Morning came without color.
The sun above the plains was a pale coin pressed against milk.
Cael walked until the fog thinned into air, and the first wind he'd felt in days cut across his face like a question.
The world outside Nadir's End looked… normal.
Grass. Road. Empty sky.
But it sounded different.
Every step he took came back to him a little late—like the world was thinking about whether to let the sound exist.
He held the page Sera had left behind. The ink was still gone, but if he tilted it just right, faint ridges caught the light. Marks of something that refused to vanish completely.
> She's not gone, he told himself. She's just misplaced.
The mark under his shirt pulsed once, answering him.
The air hummed faintly — low, uncertain, alive.
---
By dusk, he reached the outer checkpoints of Vaelith.
A long wall of glass and iron divided the city from the wastelands.
Each gate was guarded by the Order's soldiers—white masks, reflective visors, rifles like tuning forks.
The sign above the entrance read:
> Welcome to Vaelith. Purity Through Silence.
Cael almost laughed.
He'd seen silence. It didn't look pure.
---
A merchant convoy rolled past, pulling carts loaded with crates labeled AUDIT APPROVED.
He slipped between them, head down, and walked with practiced ignorance.
People here didn't look at one another—they moved like lines of code executing instructions.
At a vendor stall, a man in a green vest called out:
"Fresh copies! Perfect handwriting! No errors!"
Cael stopped. "Copies?"
The man grinned, revealing silver teeth. "We're the Scribes' Guild. We rewrite, restore, replace! Lost a memory? We'll sell you a better one."
He handed Cael a flyer.
> Authorized Memory Reinstatements — Level 2 Access Required.
The words hit like ice.
They weren't even hiding it.
In Vaelith, memory had become a product.
---
He found work that evening sweeping floors at the Echo Hall, a copyhouse that smelled of ink and control.
Rows of apprentices sat in silence, transcribing official reports about things that had never happened.
Above the hall's door, a painted motto read:
> "Truth is a noise. Order is silence."
For a week, Cael pretended.
He swept, ate, slept. He kept his eyes down.
But every night, when the bell outside rang to mark the end of curfew, he'd take out Sera's page and whisper the word that still clung to him like a scar.
> "Rememberer."
The air around him would tremble. Just faintly. Enough to prove that he wasn't crazy yet.
---
Then, on the seventh night, someone knocked at his door.
Not a polite knock. Three sharp taps — precise, deliberate.
When he opened it, a woman stood there in a black coat lined with faded script.
Her left eye was pale blue; the other, glass.
"You said it," she said quietly.
He blinked. "What?"
"The forbidden word." She stepped inside before he could answer.
"You're either very stupid, or very alive. Either way, you've got my attention."
She held out a card.
> Archivist Lioren Vale
Keeper of Forgotten Things
"Welcome to Vaelith, Rememberer."
---
End of chapter 9
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