The mountain never truly slept. Even when the stars dimmed and the upper air thinned into silence, the Sanctum breathed — faint sighs through its hollow spires, the echo of runes awakening and fading in the dark.
A week had passed since the ash first stilled.
A week since Alatar's world had trembled with something other.
Now, the stillness was unbearable.
He had wandered the inner sanctum's rings in measured calm, though his mind refused to rest. Every corridor shimmered faintly with condensed starlight; every carved arch hummed with the memory of those who once walked here. The halls were enormous, cathedral-like, veined with quiet channels of flowing ash. Each step he took disturbed centuries of undisturbed air.
> "The ash remembers," he murmured to himself, fingers brushing against the dark motes that followed him.
"Then perhaps it remembers what I cannot see."
Somewhere beyond the central gallery, a voice rose — deep and resonant, carrying warmth like embers in cold wind.
"…and I told them the light of a dying star is not tragedy, but translation. They didn't believe me, of course."
The voice was followed by laughter.
A sound impossibly alive amid the Sanctum's solemn vastness.
Alatar froze. His third eye opened slightly — not in defense, but recognition. The timbre of that laughter struck something ancient in the air, something Barachasian.
He followed it.
The great hall curved into a vaulted chamber, where a single lantern of crystalline light swayed gently. Barachas sat by its glow, a figure of still dignity and quiet mirth. Beside him stood a man unlike any Alatar had ever seen.
Silver dust shimmered along the stranger's skin — not as decoration, but as movement. His eyes shifted like constellations caught in a living current, every glance hinting at galaxies unseen. His robe was simple yet infinite, drinking starlight as if it were breath. He spoke mid-laugh, his voice light, melodic, human in the way ancient things sometimes weren't.
> "You do look less terrifying when you smile, Barachas. For a moment, I thought you'd finally turned to stone."
Barachas's deep voice rumbled in reply, equal parts warmth and patience.
> "And you, Silas Thorne, still speak like every word is a lantern begging to be lit."
The stranger turned, sensing Alatar before seeing him. His eyes — vast, glimmering constellations in motion — regarded him not as one might regard a guest, but a curiosity freshly born from mystery.
> "Ah. You must be the one the Sanctum hums about."
Alatar inclined his head, gaze unwavering.
> "The Sanctum hums of me?"
> "Oh, quite incessantly," Silas said, stepping forward with a lightness that defied gravity. "Every wall seems to listen differently now. A tremor of thought, perhaps? Or maybe…"
He squinted theatrically.
"…a new eye opened where none should exist?"
Barachas's glance silenced him gently.
> "Silas. This is Alatar — the bearer of the Eye of Elarion."
Silas's expression flickered between curiosity and reverence, then settled into a grin that carried both awe and affection.
> "Elarion… Elarion. Even the whisper of that name is older than the libraries I've built."
He extended a hand, and Alatar took it — the contact brief, but charged with a strange harmony. The ash stirred faintly between them, rising in minute spirals before settling again.
> "You are… warm," Silas observed, eyes gleaming.
"Strange. I expected the touch of someone who speaks with time to feel… colder."
Alatar almost smiled.
> "Warmth is a habit I haven't yet discarded."
Barachas chuckled softly, folding his arms.
> "Silas and I were old companions, long before the Malakors left this mountain to silence. He builds his sanctum among stars now — a scholar of dying light."
> "The Whispering Expanse," Silas corrected with mock pride. "Where the final breaths of suns turn to sound. I came because… well, something moved. Something vast and wordless. I felt it ripple through the vacuum, as if the cosmos had blinked and remembered an old sorrow."
His tone softened, the humor dimming.
> "I traced the resonance here. And found my old friend very much alive."
Barachas's gaze met Alatar's.
> "It seems what stirred was not only felt by us."
Silas shrugged lightly, though his eyes betrayed unease.
> "It may be nothing. A cosmic hiccup, as my students might say. But it felt… like an invitation."
The three stood in thoughtful quiet.
Outside, faint thunder rolled among the clouds that cloaked the mountain's peak.
The air smelled faintly of ash and ozone — a world caught between waking and remembrance.
Silas finally broke the silence with a grin.
> "Still, it's good to find company again. Stars grow tiresome, and their last words are mostly complaints."
Barachas laughed.
Alatar merely watched, the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth.
In that small, flickering light — amid the forgotten grandeur of the Sanctum — something ancient stirred once more, unseen but palpable.
The disturbance had crossed more than one boundary; it had summoned memory, friendship, and curiosity into the same breath.
And for the first time in decades, Alatar felt the pull of the world beyond the walls —
not as a threat, but as a call.
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