The knock was faint.
Mokai looked up as the courier stepped just inside the doorway.
His quarters were sparse, almost ascetic. A wooden-framed bed, a rack for uniforms, one low shelf lined with books and some data crystals. No decoration. The window, always half-shuttered, let in the last grey sliver of dusk.
"Through the gate, sir," the boy said, holding out a narrow scroll. "It came earlier today, but we couldn't find you on the training grounds."
Not surprising, really. No one ever found him there anymore.
Mokai nodded and took the scroll, gesturing at the courier to dismiss him.
His training sessions with Master Lira had taken a turn weeks ago. What had started as sparring drills had become something else - elaborate exercises in observation, perception, and… flow. They spent their hours moving through back alleys, marketplaces, rooftops, even sewer passages at times, like shadows on the city's skin. The training grounds had become too obvious, too clean.
She called it "learning to walk unseen among the seen."
For Mokai, it had felt strange at first - like slipping into someone else's clothes, perhaps shedding his own skin. A long overdue shedding of skin. These skills didn't match the image he'd carried for years of what he should be. A perfect warrior fought in the open, blade to blade, unwavering and proud. Not this… this blend of stealth, silence, and manipulation.
But it had grown on him. Not just grown - transformed him. It felt rewarding. Liberating. As if he had been waiting for this kind of freedom. And it belonged to him alone.
Master Lira was different too. She was here for him, and only for him. Her teachings weren't about fitting him into some mould of virtue or strength. They were about him. About sharpening his edges, not polishing them away.
Mokai glanced down at the scroll again. The seal stared up at him with its comical dignity. "Fengyu of Solirae. Commander of Interdimensional Affairs."
Mokai snorted.
"Of course." Fengyu and his antics.
But the message was real.
He broke the seal and scanned the message.
Then, he sat on the edge of the bed, the scroll resting on his knee.
"They found it," he murmured.
He glanced around the room, but there was no one or nothing to answer.
Firme. The place they had stumbled into. And now the Temple had found it. He knew that something needed to be done. Such gates as in Firme were a dangerous thing, attracting too many forces.
Suddenly, he felt an urge to meet the life head on.
This was his opportunity.
Since their confrontation, his relations with Lord Ryosei were tense at best. Lord Ryosei did not deny anything – and that was the worse. He was determined to keep Mokai out of whatever was brewing there.
He was demoted to the background again. Perfect and still.
This could be his way forward. His way out. His way into what came next - on his own terms.
He looked at the letter again, holding up the seal.
"Handy," he muttered. "Ridiculous title, but I suppose we'll need it."
He needed Master Lira. He wanted her mind on this - her clarity and her sharpness.
He lied down on the wooden bed, staring in the growing shadows of the night. It was still some time before dawn. As the hours passed, his commitment grew more solid, he would join the mission on Firme.
Before dawn, the Garden of Echoes was quiet - its usual stillness deepened by the early hour. The stone paths, damp with night moisture, gleamed faintly under the pale sky.
Mokai arrived first.
He made his way to the fountain at the garden's centre and sat on the low stone bench. The steady trickle of water was the only sound. He didn't feel like warming up or stretching. He just wanted to sit for a moment.
She arrived a few minutes later, appearing as if out of the foliage. No rustle, no sound. She walked to the bench, gave him a nod, and sat beside him without a word.
They had come here often enough now that Mokai couldn't remember when it started. At some point, this place had simply become the place for speaking honestly. No titles. No performance.
He looked at her and finally said, "They found Firme."
Master Lira rested her hands on her knees.
"I know. And what do you want to do now?"
Mokai had gotten used to that question. It was one she asked often - quietly, consistently - almost pushing, placing the weight of the moment in his hands. Even if he wasn't the one to decide in the end, even if events inevitably would carry him elsewhere, she always made him name it – what it was, he wanted.
That was her teaching.
Even if you cannot get it, even if it's beyond your reach, you should know what it is you want. Don't drift. Don't wait for someone else to tell you where to go, what to care about, who to be.
"I want to go," he said.
She watched him quietly with the faintest nod of acknowledgment.
