The boy woke to silence
not the stillness of dawn or the hush of empty corridors, but a silence that pressed against the skill, think and smothering. No bird sound from the belfry. No wind sneaking through broken shutters. Even his own breath seemed swallowed, as thought the air itself refuse to carry sound.
His hand clenched. The shard was still there, tucked beneath the ragged folds of his blanker. Its ember glow had faded to a faint throb, like a heartbeat buried in stone.
He tried to push it away, to shove it under the straw pallet, to fling it out into the night—but his arm froze each time, shaking violently, and his chest seized with hunger so sharp it made him gag. Only when his hand returned to cover the shard did the pain ease.
The relic had not chosen to leave him.
It had decided to stay.
The priest noticed nothing at first.
"Another night under the Lord's gaze," he muttered, fastening his robe with weary fingers. He moved stiffly, like a marionette held together by duty. The boy nodded, silent. His lips felt sewn shut, but the priest seemed not to see it.
When the morning bells rang, their iron clamor did not reach the boy's ears. He saw the rope tugged, saw the tower shake, but heard nothing. The silence clung only to him.
At breakfast, one of the older orphans scowled."Why're you staring at me like that?"
The boy hadn't realized he was. He hadn't realized his eyes were fixed on the boy's throat, watching the lump of bread slide down as if it were a sacred ritual. Hunger prickled—not for food, but something deeper, blacker.
He lowered his gaze and forced his hands to grip the wooden spoon, not the shard beneath his shirt.
That night, he dreamed.
The corpses of heaven floated above a barren plain. Their mouths hung open, rivers of starlight dripping from their teeth. One turned its skull toward him, eye sockets deep and endless, and a voice hollow as the grave whispered:
Bearer.
The boy awoke with his nails digging into his chest, the shard glowing faintly beneath his skin.
And still—silence.
Only silence.