The closer you get to the end, the louder the silence becomes.
The wind was quiet that night, too quiet. No rustling leaves, no distant owls — just the low hum of something unseen pressing in around us. We had made camp at the edge of a stone basin where the trees no longer grew, as if the ground itself had forgotten how to live.
The Mask of Mimicite sat beside the fireless circle of stones, its surface dull but heavy with presence. James couldn't stop glancing at it, and Arisa sat with her back to it entirely. As for me… I kept turning it over in my hands, tracing the fine cracks in its carved expression. The mask didn't wear a face — it was a face, and that made it harder to look at.
Alice hadn't said much since the Ocean.
But that night, as the shadows stretched long and silence started to tighten like a noose, she finally spoke.
"I wasn't supposed to get involved."
We all turned.
She sat cross-legged just outside the ring of stones, eyes flickering with the fire's reflection even though we hadn't lit one.
"I was only supposed to watch," she said. "But watching… isn't easy. Not when you've already seen how it ends."
Her voice was steady. Not cold. Not warm either. Just… ancient.
James leaned forward. "What do you mean, how it ends?"
She didn't blink. "I've seen many versions of you. In each one, you almost make it."
Almost.
That word hit hard.
Arisa narrowed her eyes. "You said you were lost in the forest. You lied."
"I never said I was lost," Alice replied calmly. "You just assumed."
I clenched my hands into fists. "Then who are you really?"
Alice looked at me. For the first time, really looked. Her voice dropped, quieter than breath.
"I was sent by Oruun."
Everything froze.
"The name in the book?" Arisa said, standing slowly. "He's not just some myth?"
Alice shook her head. "He's real. But not in the way you expect. He doesn't walk the world like we do. Not anymore."
James stared at her, disbelief flickering across his face. "So what is he? A god?"
"Something older than that," she said. "He was broken… and buried in fragments. The stones you're finding — the Aurumglass, the Mimicite, and the Crown — they are pieces of what he once was. Thought. Form. Sight."
"And you?" I asked. "What are you?"
She didn't hesitate. "A construct. A helper. My form was shaped to match what you would trust — a girl, a little lost, a little wise. But I was made for one reason only: to guide you. And to make sure you survived long enough to face the final choice."
There was a silence.
Then Arisa whispered, "Why us?"
Alice's expression flickered, just for a heartbeat. "Because something in you still wants to understand. And that makes you dangerous… and necessary."
I felt the tension pull tight in my chest. "You've been reading our thoughts."
She nodded. "Only when I have to."
James took a step away. "You could've told us."
"No," she said firmly. "Because belief isn't something you hand to someone. It's something they choose. Or it breaks."
I didn't know what to say. I just stared at her, the fireless glow casting her face in strange lines.
And then I remembered something.
Back in the Garden… when the masks asked each of us three questions — Alice had only been asked one.
It hadn't struck me then.
But now, it felt wrong.
Suspicious.
"Why did the mask only ask you one question?" I asked sharply.
Alice met my gaze. For the first time, she looked… caught.
"I'm not like you," she said carefully. "The Garden knows what I am."
"That's not an answer," I said, standing. "What did it ask you?"
Alice's voice was barely a whisper.
"'Do you still believe in them?'"
"And?" James asked, stepping forward.
Her lips parted, and her voice cracked ever so slightly. "I said yes."
And maybe that was what broke the silence.
Because for all her power, all her certainty — in that moment, Alice looked… human.
Arisa knelt beside the Mimicite and touched it gently. "If you were made to guide us, then why does it feel like you're breaking too?"
Alice closed her eyes. "Because I remember things I shouldn't. Because helping someone… changes you."
I looked at the stars, but they didn't look back. The sky was too quiet.
We were heading toward something bigger. The pieces were fitting together — but they weren't forming a picture I could understand yet.
Just fragments.
Just echoes.
And in the middle of it all… Alice.
Who might've been a guardian.
Or a warning.
Either way, the path to the final stone waited.
And we were already too far in to turn back.
The night after Alice's revelation hung heavy in the air, but there was no time to linger on questions we weren't ready to answer. We were close now — too close to stop.
The third stone, Noctite, awaited us in the Shattersink, a place none of us could even imagine until we saw it for ourselves. The monastery had been nothing but a husk, its once-proud spires now crumbled into jagged pieces that clawed at the moonless sky. But beneath it, there was another world — a world where the darkness didn't just swallow you whole; it made you forget that you'd ever been whole to begin with.
