The map Mira had left was a puzzle—tattered and stained, its ink faded like a memory too often recounted. Yet in the center, drawn with bold strokes and surrounded by crude symbols of hills and rivers, was a single word:
Nollan.
Frido traced it again and again, as if repetition would make it real.
Teren sat nearby, stretching his healing arm.
"You think it's true?" he asked.
Frido looked up. "I think it's needed."
That was enough.
---
Before the Journey
They left the tower at dawn.
Frido carried the map and the wooden bird, wrapped in a strip of cloth and tied to his waist.
Teren had fashioned a sling for his injured arm and carried a walking stick made from one of the tower's broken beams.
The plains were wet with dew, the soil soft beneath their feet. Birds stirred in the distance. Somewhere to the south, distant smoke marked a burning village.
They didn't look that way.
They headed east.
Toward something—hope, maybe. Or a lie that was easier than truth.
---
The Pathless Road
There were no roads anymore.
Only trails etched by memory—faint lines in the grass, old footprints, shattered cart tracks.
Each step was a guess.
The map showed a river bend, and beyond that, a grove of trees that "whispers in the night." Mira had written it in the margins, her writing jagged and impatient.
The first day passed in quiet. Frido marked the sun's arc with each hour, counted paces, whispered names from the tower wall.
Teren grumbled about rations but never complained about the walk.
That night, they camped under a ruined aqueduct, bones of a forgotten empire stretched above them like broken ribs.
Frido stared up at the stars.
"What are you thinking?" Teren asked.
"That maybe Nollan isn't a place."
Teren turned to him. "Then what?"
Frido was quiet for a long time. Then he said:
"A promise."
---
Ruins of the Last House
On the third day, they found the Last House.
That's what someone had painted on the rotting door in black pitch: THE LAST HOUSE BEFORE THE FORGETTING.
It stood crooked, covered in ivy and ghostwood moss. A chimney leaned like it was sighing into the wind.
They entered.
Inside were fragments of lives: a child's doll missing its face, cracked dishes, dried herbs hanging like forgotten prayers.
Teren found a journal tucked under a hearthstone.
He read aloud:
> "The silence grows louder every day. We heard singing last night—but no one lives here now. I'm writing so someone remembers we existed."
The last page was torn out.
Frido folded it and placed it into his satchel, beside the bird.
---
The Whispers Begin
That night, the trees whispered.
Just as Mira had written.
They camped beside the grove, and in the hush between wind and sleep, Frido heard it—soft murmurs, like voices speaking from inside leaves.
Teren heard nothing.
"You're imagining it," he muttered.
Frido stood, barefoot in the grass, eyes wide.
He walked to the center of the grove.
The trees were smooth and pale, bark like polished bone.
At their center stood a single stone with words carved in circles:
"Here rests no one. But many wait."
Frido pressed his hand against it.
And for a heartbeat, the whispers stopped.
---
The Soldier Who Forgot
On the fifth morning, they met the soldier.
He sat beneath a broken windmill, armor rusted, sword planted in the earth beside him like a grave marker. His beard was long. His eyes empty.
Frido approached.
The man didn't move.
"Are you wounded?" Frido asked.
The soldier didn't speak for a while. Then he said:
"I don't remember who I fought for."
Teren stepped back. "He's mad."
Frido knelt. "What do you remember?"
The man blinked.
"Noise. Fire. Screaming."
He touched the sword gently. "And then silence. Like the world held its breath and never let go."
Frido offered him water.
The man drank without thanks.
When they left, he remained.
Like a monument to forgetting.
---
Dreams of Ash
That night, Frido dreamed of fire.
Not war—but a house, his house, burning. His mother's voice screaming for him to run. The sound of the wooden bird falling to the floor, wings catching flame.
He awoke gasping.
Teren was already awake, staring into the embers.
"You talk in your sleep," he said.
Frido didn't reply.
Teren tossed a twig into the fire. "You said a name. Reni."
Frido's hands clenched.
"She was my sister."
"What happened?"
"She believed in peace."
"And?"
"She died for it."
Teren looked away.
After a while, he said, "People like that don't last."
Frido turned to him, eyes sharp.
"Then we make them last."
---
The Empty Village
On the seventh day, they saw it.
A rise in the earth. Ruins arranged like a ring. Half-buried wells, crumbled stones, weeds growing through abandoned sandals.
Nollan.
It had to be.
Yet no banners flew.
No voices echoed.
Just wind and birds.
They walked the entire circle. No graves. No fire marks. No signs of siege.
Only stillness.
Teren sat down heavily. "So that's it? A ghost town?"
Frido knelt beside a central stone. There, carved in fading lines, was a circle of names—too many to read, overlapping like ripples in water.
He whispered them.
One by one.
"I don't think this was a town," Frido said.
Teren looked at him. "Then what?"
"A choice."
---
A New Mark on the Map
That night, by the fire, Frido redrew Mira's map.
He traced a line from the tower to the grove, to the house, to the stone soldier, to Nollan.
He titled the line: "The Road of Remembering."
Teren leaned over.
"What's next?"
Frido stared at the stars.
"Wherever silence has fallen, I'll go."
"To end it?"
Frido shook his head.
"To listen to it."
---
[End of Chapter 6]