When he opened his eyes again, the sky above him was no longer the same. The celestial vault was shrouded in a milky veil, as if sunlight were filtering through a membrane of liquid amber. The air was thick, almost sticky, and the smell—a mixture of iron, resin, and wet earth—clung to his lungs.
The memory of the Tree was still vivid, like a whisper etched into his eyes: the roots sinking into nothingness, the phrases spoken by mouths he had never seen, and the heartbeat. That heartbeat, deep and ancient, that seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth.
He slowly rose, his joints stiff, his skin still trembling beneath his clothes. He didn't know how long he had been there. It could have been an hour, or a century.
Around him, the landscape had changed.
The dense forest had vanished, as if swallowed by time itself. In front of him stretched a bare plateau, scattered with stones and fossilized trunks. In the distance, broken structures could be seen, ruined houses, and the twisted silhouette of what once must have been a bell tower.
An abandoned village. Or perhaps a cemetery of buried stories.
The boy descended the gentle slope that separated him from the settlement. Each step raised a grayish dust that danced in the air before settling back in silence. No wind, no sound. Only the noise of his footsteps and his own breathing.
The houses—if they could still be called that—were reduced to empty shells: flaking walls, collapsed roofs, broken doors. But there were no signs of devastation. No fire. No blood. Simply... absence. An evaporation of life.
He entered what might once have been a shop. The shelves were blackened by time, and on one of them lay a neat row of empty clay vessels. Strangely intact. As if someone had placed them there just the day before. There was something deeply wrong in that silence.
Walking through the narrow alleys, he felt the invisible weight of eyes that weren't there. Every now and then he turned quickly. Nothing. And yet... Once, he saw it.
Atop a half-destroyed roof, motionless like a statue. A hooded figure, wrapped in a cloak that seemed to absorb the light. It didn't move. Didn't follow him. But it watched.
The boy stopped, holding his breath. For a long moment, their gazes met—or so it seemed. But he couldn't make out the face under the hood.
Then, the figure vanished. Without sound. Without motion. It simply was no longer there.
The boy felt his heart pounding in his chest. Not out of fear. Out of something deeper. As if a long-forgotten gear inside him had begun to turn again.
He kept walking.
Beyond the village, on a small rise, he found a structure unlike the others: a circle of black stones, eroded but precisely arranged. In the center, a broken column. On its surface, worn carvings. Not letters, not symbols. Notes. Seven parallel lines etched into the rock, along which danced incomprehensible fragments of melody.
He placed his hand on the stone. It was warm.
A faint sound passed through his mind. Not a song. Not a voice. A loop, like a melody trapped, interrupted before its end.
He pulled away, disturbed.
The sky was shifting to darker tones. It wasn't sunset. It was something more unnatural. As if a dark veil were slowly falling over the world, swallowing colors and edges.
He retraced his steps, but something had changed. The houses, the alleys, the stones: everything seemed rotated, different. As if the village itself had moved in his absence. And then, again, that figure. Closer this time. At the edge of the street.
The boy stopped.
The figure did not speak. Did not move. But something came from it. An echo.
The boy heard a word in his mind that had never been spoken: "Are you searching?"
He didn't answer. But inside, something nodded.
The being—if it was one—slowly raised a hand and pointed toward the exit of the village. Behind it, between two rock walls, a small path carved into the earth could be seen. It looked recent.
The boy advanced toward it, but when he turned to thank... the figure was gone. Again.
He walked the path between the rocks. With each step, the temperature changed. The air became clearer. The sky opened up. And then, like a torn curtain, the horizon appeared.
A vast plain stretched out before him, golden in the low sun. In the distance, like a mirage, the silhouette of a solitary inn appeared. Wood, broken glass, a sign creaking softly.
He approached, driven by a sudden thirst. Inside, the smell was of smoke and spices. And dust, so much dust.
An old man with a white beard barely lifted his gaze from behind the counter. "Were you looking for something?" he asked, as if he had been expecting him. The boy didn't answer. He turned. Sitting in a corner, hood lowered and eyes sharp, was him.
A tall, thin man, with eyes like sharpened knives. Kaelis.
His voice was deep, tired but alert. "If you made it this far, it means the Tree spoke to you."
The boy nodded.
Kaelis rose slowly. A dusty cloak slid from his shoulders. "I was waiting for someone like you. I have a road to travel. And it seems you're searching for something too."
They looked at each other for a long moment. Then, without another word, Kaelis turned and walked out.
The boy followed him. Outside, the wind had begun to blow again. And in the sky, among gathering clouds, echoed a note that had not yet finished resonating.
As if the entire world were holding its breath.
And the silence... had deeper roots than he could ever imagine.