We reached the edge of the chasm as a chill swept through the air, sending shivers up my spine. The closer we got, the heavier the air felt, like it was thick with the weight of countless regrets. I could almost hear the whispers in the dark — not quite voices, but something close. Something that wanted to be heard.
"There's no going back from here," Alice said softly. She was in front, leading us down the rocky path that led to the Shattersink's edge, her eyes locked onto something we couldn't see yet. "Stay close. And remember what I told you."
I nodded. I wasn't sure if I was more afraid of the stone or the things that lived down here — things that could be anyone.
We descended, and the further we went, the more the sounds of the world outside faded. There were no birds, no wind, nothing. Just the sound of our footsteps on the uneven ground. My breath felt too loud.
"Do you hear that?" Arisa asked, her voice barely a whisper. Her eyes darted around, but there was nothing in the darkness. Not yet. But I could feel it too. A distant murmur, as if the walls were alive, sighing in their sleep.
James clenched his fists, looking uneasy. "I don't like this. This place feels wrong."
Alice didn't respond. She just kept walking. She was the only one who didn't seem affected by the silence, by the emptiness.
We came to the bottom of the chasm — an abyss that seemed to stretch on forever. The air was thick with shadows, suffocating in their presence. I couldn't help but feel like we were trespassing in a place that had forgotten what light even was.
And then I saw it.
The Mirror Graveyard.
Hundreds — maybe thousands — of shattered mirrors lay scattered across the pit's floor, pieces of glass glinting like forgotten memories. Each shard held an image, but none of them were whole. Faces, bodies, reflections of people who had tried and failed to find the stone, who had become part of the darkness in their struggle.
"Stay together," Alice's voice broke through my thoughts, low and steady. She stepped forward, her eyes scanning the graveyard with a sense of purpose, as if she knew exactly where the stone was hidden.
"Look for the shadow," she said. "The stone doesn't just sit in the open. It's hidden behind the veil of your own reflection."
I turned my head, half-expecting to see someone standing behind me. But no one was there. Just the sound of my own breathing. But even that felt strange. It was like the pit itself was listening to us.
Slowly, we began to move through the graveyard, each of us stepping carefully around the shards of glass. The darkness was alive here, pressing against my skin, whispering in my ears. The silence was oppressive, and I couldn't help but feel that the shadows were watching, waiting for us to slip up.
Then, I saw it.
At the far end of the pit, a faint glow flickered in the darkness. It wasn't light exactly, more like the absence of light — a shadow so deep it seemed to swallow everything around it. But as I stepped closer, I saw the faint outline of something sitting in the center of that shadow.
The stone.
I didn't have to ask. I knew it.
Noctite. The Stone of Shadow.
It was just like Alice said. It didn't glow like the others. It was more… subtle. Quiet. Hidden in the dark, but alive with something ancient. Something dangerous.
I reached for it, but before my fingers could touch its surface, I heard something behind me. A whisper.
"Do you remember who you are?"
I spun around, heart racing. The voice had come from nowhere, or maybe it had come from everywhere. The walls of the chasm seemed to pulse with the sound of it. A low, guttural tone, as if the very pit itself was asking me a question I couldn't answer.
And then, I heard it again. The voice wasn't mine, but it sounded like it should have been. The words were so familiar, but at the same time, they felt foreign.
"Who are you, Alex?"
I froze. My mind was spinning, trying to grasp at something solid in this endless darkness.
I reached for the stone again, my hand shaking, and this time, I felt it — the pull. Something was calling me, urging me to take it.
I closed my eyes. "I'm me," I whispered.
The ground beneath my feet shuddered as I grabbed the stone. For a moment, nothing happened. But then, a sudden rush of cold filled the air, and I felt the weight of something ancient pressing down on me.
When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the Shattersink. The shadows had melted away, and I was standing in a different place.
The Mirror Graveyard was gone.
I was back in the ruined monastery, the stone clutched in my hand.
"Did you get it?" Arisa asked, her voice breaking through the haze.
I looked at the stone. Noctite. The Stone of Shadow.
We had it.
And as I turned back to face the others, I realized something.
The chasm, the graveyard, the shadows — they were never real.
They had been me.