm. "That hasn't changed."
The touch was small, fleeting but steadier than steel, more grounding than Silence. His chest loosened, though the abyss whispered still.
Toven limped forward, blood soaking his side, his voice rough but unyielding. "Careful, girl. You speak like someone about to stake her life on him."
"I already did," Zira answered, eyes never leaving Sorin's.
For a heartbeat, the silence shifted not oppressive, but fragile. Almost tender. Even the soldiers hesitated, as though they had stumbled into something raw, something sacred.
Then another voice cut through the stillness.
"She's not the only one."
Sorin's head turned sharply. Lys stood at the edge of the survivors, pale but steady. Her eyes burned with the same quiet defiance she had carried in the storm. Her fingers twitched at her side, aching to reach for him, though she held back.
"You don't have to carry this alone," she whispered, her voice trembling but resolute. "Not when I'm here. Not when we're here."
The words settled heavy between them, shrinking the battlefield into something smaller, more intimate. The silence now carried a charge more dangerous than fear.
At the edges of Sorin's mind, the Silence pulsed not words, but meaning, like waves battering a fragile shore. You are not done. You are never done.
His breath hitched. For a moment, he swore he saw a figure at the far ridge cloaked in shadow, face shifting with the smoke. When he blinked, it was gone.
Yet the weight of unseen eyes lingered.
Sorin turned from the battlefield, but the silence followed. Heavy. Endless. Fractured.
And in the fracture, something waited.