Mysterious Tension
The walls of Eins were clouded with moody fogs like breath on soft glass, the city actually had beautiful, glowing towers, mirrored streets, and banners fixed with runes that bloomed in broad daylight.
But here comes Uzo, who entered it under the gray skies, where every sound seemed to vibrate for too long...
When Uzo reached the gate, two scribes from the House of Judgment waited behind a carved oak table.
Their inkpots smoked slightly, with runes glowing in the fumes.
Each traveler stopped before them, and they were mandated to speak a name; in return, they received a stamped pass as entry into the city.
The air itself had seemed to hum approval when a name was written or spoken.
But when it was Uzo's turn, the sudden silence, which seemed like the hum of the wind, died!!.
"Your name?" One scribe asked, not looking up.
When Uzo tried to speak. His lips moved, but there was no sound at all.
Not silence, but something emptier and deeper than silence.
The scribe, in anger, frowned, "You bastard, don't waste my time!!, tapping the quill against the parchment. "Speak you bastard traveler."
Then he opened his mouth again and again and again and again to speak his name. Despair and brokenness hit him again.
The air swirled as if waiting for a name that never came. The quill's tip darkened, ink turning to soot. The parchment curled at the edges.
The other scribe hissed, "Ahh, I've never seen a bastard like you with no name." He laughed at him to scorn.
A pause stretched too long. The first scribe forced a shaky laugh, pretending calm. "Move along, you bastard nameless. The walls don't like what they can't list."
He stamped Uzo's pass with a hollow symbol an empty circle that bled slightly like ink remembering pain.
Uzo walked through the gate. Behind him, one of the scribes whispered a prayer, and the inkpot sealed itself shut.
The streets of Eins as usual felt alive. Runes pulsed beneath every cobblestone, glowing softly when someone stepped on them.
Names spoken faintly from the signs of bakeries and taverns, greeting their owners in warm tones. The very language of the city seemed to hum with identity.
But not for him.
Uzo's boots made no sound, the runes under his feet stayed dim, and never lit itself
A boy ran past holding an enchanted wooden bird that repeated names when spoken to part toy, part charm.
The boy giggled as the bird chirped, "Toma, Toma," then bumped into Uzo's leg. The bird froze mid-word, clocks ticking. Uzo bent down to pick the boy up
"Say mine," he said softly.
The toy's beak clicked once, twice, thrice then snapped shut. A thick hairline crack split down its middle, the child stared at Uzo, extremely frightened, and fled without the toy.
He stood there for a while, holding the broken thing. Rain started to fall, the fine kind that doesn't sound like rain at all just a hiss in the distance.
When he dropped the bird, it didn't bounce nor show signs of being active. It simply stopped existing as if swallowed by the street. Tears rolled down from Uzo eyes.
By dusk, he found himself wandering the lower districts. The fog had thickened again, heavy with the scent of copper and wet parchment.
A narrow alley opened into a hidden market lit by candles that burned with letters inside their flames.
"The Disappearing Market."
It smelled of salt and old secrets. Traders sold trinkets shaped like words, rings inscribed with oaths, vials that held worded apologies, and scrolls sealed with lost names. Above them hung an old rusted banner that
read: "All debts can be spoken away."
Uzo stopped at a stall tended by a woman whose face was half hidden behind a gray veil. Her voice was quiet but clear, like a winter waterfall.
"Looking to buy or sell?" she asked.
He hesitated. "A name."
That made her pause. "Whose?"
"Mine."
The woman tilted her head, studying him. Then she reached beneath the counter with pity and laid out several scrolls. The runes on their surfaces bloomed faintly, half-alive.
"Borrowed syllables," she said. Worn by liars, spies, and those who owe too many debts. They fit the tongue for a time."
He picked one up. The letters blurred immediately, then faded, the parchment went pale as bone.
The woman's tone changed. "Strange," she whispered. "Even lies can't hold you."
He dropped the scroll. "What does that mean?"
"It means," she said softly, leaning closer, "you've been forgotten by the Word, you're a lost cause. The world writes, but it skips your line."
Her candle splashed, the letter in its flame flickered, almost forming a word. Then she pulled the flame away from him, her hand trembling. Trembling, "you don't belong to this speech. Get out now!"
He stepped back without argument. Her fear was more honest than any warning.
Outside the market, the fog had already turned silver under the moonlight a crow sat on the milestone beside the road, its feathers slick from the drizzle. When he came close, it cawed thrice and dropped something; a wax seal, black as tar, engraved with a broken rune:
"a single missing letter."
He crouched, picking it up. The symbol pulsed faintly against his palm, warm, not a name, not yet. But something.
He tucked it into his coat and looked back toward the sleeping city. Eins glowed faintly through the mist, like a page half-remembered.
Lanterns murmured soft names to the night hundreds of them each one a heartbeat in the rhythm of a world built on words.
None of them ever spoke of him.
For a long time, he listened to the silence that answered him back. It wasn't empty anymore. It was… waiting.
In a kingdom where every word was a debt, Uzo Melbourne walked nameless owed by no one, and feared by everything that could speak.