<b>Chapter 3: A Whisper From the Stone</b>


    The sun was well past its peak when Shay found himself wandering. He didn’t remember how long he’d been walking. Only that his feet carried him far from the Church of Light, far from the laughter, the pity, the priests’ empty stares.


    He walked through the market where vendors pretended not to notice him. Past alleys where men with knives and empty eyes prowled. Through the lower slums where even the dirt looked tired.


    Eventually, he stood again at the threshold of the old ruins.


    Not by intention. Not really. But the path here was carved into him—stone by stone, like a scar. This was where he came to breathe. Or to bleed.


    The statue still stood. Or slouched, rather, in its ancient, unknowable posture. Its face was lost to erosion, its arms long crumbled. Moss covered its shoulders like a burial shroud.


    Shay sat at its base, again.


    His hands trembled, though the pain from earlier had mostly dulled. The cloth Kara had given him was stained red and dry in his pocket.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    He wanted to scream. But the silence here was too heavy, too sacred in its decay.


    He didn’t cry.


    But he came close.


    “Is this it?” he whispered. “Is that all I am?”


    He didn’t expect an answer.


    But the ground beneath him shifted.


    A breath—not air, but something colder—brushed the back of his neck.


    He turned sharply, heart in his throat.


    Nothing.


    Just wind.


    But his gaze fell on something new, half-buried near the statue’s base.


    Stone, carved but cracked. It was not part of the statue—he’d sat here a dozen times and never seen it.


    Gently, he brushed aside the dirt.


    It was a symbol. A circle, split down the center. One half etched in clean lines. The other, jagged and scorched.


    A voice—no louder than breath—echoed inside his skull.


    <b>“Not yet.”</b>


    He staggered back. The world tilted. His stomach lurched.


    The whisper faded as quickly as it had come.


    He stood, panting, cold sweat clinging to his brow.


    The stone was still there.


    But the voice was gone.


    <hr>


    That night, he barely spoke to Kara. She noticed. Of course she did. But she didn’t press.


    She’d seen that look in his eyes before—the look of someone who’d glimpsed something vast and didn’t yet know if it would devour them or save them.


    She slid a plate toward him. He picked at it.


    “I’ll talk to a priest tomorrow,” she said softly. “See if maybe they’ll let you try again. Maybe something glitched.”


    “Maybe,” Shay said. But even he didn’t believe it.


    He lay in bed long after she’d drifted to sleep, staring at the cracked ceiling. The medallion of Raneara rested against his chest.


    The world was silent.


    But the whisper wasn’t.


    Somewhere beneath Hollowrest, something had spoken.


    And it knew him.