"I don't think I have anything to do here," he started explaining. "Not right now. Lord Ryosei, my father - he brushed me aside after everything. I know he did it out of concern. Maybe even love. But it still feel like being told to stay in the corner while the real decisions are made."
He didn't say it with bitterness, just resignation. There was no resentment left in him, only the dull ache of being sidelined.
"I thought I'd earned some respect, some consideration. After all that happened. But no one says it aloud. They all just... move on. Pretend it was nothing. That I'm just the one who is to follow orders and keep quiet. I should know my place."
He looked up at Master Lira.
"I need a change. I need to go."
"You do," she said simply. "You need something that is yours."
Mokai exhaled, the tension in his shoulders softening just slightly. It felt strange to say it aloud. Even stranger to be heard without judgment.
"I don't even know what I'll find there," he admitted. "But here… I'm starting to feel like a ghost in someone else's story."
"You're not," Lira said. "But you've outgrown the part they've written for you. That happens. It's not betrayal to leave it behind."
"And I think Lord Ryosei will allow you to go. He will even be pleased." She added.
Mokai frowned.
"Pleased?"
"Yes. It's a clean cut for him. He doesn't want you to know what's going on. You are asking too many questions. Sending you to Firme solves that."
Mokai's expression darkened. "So I'm a problem to be managed."
"You're a threat to the story he wants to keep quiet," she said calmly. "It's not personal in the way you might think. But yes, this way you'll be gone, and not sniffing around here."
Mokai looked toward the fountain, water catching the early light.
"Then I'll let him have his solution," he said. "But sooner or later I'll find out what he is hiding."
Master Lira gave a small, knowing smile. "Now that sounds like a plan, doesn't it?"
"They are already setting off. We should hurry to catch up with them." She pushed him gently. "Go, have a conversation with your father. We will meet at the gates."
The city was waking as Mokai left the Garden of Echoes.
Dawn filtered through the mist like gold through gauze. Work crews were already stirring - voices rising, hammers clinking. Scaffolding laced half the skyline. A city breathing again, although still healing.
He moved along the alleys and narrow stone paths - quiet routes, half-forgotten servant lanes – the way Master Lira drilled in him. But now it simply helped him think. The closer he got to the citadel, the heavier his steps felt.
This might be an escape on his part. He knew it.
The city needed strength. People needed coordination and structure. And here he was, brushing past all that for the promise of a far-off place, for something strange and undefined. A mission to Firme.
But Mokai also knew he wasn't just running away. He was hurting.
Lord Ryosei had shut him out. Polite barriers, shuffled duties, reassigned orders. Like smoothing dirt over a seed and pretending nothing had been planted.
He wanted to do something that mattered. Something that was his.
By the time he reached the citadel gates, the sun was fully risen. The outer guards recognized him at once and stepped aside without question.
Inside, the corridors were quieter than the streets and cooler.
He paused at the top of the narrow stair that led to Lord Ryosei's private study. A pair of guards flanked the heavy wooden door, each nodding in recognition. They didn't ask questions.
He gave a brief nod in return. One of the guards stepped aside and knocked twice, then opened the door.
Lord Ryosei stood with his back to the room, hands folded behind him, facing the window.
"You've come to report something," he said without turning.
Mokai stepped in and closed the door behind him.
"I've come to request permission."
He stopped a few paces from the desk and waited.
Lord Ryosei eventually turned. His face was expressionless, but his eyes studied Mokai carefully.
"You've decided," he said.
"Yes," Mokai answered. "I want to join the mission to Firme."
There was no reaction at first. Ryosei moved slowly to the desk and rested one hand on its edge. He didn't speak right away.
Mokai waited, unsure if he was being measured - or ignored.
Finally, Lord Ryosei said, "sit down."
He gestured to the chair across from him.
That surprised Mokai - but not as much as what came next.
"There is something you should know. Something about Firme. Something we do not talk about. We had never talked about. Not with the Temple, not with the Magic Guild. Years ago we opened a gate connection to Firme."
Mokai's breath caught.
"Wait - what?" he said. "You opened a gate to Firme?"
