The disturbance happened at dusk.
Training bells rang—but no sound followed.
The bells moved.
The clappers struck.
Nothing echoed.
Disciples froze.
Elders appeared one by one, expressions darkening as they felt the air.
Vale stood very still.
He felt it too.
A frequency out of alignment—not loud, not destructive. Simply wrong.
At the far edge of the grounds, the Windless Child stood barefoot on stone.
Around him, the air folded inward.
No sound escaped.
Elder Rin arrived beside Vale. "So," he murmured, "the anomaly reveals itself."
Vale whispered, "He didn't do this on purpose."
Rin's eyes narrowed. "Intent does not matter to the Covenant."
Across the courtyard, senior elders began forming diagnostic arrays.
Sound rushed toward the child—
—and vanished.
Vale felt his Aether Ring tighten instinctively, resonating against the distortion.
For the first time, his resonance responded on its own.
Rin exhaled slowly. "Now you see," he said. "Why they fear what doesn't echo."
Vale watched the Windless Child stand alone in the quiet.
And understood:
This arc was no longer about learning sound.
It was about surviving silence.