CHAPTER 1567: STORY 1567: THE SILENCE BETWEEN

The battlefield quivered with the jagged storm the survivors had forged. Their broken rhythm cracked through ash and echo alike, leaving the fissure writhing. For a breath, victory seemed possible.

Kael lifted his blade high, its glow guttering but proud. The scarred woman leaned into her spear, blood trickling down her arm yet her eyes still aflame. The widow’s voice wavered but held, each uneven note a cut against the dark.

The boy’s glow steadied in Elara’s embrace, no longer dimming—his fractured chant aligning with the survivors’ scar-born discord.

But then the fissure stilled.

The ash froze mid-quiver, the echoes halted mid-motion, as though time itself held its breath. Into that stillness seeped not a counterbeat, not a mimic, but something deeper.

Silence.

A silence so profound it swallowed even the sound of their own hearts. The widow’s voice cut off mid-scream, her mouth still open. The farmer’s fists pounded his chest in mute futility. Sparks flew from Kael’s blade without a sound.

Even the boy’s chant vanished, torn from the air. His glow flickered wildly, starved of breath and song.

Elara’s throat worked, straining for voice, but nothing came. Tears slid silently down her cheeks as she clutched her son tighter.

The Unborn’s voice did not come as sound but as pressure, an invasion pressing directly into their thoughts:

“You bleed discord. You strike chaos. But even chaos exists in sound. And sound is mine to erase.”

Kael’s knees buckled under the weight of the silence. Without rhythm, without roar, what was left? He struck his blade against the ground again and again, sparks flaring noiselessly. The lack of sound was worse than pain.

The scarred woman screamed, her face contorted, but silence devoured even that. Her spear crashed into the earth, shattering stone in silence. She staggered back, shaking her head wildly, desperate to hear anything.

The farmer clutched his ears as though silence itself was a roar within them. He mouthed words, prayers, curses—none reached beyond his lips.

The boy convulsed violently, his glow unraveling. The lattice of light fractured, flickering like a candle about to snuff out. His rhythm, once jagged and defiant, was smothered into nothingness.

Elara pressed her forehead to his, her lips moving though no sound escaped. “Stay with me,” she willed silently. “Stay.”

Kael’s vision swam. The silence wasn’t emptiness—it was consumption. It devoured sound, voice, rhythm, memory. He could feel it clawing into his thoughts, pulling away not just their beats but their scars, their selves.

And then—faint, fragile, nearly broken—came a sound.

A sob.

Elara’s tear struck her son’s cheek, and the boy gasped. The sound was barely more than breath, but it cracked the silence.

Kael seized it, slamming his blade down in ragged echo, imagining the sound that should be. The scarred woman followed, striking as though her spear’s silence was itself defiance. The farmer pounded his chest harder, refusing erasure.

And for the first time, silence trembled.

The fissure hissed in fury, its pressure splintering. “Even silence, you profane?”

Kael rose again, bloodied but unbroken. His voice came hoarse, cracked—but it was voice. “We profane everything you touch. Even silence bleeds when we scar it.”

The battlefield shook. The silence fractured.

For now, sound returned.