The road east twisted like a scar through the forgotten lands. Trees here leaned low, as if mourning something invisible. The soil was dark, and the rivers ran slow—too slow.
Frido walked with his head down, counting each step. Mirea walked beside him in silence, one hand resting on her satchel. Teren led them, his cloak streaked with dust and his fingers always near the hilt of his blade.
They had entered Stillwater Province, a place the mapmaker Orsien had whispered about only once:
"Stillwater," he had said, "wasn't named for its lake—it was named for the silence after its drowning."
Frido hadn't understood then.
He would now.
---
The Village That Waited
Stillwater Village appeared as a blur of rooftops and broken chimneys in the dusk. The wind carried no birdsong, only the creaking of empty doors.
They entered cautiously. Teren signaled for quiet.
But the village did not need to be hushed—it had already forgotten how to speak.
Each house was intact, but abandoned. Meals had been left uneaten. Toys lay scattered in the dirt. A pair of boots stood neatly beside a bed that had not been slept in for years.
No signs of struggle. No signs of rot.
Just... absence.
Mirea stepped into a house with dried herbs hanging from the rafters.
She picked up a half-knitted scarf from the floor and whispered, "They left in the middle of something."
Frido picked up a wooden carving of a horse. Its eyes had been sanded smooth.
"They didn't leave," Teren murmured. "They were taken."
---
The Silence Beneath
At the village center stood a well.
Old. Covered. Bound with chains.
Frido approached it.
Carved into the stone lip were the words:
"To speak here is to call them."
"Call who?" Frido asked.
Teren shook his head. "Best not to find out."
But Frido couldn't help himself.
He knelt beside the well, placed his hand on the stones, and whispered: "Peace."
The wind stopped.
Then, very faintly, from far below, something answered.
Not in words.
In weeping.
Mirea pulled him back.
Her face pale.
---
A Refugee's Journal
They found it in a sealed box beneath the church altar: a leather-bound journal, pages stiff with age.
Teren opened it and read aloud:
"Day 1: The soldiers told us to flee. We did not. We believed in the old peace."
"Day 4: The water started whispering. First names. Then regrets."
"Day 8: The children vanished first. Then the songs."
"Day 12: We locked the well. But we hear it still. It knows our voices now."
The final entry simply read:
"Day 15: If you find this, burn the well. And do not look down."
---
Night Watch
That night, they camped at the village edge. Frido couldn't sleep.
He sat by the fire, staring into the flames, his fingers curled around the stone Ada had given him. He kept hearing the word he had whispered into the well.
Peace.
Why had the well wept?
Was peace dead?
Or imprisoned?
Mirea sat beside him, holding her flute but not playing it.
She whispered, "Do you think we can really stop the war?"
Frido didn't answer right away.
Then he said, "I don't know. But I know I have to try."
She touched his hand—just lightly.
"I want to believe that."
He turned to her. "Why me?"
"You're the only one stupid enough to try without asking why," she said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
Then she added, "And brave enough to carry all the silence."
---
The Dream
That night, Frido dreamed.
He stood at the edge of the well again.
But this time, the chains were gone.
He looked down—and saw not darkness, but light.
And in that light, faces.
Hundreds of them.
Each whispering the same word: remember.
Then one of them—an old woman with fire in her eyes—reached up and placed something in his hand.
A map.
But it had no roads.
Only names.
Names he did not yet know.
---
Morning and March
When Frido woke, he knew one thing.
They had to go deeper.
Stillwater was only the beginning.
The war they saw above ground was only the shadow.
Something older stirred beneath.
Mirea stood with her cloak already fastened.
Teren was sharpening his blade.
Frido packed the journal, the stone, and his courage.
Together, they walked east—into the quiet that hummed with secrets, toward lands where no peace had dared to return.
And behind them, the well began to whisper again.
---
[End of Chapter 16]