The land after the Silent Vale felt older.
Not by years—but by memory.
The soil held no grass, only strange lichens clinging like whispers to stone. The trees stood taller, and the wind had a rhythm, as if the very air had learned to breathe with caution.
Teren stopped at a fork in the narrow trail. Two paths split ahead—one leading upward through jagged rocks, the other descending into a forest thick with fog.
"Which way?" he asked.
Frido looked down both.
Then pointed upward.
"We go where sight still exists."
Teren muttered, "You and your riddles…"
But followed.
---
The Climb
The path was steep, littered with loose shale and thorn-rooted vines. The kind of place that didn't want visitors. Midway, Frido paused to catch his breath, and his hand brushed something cold.
Metal.
He bent down and uncovered a rusted emblem buried beneath stone.
An insignia.
Not royal. Not military.
A circle broken into six parts—one part shattered entirely.
Frido frowned.
"I've seen this before…"
Teren glanced over. "Where?"
Frido didn't answer.
Not yet.
---
The Hilltop Ruin
By dusk, they reached the summit.
There, rising crooked from the hill's peak, was a tower—half-collapsed, wrapped in vines, its stones scorched as if touched by lightning. A single bell hung in the archway above, long silent.
Teren raised his sword as they entered, cautious.
Inside, dust floated like ghosts, and old weapons lay broken across the floor.
At the center, a stone chair faced a shattered window. Upon it sat a skeleton, still clothed in fragments of black leather armor. Around its neck: a pendant with the six-part insignia.
Frido approached carefully.
He knelt, removed the pendant, and whispered, "Rest, Watcher."
Then he found the journal, beneath the skeleton's boot.
---
The Journal of the Watcher
Unlike the others, this journal was not a soldier's tale.
It was a watcher's confession.
> "They told me to record only movements, not truth."
> "But I saw the truth. The orders were false. The retreat was not a strategy—it was an execution."
> "When the ceasefire was signed, I expected relief. Instead, they burned the message and erased the name of the envoy."
> "One man went to deliver the truth. He never returned."
> "They say silence is peace. I say silence is murder."
Teren looked pale when Frido read the last line aloud.
"They really tried to erase everything," he said.
Frido nodded.
"But memory lives in those willing to carry it."
---
The Bell
Frido stood beneath the tower's bell.
He reached up, tugged gently.
The sound that came was not loud—but deep, and low, like a heartbeat across the hills.
Teren flinched. "You're calling something."
"Yes," Frido said. "Truth."
From far below, in the woods beyond the split path, another bell answered.
---
The Stranger at Dusk
As they made camp among the stones, Frido noticed movement down the hill. A figure—cloaked in gray—approached without haste, a staff in hand.
He stopped at the edge of their campfire's light.
"Permission to share the flame?" he asked.
Frido gestured to a stone. "Sit."
The man nodded and lowered his hood.
His face was lined, but eyes sharp.
"I heard the bell," he said. "Few ring it without cause."
Frido offered him the Watcher's journal.
The man read in silence.
Then he looked up.
"Then you are the Bearer."
Frido blinked. "Bearer?"
The man bowed his head slightly.
"The one who speaks for the dead."
---
The Creed of the Bearers
He introduced himself as Ilric, last of the Bearers of Vow. An order disbanded long ago, once sworn to preserve memory in times of erasure.
"We were archivists. Silent ones. When rulers rewrote their crimes into victories, we kept the bloodied pages."
Teren asked, "And what happened to the others?"
Ilric smiled sadly.
"They were erased with the truths they guarded."
Frido asked, "Why are you still here?"
"Waiting," Ilric said. "For the one who'd ring the bell and carry the silence forward."
He looked at Frido.
"You."
---
A Warning and an Oath
Before the fire faded, Ilric leaned close.
"You are being watched," he whispered.
Frido's eyes narrowed.
"By who?"
Ilric's voice dropped to a murmur.
"Not who. What."
"They call it The Red Silence. Born when a thousand voices died unheard. It doesn't kill. It forgets. It makes others forget. Entire villages erased overnight. Records vanished. Even love unremembered."
Teren scoffed. "Stories."
Ilric's eyes flared. "Then why does no one recall the Day of Flame? The Sky Covenant? The Fallen Envoy?"
Silence.
Then Frido asked, "Can it be stopped?"
Ilric replied, "Only if one man refuses to forget."
---
At Dawn
Ilric left before light.
No goodbye. No sound.
Only the pendant he left behind—engraved with the Bearers' creed:
"What is lost must be carried. What is carried must be spoken. What is spoken must remain."
Frido placed the pendant beside the others in his pack.
And when he and Teren walked east again, their footsteps felt heavier.
Not from weight.
But from purpose.
---
[End of Chapter 11]