They had left Stillwater two days ago.
Yet none of them had spoken since.
Not really.
Words hung too heavily now, like cloaks soaked in sorrow. Every glance toward the horizon was a silent question: Is peace even possible anymore? But no one dared to voice it.
Even Frido's usual clumsy optimism had grown quieter, as if Stillwater had taught him a new kind of reverence.
One where even hope had to whisper.
---
Mirea's Shadow
Mirea walked a little behind the others.
She wasn't avoiding them.
She was listening.
There was a song in the wind—not one she knew, but one she felt. A slow, mournful tune that seemed to call her by name, threading itself into the cracks of her memories.
She had started dreaming of the well.
Of the weeping.
Of Frido falling.
She always woke before he hit the bottom.
But her hands trembled for hours after.
---
The Forest of Memory
They reached the forest late in the afternoon.
It had no name on the map, but the signpost at its edge read:
"To walk these woods is to meet what you've buried."
Teren paused at the sign. "We can go around."
"No," Frido said, stepping forward. "We go through."
Teren gave him a long look but said nothing.
They entered single file. The trees were tall and close, their branches intertwined like fingers refusing to let go.
The deeper they went, the quieter everything became.
No birds. No rustle.
Just breath and heartbeat.
---
Visions in the Leaves
It began with flickers.
Out of the corner of his eye, Frido saw his mother, standing by the well behind their house, humming. When he turned, there was only a tree.
Then came his brother, laughing with a bucket of water on his shoulder.
Then his father, silent, disapproving.
All gone.
All dead.
But here.
Somehow.
---
Mirea's Memory
Mirea saw a door.
Her father stood behind it, drunk and swaying. He hadn't seen her since she left. Hadn't tried.
Then the door opened.
And behind him stood Frido.
Smiling like an idiot.
She wanted to reach out.
But the vision vanished.
Leaves fell in its place.
---
Teren's Silence
Teren said nothing for hours.
But when they camped that night, he stood facing away from them, gripping a tree until his knuckles turned white.
Frido approached him gently.
"I saw her," Teren said.
"Who?"
"My sister. The day she was taken."
Frido said nothing.
Teren turned. "This forest remembers. Even what we don't."
---
The Stone Speaks
That night, Frido sat alone, holding Ada's stone again.
But this time, it was warm.
It pulsed.
And when he looked down, words were etched into its surface—words that hadn't been there before.
"Where names fade, silence listens."
He didn't understand it.
But he felt it.
The war wasn't just between people.
It was between remembrance and forgetting.
Between history and erasure.
---
A Fire That Didn't Burn
They tried to light a fire.
It refused to catch.
Mirea frowned. "The air here doesn't want warmth."
Teren muttered, "Or truth."
So they huddled together, sharing blankets instead.
That night, no one dreamed.
The forest would not allow it.
---
The Stone Tree
By morning, they found it.
A massive tree, its trunk gray and shining like stone, stood in the forest's heart.
Carved into its bark were hundreds of names.
Some in the common tongue.
Some in forgotten scripts.
Frido touched one.
His hand burned.
Then he saw a memory—not his, but someone else's. A soldier, dying on a battlefield. Whispering his wife's name.
And then—silence.
The name on the tree glowed.
---
The Truth of the Forest
Mirea understood first.
"This forest doesn't just remember," she said softly. "It stores names. Stories. Final thoughts."
Teren added, "It's a graveyard made of memory."
Frido asked, "Then why are we here?"
The wind answered.
A single word etched itself into the stone tree, glowing freshly:
"Frido."
He stepped back.
"What does that mean?" he whispered.
Mirea swallowed. "You're part of this story now."
Teren grunted. "No. He's becoming the story."
---
A Choice Ahead
As they left the forest, Frido carried the stone tighter than ever.
He hadn't told the others yet.
But when he touched the tree, he had heard a voice.
It was not his.
It was a future voice.
Older.
Broken.
Whispering one final truth:
"Your silence will end the war. But it will also end you."
---
[End of Chapter 17]