The seam opened into a narrow stair that spiraled down. Seren pressed her palm to the wall, feeling the chill. Each step carried the sound of her boots away like a secret being stolen.
The Quiet Rooms lived up to their name. No torches. No chains. Just still air and walls that seemed to swallow every noise.
She pulled out her scraps. Pencil steady. Her hand moved:Trial begins. Rule unknown. Stay alert.
The system didn't whisper for her. It never had. Where Kael saw letters in his head and Riven felt burdens crawl his skin, Seren had only the silence. She built her own system with scraps, folding rules out of patterns.
At the bottom, the corridor opened into a low hall. Shelves of stone lined the walls, stacked with brittle papers and broken slats. Each sheet had been carved with names. Most were half-erased, as if silence had chewed them.
A figure stood among them — a thin woman wrapped in gray cloth, eyes pale as chalk. She turned when Seren entered. Her lips didn't move, but her hands did: slow signs, deliberate.
Seren signed back, halting but clear: You are… keeper?
The woman nodded once. Her fingers drew a shape in the air — a bell. Then she pointed at Seren's throat, and her lips moved without sound: Silent one.
Seren's pencil scratched fast: Yes. I write what I cannot say. I came to learn what the bells mean.
The keeper gestured to the shelves. Dozens of cracked papers stirred as if by breath. Words written there glowed faint for a moment. Seren stepped closer, eyes narrowing. She copied quickly:
Bell = Demand. Each toll marks a choice. Silence is payment. Noise is debt.
Her pulse quickened. She flipped to a fresh scrap. Then the Warden of Silence… it collects those debts?
The keeper nodded, slow. She reached into her robe and pulled free a small scrap of her own — a sliver of stone etched with three lines. She pressed it into Seren's hand.
The lines flared once. Seren's ears rang though no sound touched them. For a heartbeat, she thought she heard voices — her own, Kael's rasp, Riven's laugh — then the silence closed again.
The system flickered faint in her skull. Not words. Just a feeling. She wrote it down anyway:
Effect: Echo record received. Use = one silence repaid.
Her hand shook. For the first time, she'd been given something close to Kael's "messages." Not clear text. But a glimpse.
She looked up to thank the keeper, but the woman was gone. The shelves stood still, their papers dull.
Seren tucked the stone sliver into her pouch. She wrote one last note: I will return. I will not let silence own us.
When she climbed the stair, she thought of Kael's burning throat and Riven's shadow-clogged steps. They all carried marks. But now she carried something too — a counterweight.
At the top, the seam sealed. The Quiet Rooms kept their silence.
From somewhere deep in the Labyrinth, a sound pressed faint through the stone.
BOOOONG.
Seren wrote it down, neat and sharp: The bells always count.