Kael hadn't left the Garden since the Silencer fell. The darkness wrapped around him like a second skin. Though his wounds had healed, the pressure in his chest hadn't eased.
The roses no longer whispered. They were silent—waiting. Something was coming.
And then he felt it.
A presence—soft, barely a whisper—crossed the outer threshold. It wasn't like the Silencer. Not hostile. But not innocent either.
Kael melted into the shadows, his eyes pale and watchful. The intruder walked slowly, tracing the cracked symbols along the walls with cautious fingers.
A girl.
She wore a traveler's cloak, stained with mud, and carried a rune-marked staff across her back. Her eyes glowed with a sickly violet hue—too human to be pure, too calm to be harmless.
She stopped before the Garden's core. Her breath caught.
—"…It's alive."
Kael stepped from the dark.
—"Who are you?"
She turned, unshaken.
—"Not one of the heroes."
—"That wasn't the question."
—"You didn't ask my name."
—"I don't trust names."
Thick silence. Then she spoke again.
—"My mother died because of this place. She believed a soul without a name could rewrite fate. And you… prove she wasn't insane."
Kael narrowed his eyes.
—"How do you know that?"
She raised her hand. A crystal flower bloomed in her palm—cold, gleaming… and completely empty.
—"This flower only blooms for those the gods have forgotten."
The rose had no color. It was transparent.
Kael stepped closer.
—"What was your mother's name?"
—"I don't remember. Not even I can speak it now."
—"Then you've been touched by this curse too."
—"No. I chose to come closer. But you… you were born inside it."
The air thickened. She lowered her gaze, voice dropping to a near-whisper:
—"The heroes don't want to save this world. They want to erase their mistakes."
A chill cut through Kael.
—"What mistakes?"
—"You."
The Garden trembled. Black roses snapped open. The flower in her hand cracked like glass—and in its fragments, a name shimmered for the first time in centuries:
"Eyla."
Kael said nothing. He only watched her… unsure whether her eyes held sorrow, or fear.
She had spoken his existence.
And to Kael… that was more dangerous than being forgotten.