The valley narrowed as they walked, the mountains folding in like stone curtains. The wind, which had carried whispers for days, suddenly fell mute.
Not quiet.
Mute.
There was no echo when Mirea cleared her throat.
No rustle when Teren adjusted his cloak.
Even the crunch of Frido's boots on frostless grass made no sound.
Ahead, rising from the fog like a forgotten altar, stood the monastery.
Not broken.
Not whole.
Just… waiting.
---
The Silence Before Entry
A wide gate opened between two statues—headless, handless figures carved from ash-colored stone. They bore no titles, no symbols.
A worn sign above the entrance read:
"Leave your voice. Keep your soul."
Teren looked uneasy. "I don't like this place."
"It's sacred," Mirea replied, though her voice trembled.
Frido said nothing.
And when he stepped past the statues, the silence deepened. Not around him.
Inside him.
His thoughts dimmed. His memories blurred.
And a question echoed—not aloud, but somewhere deeper:
"Do you know who you are when no one hears you?"
---
The Wordless Hall
Inside, the walls rose high, etched with prayers that had never been spoken.
Hundreds of monks moved slowly through the halls, barefoot and dressed in robes of white. They bore no names, no signs of age. Some were children. Some were old.
All were silent.
One monk, with dark eyes and a deep scar across her brow, approached them and extended her hand.
In her palm was a stone tablet.
Upon it:
"Why have you come where voices die?"
Frido took the tablet, turned it over, and etched with a nearby stylus:
"To understand the cost of silence."
The monk bowed. Then beckoned them inward.
---
Rooms of the Voiceless
They were given a chamber to rest in—bare floors, stone walls, and a single glowing orb suspended in air that pulsed with an unseen heartbeat.
They stayed the night in that chamber.
No dreams came.
Only sensations.
A single tear rolled from Mirea's eye while she lay awake, clutching the letter she still had not written.
Teren lay staring at the ceiling, lips moving slightly—as if arguing with memories, but unable to speak.
And Frido…
Frido sat cross-legged in the center of the room.
Listening.
To nothing.
And somehow, everything.
---
The Vow of the Nameless
The next morning, they were brought before the Abbess of the Unheard, a woman with snow-colored skin and eyes the color of storm glass.
She communicated by tapping her staff—each rhythm, a word.
The monks translated on tablets:
"We remember the world before words.
We remember when noise built wars.
Here, we undo that."
Frido took the stylus again:
"But silence is not peace. Silence is hiding. Isn't it?"
The Abbess paused. Tapped.
"Sometimes. But not always.
Sometimes, silence is armor.
Sometimes, it's a sword."
Frido asked the question that had burned in his chest since the tower:
"Can silence stop what's coming?"
The Abbess responded:
"No. But it can make the one who walks into it… unshakable."
---
The Forgotten Bell
That evening, a monk led Frido alone to a distant courtyard—overgrown with blue moss and shattered by time.
At the center stood a bell.
Cracked.
Tarnished.
Silent.
"This bell," the monk etched, "was the last sound ever allowed here."
Frido approached it.
Touched the cold metal.
And he saw.
Not with eyes.
But with memory.
---
Vision of the Last Cry
A thousand years ago, a warlord had come to the monastery, demanding the monks surrender their sacred texts.
When they refused, he ordered them burned.
The monks did not resist.
They stood in fire, hands held, lips closed.
One monk broke.
He cried out—a single scream, short, pure, terrified.
And in that moment, the bell shattered.
His voice—the only one in centuries—broke not only the bell, but something deeper.
A vow.
The scream echoed so far it cracked the sky above a battlefield miles away.
And there, the war ended.
Because a general heard it and wept.
---
The Return
Frido returned from the courtyard changed.
He didn't say anything.
But his steps had rhythm now—deliberate, grounded, powerful.
Mirea noticed.
Teren did too.
He had gone into the core of silence…
And he had not lost himself.
---
A Touch of Sound
The Abbess gave them a gift before they left.
A single ribbon, spun from silver breath.
It shimmered only when touched by truth.
Mirea accepted it and tied it in her hair.
Later, when they camped outside the monastery's reach and she hummed a lullaby—just a breath, a fragment of tune—the ribbon glowed.
Frido looked at her.
Said nothing.
But smiled.
And she understood.
Her silence had not gone unnoticed.
---
End of Chapter 38