Chapter Four – Shatter Noodles Never Closed
Part Five – The Shack Still Stood
The forest gave way to stone again—slowly, like it was ashamed to do so.
No one spoke as they walked.
Zephryn didn't ask if Kyyan was coming. Kyyan didn't announce it. He simply stood, gave one last look to Bubbalor, and began down the trail beside him.
It wasn't casual.
It wasn't warm.
It just was.
Like this had happened before.
Maybe it had.
Maybe the part of Zephryn that remembered those walks was still buried—tangled in the Choir's silence.
The walk back toward the outer edge of the market wasn't long.
But it felt like moving through a world both too real and too distant. The trail dipped and curved past memory-slicked stones and old torch poles. Moonbark roots pressed up through the path like something beneath the world wanted to breathe again.
Zephryn's boots struck stone.
Kyyan's steps made no sound.
"Did you know I was there?" Zephryn asked suddenly.
"Which time?"
Zephryn blinked.
Kyyan kept walking, hands in his coat.
"You're not the first to sit beside a sleeping dragon and wonder if the silence was real.
But you're the first one he hummed for."
The scent reached them before the shack did.
Smoke. Salt. Broth. Star oil burned low.
It hadn't changed. The shape of the roof still leaned slightly left. The banner outside still torn. The moss between the stones still vibrant.
Shatter Noodles.
They stepped inside, and the steam rose to greet them. Not thick. Not aggressive. Just present, like it had been waiting for them to walk through again.
Zephryn took his usual seat—fourth from the left. Always the one with the cracked bowl ridge carved into the wood.
Kyyan walked behind the counter. Didn't speak. Didn't smile.
He was the same man who had sat beside incense and myth,
now standing in an apron beside a bubbling pot of bone broth.
And somehow, that didn't feel strange at all.
Zephryn watched the steam swirl over the rim of the pot. He closed his eyes and breathed it in.
"This is the only place that still smells the same."
Kyyan ladled broth with care. Not reverence. Just steadiness.
He placed the bowl in front of Zephryn, then leaned against the counter.
The silence between them wasn't awkward. It never had been.
Then:
"Didn't think I'd see the Silvercrest again."
Zephryn opened his eyes.
"You're the only one who did."
Kyyan didn't answer. He didn't have to.
Outside, the market stones shimmered. Somewhere behind the shack, a dog barked once and fell silent. A wind passed that didn't belong to this part of the world.
And Zephryn finally asked the question:
"Do you think it ever ends?
This feeling that something's missing inside you?"
Kyyan leaned down. Stirred the broth again. Answered without looking up.
"No. But sometimes it shifts.
Sometimes the part that's missing becomes the part that protects what's left."
Zephryn's hand grazed the side of the bowl.
His glyph didn't activate.
But it pulsed—just once.
Not a cast.
Just a… reminder.
Of the tether.
Of Bubbalor.
Of Solara's hum.
Of something else that hadn't fully surfaced yet.
He took a sip.
And for the first time in weeks…
he didn't feel like collapsing.
Behind the counter, Kyyan watched him with quiet eyes.
He reached for another bowl—an empty one, still warm from fire—and began wiping it clean.
"Steam carries memory, you know," he said.
"That's why this place never closed. Even when no one walked through the door."
Zephryn looked up.
"So who keeps the memory alive?"
Kyyan paused. Then shrugged once.
"Sometimes no one does.
Sometimes the memory keeps itself."
Outside, footsteps scraped the stone.
Louder than they needed to be.
Zephryn didn't turn around.
He already knew who it was.
The scent of control. Of fire under cold water. Of fury wearing a badge.
Riko.