Dawn in the Maze City seemed to have a weight of its own. After the first mutating night that nearly swallowed us whole, I expected morning to bring some sense of normality — but that didn't exist here. The streets were already different. The alley where we had rested was now a wide avenue with crooked lampposts, and the window that had once faced an abandoned hotel had turned into the door of a grocery store that had never been there before.
"Wonderful," Vespera muttered, stretching her arms. "We sleep eight hours and the street ages forty years."
Rai'kanna adjusted the blade strapped to her back. "The city changes, but not randomly. It adjusts with purpose. And I don't like that."
Liriel watched everything with eyes calculating distances, shapes, and vibrations. "There are echoes of ancient magic in the air. It's almost as if we're walking inside a conscious spell."
Elara looked at me. "Is your flame reacting?"
I nodded. It was. Since we woke up, the flame felt restless, as if something were calling to it. A thread of heat pulsed in my chest, guiding me eastward, where the street bent at impossible angles.
"The first artifact should be in that direction," Liriel said. "It's the part of the city where voices echo even without wind."
"Great," Vespera commented. "Random voices. Nothing could possibly go wrong."
We walked through streets that narrowed like throats, then opened into mirrored plazas. The buildings had details that moved whenever we looked away: windows switching places, doors rotating subtly, signs changing the names of the shops.
Lyannis walked beside me, holding her spear close to her body. "Do you feel it too, Takumi? Like… something is trying to talk to you?"
"Or trying to pull me somewhere," I replied.
When we turned a corner, we were met by a plaza whose edges folded inward like poorly cut paper. It was hard to define where the ground ended and the wall began. And at the center, there was a frozen fountain — but not frozen with ice. Frozen in time. The water seemed trapped between one moment and the next, forever on the verge of falling.
"It's here," Liriel said with absolute certainty.
"And where's the artifact?" Elara asked.
Before Liriel could answer, we heard something.
Whispers.
They weren't normal voices. They were murmurs that slipped past the ears and touched the mind. Almost-formed words, broken, yet still directed at us.
"Takumi…"
"Don't look back…"
"He sees when you see…"
Vespera lifted her hand immediately. "Okay, no one answers anything. The last thing I want is to befriend a voice that lives inside a frozen fountain."
"These whispers," Liriel said, "are not from the city. They're from the artifact."
"You think it's alive?" I asked.
"I think it's looking for someone specific."
The flame inside me pulsed. The answer was obvious.
The center of the plaza moved.
Not slowly — but as if it had decided to change shape out of whim. The very structure of the stones rippled, and the frozen water shattered like glass, revealing a small pedestal sunken into the ground. On top of it was an object resembling a metallic disc with inscriptions repeating in a spiral. It emitted a faint bluish glow that intensified as I approached.
"The Whisper Artifact," Liriel said, enchanted. "It contains memories. Fragments of thoughts left by the city's builders."
"Memories that whisper?" Lyannis asked.
"Memories that try to communicate," she completed.
When I took the first step toward the artifact, the environment reacted. The air grew denser, and the entire plaza began to rotate silently, as if its edges were rearranging themselves around me. The whispers intensified until they formed whole, yet scrambled, sentences.
"It wants you close," Rai'kanna said. "But it doesn't want us to reach you together."
And she was right. The plaza began separating us. Walls folded between us, creating narrow corridors, doors that appeared out of nowhere, and passageways that tightened with every second. Elara tried to run toward me, but a wall rose from the ground, blocking her.
"Takumi!" she called, pounding on the block. "The city is isolating you!"
Vespera tried to cut the wall with wind, with no effect. "Damn it! It doesn't want us to get close!"
"Or it wants only him to," said Liriel, her voice tense.
I followed the forced path, feeling the whispers grow more intense the closer I got to the center. Each step seemed to echo twice — once on the ground, once inside my head. The flame burned as if trying to answer the voices.
When I reached the pedestal, something happened: the city went silent.
Not normal silence. It was as if everything had been shut off: the wind, breathing, even the beating of my own heart.
The artifact lifted a few centimeters, floating. The blue light expanded and enveloped me, and for a moment I felt as if I were seeing two versions of the city at the same time: the present, ever-changing one, and an ancient, intact one, built with geometric precision.
One phrase stood out from the whispers, clear as if spoken directly into my ear:
"He watches the fire. He fears the fire."
The flame inside me responded with a strong pulse, as if recognizing something.
"Takumi!" Rai'kanna's voice pierced the barrier just as the light began to fade. "Grab the artifact and get out of there!"
I touched the object.
It stopped floating.
And the city reacted.
The walls began to move violently, trying to push me back toward the center, as if they didn't want me to leave with it. But before they could close the path, Rai'kanna forced an opening with a flaming wing strike, Elara grabbed my arm, and Vespera used wind to propel us out.
When we jumped back into the street, the plaza returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.
I held the disk. It was warm.
"You got it?" Lyannis asked.
I nodded.
But something was wrong. The artifact vibrated, as if it were conscious. And then, in a low, almost inaudible voice, it whispered only to me:
"The first echo has been awakened. Others will come."
And I knew the city had just begun its game — a game we had just stepped into.