"In the Drav'nar, even the wind had manners. It passed quietly through narrow alleys and between copper towers — brushing against stone, never screaming. Laughter was a myth. Grief was regulated. And joy… joy was the most dangerous heresy of all."
Drav'nar Solmir Thren was not lifeless. It was simply... cauterized. Once a land of artists, poets, and dream-crafters — Drav'nar had bled too much during the Spiral Fracture. Now, it burned inward. Here, flame was not used for warmth, but discipline. Every hearth in every home was lit with the Ember of Restraint — a flickering orange symbol mounted above each child's cradle, whispering the Two Restraints:
- Do Not Show Any Emotion
- Do Not Speak Without Need
The Children were taught not to suppress their emotions. But to never display them. Control was beauty. Stillness was virtue. A perfect life was a quiet one.
The night he was born, there was no snow, yet every window frostbit. Midwives in Drav'nar usually greeted the "Release" — the cry of a newborn — with reverent silence. That first wail, pure and uninhibited, was the only moment in a citizen's life where raw feelings were allowed.
But he didn't cry.
He didn't squirm.
He didn't blink.
He just stared.
Eyes black and wide, reflecting the Seer's pale hands as she cradled him. For a heartbeat too long, no one moved. Then the Seer herself, wrapped in the ceremonial ash-garment of her order, stepped closer. She stared into the child's void-dark gaze… and frowned. Not in anger. But in something much rarer.
Recognition.
She whispered a word in Veresh, too ancient for the nurse to translate. "Eln-Kasir."(Threadless spark.)
She marked him, not with ink but with silence. He was handed off to the Caretakers of Grey Hearth, an orphanage built beneath the Flame Archive. The records show no name. Just an emblem etched on his file: a line slashed through a spiral.
He grew like a shadow — present, but overlooked.
Never disruptive.
Never loud.
He was the perfect Hollow child.
Too perfect.
The other orphans spoke less when he was near. "He reads like a Watcher," they'd whisper.
"But he has no fire in him."
"No flicker. Not even ash."
His hands never trembled. His voice never rose. And his gaze never flinched. But they didn't understand.
He was still.
She was the only one who ever looked at him — not through him.
Serah was born in the middle tier of Drav'nar, to a family of record-keepers. She wore her silence differently — not as obedience, but as resistance. Her eyes were always moving. Curious. Soft.
She never spoke out of turn. But when she was near him, her presence felt… louder.
She sat two desks over in Thread Discipline.
She'd leave half her bread on the bench during lunch — close enough for him to take, far enough not to shame him. She smiled once. Very small.
At him.
But never again.
Not yet.
At twelve, children in the Hollow underwent the Sermon of Threads — a sacred ceremony where the children, through fire and reflection, revealed their sigil. Sigils were not spoken of openly. They were emotional callings. Symbols of inner resonance.
Each sigil marked one's place in the societal fabric. To receive one, meant purpose. A path.
To receive none?
That had not happened since the ancient times.
The chamber was deep beneath the Hollow's core. A black dome lined with red veins — pulsing like the inside of a breathing lung.
Twelve children stood in a ring.
Hooded Seers began the chant — a low, trembling Veresh tone.
"Nur-Kasir... Feyr-Vaern... Thir-Valth..."
"Speak thy threads. Burn thy truths."
One by one, sigils flared to life. Zarien's chest burned with a white circle: the Sigil of Clarity. Dreia's back ignited with a grounded square: the Sigil of Weight.
Serah — delicate, still — received a rare blooming glyph, marked in lilac.
And then the twelfth child stepped forward. He knelt. He lowered his head. Nothing happened. The Spiral Mirror above flickered. The ground buzzed. A hush fell. The lead Seer stepped forward, palms raised "He bears… no flame."
Silence.
He rose — calm as ever — and bowed. The others looked at him as if he'd vanished. Serah's hand reached toward him. Briefly. Reflexively. But she stopped. Because she had a future now. And he had none.
It was a few years later, in the middle of a snowstorm — the kind that crept through cracks and turned breath into glass — when Serah broke the law. She smiled again. At him.
Only this time, someone saw. She was taken before lunch. Her parents were informed. She never returned. The children were not told why. The adults did not say her name. But he knew. And for the first time in twelve years… he shivered. The Seers noticed. And for that, they took him too.
He was placed in Frostwell — a cell of emotionless stone beneath the Drav'nar roots. Not a prison, but not a room either. No light. No mirrors. No words.
He waited
"Serah."
Then he smiled. And something cracked. A hairline fracture in the Frostwell's sigil ward. A tremor in the Spiral's current. He was exiled by dawn.
No sigil. No tether. No future. Only silence — not as punishment, but as birthright.
"He didn't cry when he was born, but the silence was deafening. The world will crylater, and it won't know why until it's too late."