His mind reeled. Firme was supposed to be a long-lost world, a name in the old archives. But here it was again and again. Like a secret hiding in plain sight, refusing to stay buried.
His voice dropped lower, edged with disbelief. "You told no one?"
"That was when your grandfather still held power. He was obsessed with expansion - new realms, ancient truths. We tested sequences based on the scrolls, the old charts."
Lord Ryosei continued, his voice quiet and controlled - but there was something under it, like tension drawn taut across years.
"Once someone made a mistake. A young and overworked operator introduced the coordinates in the wrong sequence. That is how we found Firme."
"And they answered with an invitation. A structured pulse. Not a language we could translate, but unmistakably intelligent. Designed to be noticed."
Mokai stared at him, pulse rising. "You went."
Ryosei nodded once. "We did. A small team. Myself included. I wasn't a Lord then. I wasn't even a heir then. And I was young and ambitious. I thought we were stepping into history."
He exhaled.
"What happened?" Mokai asked quietly.
Lord Ryosei's voice had changed. It was softer now, coloured by memory in a way Mokai hadn't heard before.
"What we found…" He hesitated. "The landscape was exactly like you described. These red mountains. But we went much farther down in the valley. There was a path, intentionally shaped - not natural. And at the end of it, we discovered a city."
"The place was… beautiful. Not just visually. It felt clean. Purposeful. Like it had never known decay. It welcomed us. No threats. No armies."
"Their buildings were unlike anything we've built. Not tall or imposing - but like mirror mazes. And a whole district made of etched glass and memory crystals. We didn't understand half of what we were seeing."
"Everything was silent. But not dead. It was as if… the city itself was listening. And then their people arrived. They emerged from between the glass walls. They didn't speak, at least not with mouths."
There was a long pause.
"We had entered the city of the Unvoiced."
He said the name as if he was reopening an old wound.
"They had no words - not like ours. They had given up the speech entirely. Not because they couldn't, but because they had… moved beyond it. Their communication was through shared memory, resonance, and a kind of silent grace. Gestures, eye contact. But also something else."
Mokai watched him carefully.
The periods of silence stretched between them.
"They called it 'concordance.' A way of aligning minds - not fully reading thoughts, but sharing the shape of experience."
"Soon they fetched some of the Voiced. Those who speak, negotiate, and engage with outsiders. The Voiced spoke with words, but their mannerisms were peculiar and distant."
"They told us, that the Unvoiced had once been like us. Loud and divided. Always translating thoughts into speech, and never quite saying what they meant. They realized that speech wasn't enough. It was too... fragmented. Too limited. Concordance was their solution. It required generations to master. They told us it brought peace - but also a kind of… detachment."
He looked at Mokai. "They knew of us. Somehow. They said they'd watched the gate flickering for a long time. They called our first missile an 'imperfect greeting.' But they answered not with hostility - only with curiosity."
"They welcomed us. But there was something about the way they communicated, something... wrong about how we tried to understand them."
Mokai couldn't help but lean in.
"And what happened then?"
"They offered to share what they knew. They offered their knowledge and technology, but at a price. They told us we could never leave once we accepted. That we would become a part of their consciousness. The Unvoiced would be… complete with us. We could stay within the Voiced and still contact our world, but we could never leave."
"And I saw what it was. They were offering us concordance. A life without conflict, without division, but also without individuality. Without freedom. They were... blurring our thoughts, pulling us into one mind."
Mokai felt a chill. It was more than just a peaceful offer; it was an invitation to lose oneself, to be swallowed by something far larger and stranger.
"My team struggled. We were overwhelmed. But I- " Ryosei hesitated. "I felt… drawn to it. We stayed longer than we should have."
"We started to change. We weren't ourselves anymore. The voices in our minds. They were there, in the back of our thoughts, like a silent pull. I barely escaped. The others didn't. They said they did not want to return. I came back alone."
"They gave me the choice. I said no."
His eyes were distant now, not on the study's walls, not on Mokai.
"But I still hear it sometimes. That concordance. In the back of my thoughts. A silence that isn't empty."
