When Shadows Speak

Days slipped by in Elyria like fading breath on glass—present, but slowly vanishing.

Marcio Sari tried to return to the rhythm of his life: the forge, the flame, the library. But something had shifted in him since that night beneath the barracks—the whispers of rebellion still echoed in his bones, and the mysterious stirrings of his Diwa had grown more insistent.

He stopped sleeping through the night. Each time he closed his eyes, his dreams filled with half-formed visions: a cloaked woman standing in ash, a blackbird flying through burning skies, and always, always the sound of water and fire clashing like voices in a long-forgotten language.

The pendant he wore now felt heavier around his neck. Warmer. Alive.

The city, too, felt different. More hushed. Whispers traveled quickly through the narrow alleys and old market squares — whispers of strange disappearances in the night. Young men and women vanishing without a trace. Some believed they’d been taken by the Empire. Others said something worse.

But Marcio overheard the truth from two guards outside a checkpoint.

“They’re not being taken,” one muttered. “They’re leaving.”

“Recruiters,” the other whispered back. “Resistance rats pulling people into their war.”

The Empire had chalked up the disappearances as runaways or bandits, but the fear in the guards’ voices was real. The resistance wasn’t a ghost anymore. It was a current flowing just beneath the surface, and it was growing stronger.

Even in the Elyrian Library, where Marcio tried to escape into forgotten stories, he began to notice odd patterns. Pages had been recently turned. Margins marked with fresh ink. One evening, he stumbled across a fragment of prophecy etched in the back of a forgotten volume:

> “When the land weeps in silence,

And Diwa dims in a shackled flame,

The orphaned spark shall rise unseen,

And awakened Vynaria’s ancient name.”

He stared at the passage for a long time.

An orphaned spark.

The thought rooted deep into his mind. Was this why the resistance was searching? Was that why he had been watched?

Later that evening, as he left the library later than usual, a sudden gust of wind extinguished the street lamps ahead of him. He turned a corner beneath the old aqueduct and stopped.

A figure stepped out from the shadows, as if formed from the darkness itself.

A woman—tall, calm, deliberate. She wore a raven-stitched cloak, her piercing golden eyes locking onto his as if she already knew him.

She removed her hood.

“Marcio Sari,” she said.

His breath caught in his throat.

“You’ve felt it, haven’t you?” she asked. “The change. The stirring inside you.”

He didn’t answer.

“The others like you—the ones who’ve disappeared—they weren’t taken. They were called. We’ve been recruiting. Training. Preparing for what’s to come. But you—” she took a careful step closer—“you’re different.”

“You’ve been following me,” he said, guarded.

“We had to be sure,” she replied. “The legend speaks of an orphan—an untrained bearer of Diwa energy, born from fire, hidden in plain sight. A symbol. A catalyst.”

“That’s just a story,” Marcio said, almost laughing. But his voice cracked. The words clung to him like smoke.

“We thought it was just a story too,” she said softly. “Until people like you start to surface.”

“I’m not a hero,” he said firmly. “I work in a forge.”

“And yet the Empire’s glyphs don’t silence you,” she replied. “The books glow when you touch them. The pendant you wear is older than the city itself. And you’ve been dreaming, haven’t you?”

His heart thudded in his chest.

Elianore stepped closer. “You can deny it, Marcio. Or you can step into it.”

Silence hung between them, heavy and fragile.

“I need time,” he said finally.

Elianore nodded. “Then take tonight. But we leave before dawn. Meet me at the southern gate before the bell tolls six. If you’re not there, we vanish. No second offer.”

She turned and disappeared into the mist.

Later that night, Marcio returned to the forge. Gorio was asleep in the back room. The fire had been banked, but Marcio quietly stoked it, just enough to see the anvil one last time. He touched its surface—scarred from years of work—and whispered, “Thank you.”

He walked to the back wall, placing a hand on the scorched crescent burn. He’d stared at it for years, never knowing why it mattered so much to him. Now, it felt like a closing chapter.

In the small room where he slept, he packed little: a waterskin, a shard of coal he’d carved into a crescent, and a folded scrap of paper with the prophecy he’d copied from the library. His pendant hummed faintly as he tied it around his neck again.

Then he made his way quietly through the streets to the Elyrian Library—his sanctuary.

He stood at the entrance, running his fingers over the vines coiled around the doorframe. The moonlight bathed the stone in silver. The building looked asleep. He did not enter. He merely whispered, “I’ll come back for you.”

And then he turned.

By the time he reached the southern gate, the sky had turned violet. Distant thunder rumbled, and the Empire’s watchtowers glowed in the hills like unblinking eyes.

Elianore waited beneath a dying tree, arms crossed. Her raven cloak fluttered in the wind.

“You came,” she said.

Marcio didn’t respond right away. He looked over his shoulder once more—at Elyria, still sleeping under the weight of the Empire.

“I don’t know what I am,” he said.

“You will,” Elianore replied. “Soon.”

And without another word, they disappeared into the morning mist.

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