The boy stayed in the basin long after the others had gone. The figures in gray had vanished the same way they'd come: wordless, directionless, like thoughts abandoned mid-sentence. Even Ashur had left, disappearing back into the stone halls above with nothing more than a look.
The chisel remained.
So did the half-spiral he'd carved.
The line stared at him like an open wound — one that hadn't begun to bleed yet, but would. Not today. Not tomorrow. But soon.
And something behind the wall was listening.
Not the way Ashur did. Not even the way the Audient had. No, this was something deeper. Older.
A silence with memory.
A quiet that remembered sound.
He stood slowly and turned toward the exit — but froze halfway up the stairs.
Someone else was there.
Waiting at the top.
Not Ashur.
Not one of the masked faithful.
It was a child.
No older than ten.
Dressed in gray. Barefoot. Pale eyes like glass polished too clean. It didn't speak. Didn't move. Just watched.
The boy's spiral mark ached.
Not pain.
Recognition.
A thread pulled taut between them.
"Do you remember me?" the boy asked.
No answer.
"Are you—"
Still nothing.
He stepped closer. The child tilted its head — not in curiosity, but in delay. As though it had already reacted, and the gesture was just catching up.
Up close, the child's clothes shimmered faintly. Not with color or light, but with absence. Fabric that seemed to erase detail. The eye slipped across it too easily. The kind of cloth that didn't stay in memory.
The boy reached forward.
Not to touch — just to confirm.
But the child was already gone.
Not vanished.
Unremembered.
The staircase behind it was empty.
And the boy couldn't remember how many steps were left.
By the time he reached the upper corridors again, the air felt different. Thicker. Like he'd returned from someplace lower than earth. Not deeper, but beneath. A layer folded under reality, like old parchment reused for new script.
Ashur waited near a brazier lit with soft blue flame. He said nothing at first. Just nodded toward the feather still tucked behind the boy's ear.
"It's quieter now," he said.
The boy didn't answer.
Ashur studied him a moment longer, then handed him a flask. "Drink."
He did.
The liquid inside was brine — cold, sharp, bitter enough to drag a shiver through his teeth. Memory brine. Salt laced with trace dreams and emotion.
It hit his tongue like forgetting something important, then remembering it too late.
"You saw it, didn't you?" Ashur asked.
The boy nodded.
"What did it say?"
He shook his head. "It didn't say anything."
Ashur looked away. "That's worse."
They left the basin behind without looking back.
But the boy noticed something as they passed the shrine again — the one built like a birdcage, where the prayer stones sat.
One was missing.
The stone with the mouth carved shut.
In its place was a small, smooth feather.
Black.
Wet.
Still twitching.