"With your grandfather we decided never to speak about it. To anyone. We never told the Guild nor the Temple. Silenced anyone. Officially that never had happened. And we never tried to contact any unknown world again. That is too dangerous."
Mokai took in the revelation quietly. For the first time, Lord Ryosei seemed human - vulnerable, even haunted.
"And now you think Firme might be a threat?"
"I know what they're capable of. The Unvoiced - what they've become - it goes far beyond anything we can defend against."
Mokai waited, still.
"They are advanced, Mokai. In ways we cannot grasp. Their machines are grown, not built. Their city is not a place - it's a mind. And they've made concordance into a weapon. They can kill with it. I saw it."
Mokai's expression hardened.
"Kill?"
"Yes," Ryosei said. "Without violence. Without touch. Without sound. They aligned a man's thoughts with something too vast, too foreign. He collapsed. His mind couldn't hold it. His body followed. No blood. No scream. Just... stillness. Gone."
He let that settle for a moment, then added, "they told us it was an accident. That the man resisted too hard. That concordance works only when there is willingness. But even that - is a kind of threat, isn't it? You live only if you surrender."
Mokai was silent, tension coiled tight in his chest.
"I don't believe they're evil," Ryosei said. "But they are not like us. They see individuality as noise and pain. Something to dissolve. And if we go again, if we invite them in - we may bring back something we don't understand, but also, something that understands us far too well."
"But then the Temple?…" Mokai asked, voice tight with disbelief. "Don't they know?"
Lord Ryosei shook his head. "I don't think so."
"The Temple only knows that Firme is real now," he said. "They have fragments, scraps of old records. But the real knowledge - the mission, what I saw - we buried it. It never happened."
"But sooner or later they will find out," Mokai said, his voice low but firm. "They want to secure the gates. These gates - with the functionality to connect to any place - that's not just a marvel. That's an invitation to explore and to conquer. It they want to conquer they will explore Firme as well."
"Not if they do not want to conquer."
Mokai looked at him, uncertain.
"The gates- " Ryosei continued, "-are merely a curiosity for the people of Firme. A strange artifact. Nothing more. Their culture, their minds… they are turned inward, not outward. The gates connect to what they consider… beneath them."
Mokai frowned.
"So they don't use the gates?"
"No, they don't," Ryosei said, voice flat. "For them it's like… primitive paintings on cave walls. Something old, a leftover. Not worth destroying, not worth using. Just… there."
"That's why they didn't even notice when the poachers arrived. Or, if they did, they didn't care. The outpost you stumbled on - it was built in the blind spots. Outside what the Unvoiced even acknowledge."
"If the temple remains like the poachers, just in the vicinity of the gates, they may exist like the poachers – outside of the interest field of the Unvoiced."
"But that is very unlikely." Mokai said thoughtfully. "There is no reason not to explore. And the poachers said something about the settlement nearby… They will explore."
Ryosei's jaw tightened. "The Unvoiced tolerate the poachers because they are ants in the grass. The Temple, on the other hand... they'll come with order and ambition. And once the Guild joins-"
"They'll go deeper," Mokai finished.
Ryosei nodded once.
"And they'll think they're in control until they aren't. The Unvoiced don't protect themselves with walls or weapons. Their strength lies in perception - understanding intention before it becomes action."
Mokai looked away, his mind racing.
"I don't think they know what they're walking into," he muttered.
"They don't," Ryosei agreed. "But you do. Do you still want to go?"
"Yes," answered Mokai. "Even if it is just to warn them."
"Warn who, exactly?" Lord Ryosei's voice had a sharpened edge. "The Temple? The Guild? Or just your friend Fengyu?" He paused, then added, "I don't know what the Temple truly intends, but the Guild-" his gaze darkened. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious how they would fare in all this. But the stakes are too high to sit back and watch. Once the Unvoiced are involved the balance will get shifted violently."
"For now, it's just a small mission from the Temple - clear out the poachers and secure the gates. It can still fly under the radar of the Unvoiced."
"You should go," Lord Ryosei said slowly.
Then, after a pause - almost as an afterthought - he added, "Be careful."