The wind changed as Zayan approached.
It did not blow—it listened.
The great gates of the Library of Lost Throats stood ajar, sculpted from slabs of obsidian etched with forgotten alphabets. Each letter hummed faintly, as though alive. The steps were uneven, worn down not by feet, but by voices.
"Is it safe?" Zayan asked.
"Only if you speak nothing but truth inside," the shawled guide replied.
"And if I lie?"
"Then the library will rewrite your tongue into silence."
Inside, there was no echo.
Even though the ceiling rose like the sky itself, and every wall was stacked with scrolls, stone tablets, bound tomes, and even bones inscribed with verses—the silence drank every sound.
"This place remembers every word ever lost," she whispered. "And every voice stolen before it could scream."
A dozen scribes drifted silently through the air, floating—blindfolded, hands glowing. They rearranged books in midair, stitching lines of thought from one shelf to another, creating knowledge paths that only the truly desperate or devout could follow.
Zayan felt the pressure in his chest tighten.
Not fear. Memory.
The shawled guide brought him to a dome-shaped hall. In its center, a tongue floated in crystal—ancient, cracked, pulsing with a heartbeat that didn't belong to flesh.
"The Echo Tongue," she said. "Not a relic. A key."
"How do I use it?"
"You must swallow its memory. Not its flesh."
"And where is its memory?"
She turned her gaze upward.
The dome above was carved with constellations—not of stars, but of sound. Musical notations, geometric verses, the phonetic glyphs of extinct civilizations—all circling a single symbol:
A mouth made of flame.
Zayan sat beneath the dome.
"What do I say?" he asked.
"You must recite your deepest forgotten truth. Only then will the Echo Tongue respond."
He closed his eyes.
Memories came in pulses:
The taste of ash after his brother died.
The sound of his father whispering a blessing over his fevered body.
The moment he almost cursed God but didn't—choosing instead to remain silent for ten years.
The song his mother sang before vanishing into smoke during the Cleansing.
The voice in his head that always whispered: You're too late.
And then he said it.
"I was meant to die, not them."
The crystal shattered.
The Echo Tongue dissolved into light and surged into Zayan's mouth. He arched backward, every nerve lit with syllables never spoken before. His ears rang with the screams of every silenced child, every forgotten name, every prayer mouthed with no answer.
And when it was over, he stood.
Changed.
His voice, when he spoke, came with weight.
The guide bowed low.
"You carry the Voice of the Unsaid now," she said. "Do not waste it."
"I won't."
As he turned to leave, one of the blindfolded scribes drifted to him and whispered something only he could hear:
"The Fourth Seal lies beyond breath and bone. Seek the Mirrorroot."
"Where?"
"In the city that never forgets."
"Its name?"
"Qarya As-Sirr. The Hidden Village."
Zayan felt a warmth grow in his hand.
The silver talisman around his neck had changed—now etched with the flame-mouth symbol, glowing faintly.
Outside, the city of Al-Nafas watched him go.
And with every step he took toward the unknown horizon, he whispered new truths into the wind.
Because the world no longer needed silence.
It needed a voice forged in loss, lit by memory, and sharpened by purpose.