Wind had a voice beyond the borders of Drav'nar — cruel, ancient, and far too loud. It did not whisper like the Hollow breezes that taught silence. It howled, screeched, gnawed at the flesh like a beast in mourning.
The boy walked, each step swallowed by snow. His boots had split two days ago, and his toes were an aching echo beneath ice. His breath was a ghost. His eyes were hollow.
He had not spoken in thirteen days.
Not out of discipline.
Out of disuse.
His voice had become a forgotten relic, buried under the frost — like everything else Drav'nar had taught him to suppress.
But he still clutched the ribbon.
It was frayed now. A dull crimson string wrapped twice around his wrist. It looked meaningless, like the last piece of a gift long gone. But he pulled it closer to his skin whenever he felt like disappearing.
Sometimes he imagined it pulsing.
Not with magic. But with her heartbeat .With Serah.
The terrain had changed. It no longer carried the smooth, obsidian-blackstone roads of Drav'nar. Here, jagged cliffs rose like broken teeth. Trees were scattered — twisted, hunched — like they were hiding from something.
He passed a frozen lake. Beneath the ice, dark shapes drifted. Limbs. Faces. Things he refused to name.But he kept walking.
Because if he stopped, he'd remember.
And he didn't want to remember.Not the ceremony.Not the smile.Not the quarantine.Not the moment he shivered and the Hollow turned on him.
He found shelter beneath the roots of a dead giant pine.
The fire was already lit.
A woman crouched beside it, wrapped in stitched animal hide and a feathered scarf dyed with bone ash. Her eye — singular — glowed like burnt amber.
She didn't reach for a weapon.
She didn't ask questions.
She just looked at him, and said:
"You reek of silence. Not the good kind."
He stared.
She tilted her head, as if assessing him. "Thread-cut?" she asked. Still nothing. She tossed him a piece of bark — spiced, dried, edible. "My name was stolen," she added, "but you can call me Yren."
He took the food but didn't eat. His fingers trembled too much. She squinted. "That ribbon. What's her name?" His jaw twitched.
"Let me guess. She smiled. That's what broke it all."
A pause.
"And you, you poor spark — you flinched. Which meant you felt. And that was enough."
Her words hit like hail, but he didn't cry.
She didn't expect him to. "You'll need your tongue soon," she added. "The Spiral doesn't stay quiet."
That night, he dreamed of the spiral.
Not a symbol.
A shape buried beneath the snow.Vast. Pulsing. Endless.Like the bones of a sleeping god, but not a god — something worse.It turned. Each coil a memory lost. A name stolen. A thread severed.
Words in Veresh slithered through the air:
"Nurath.""Vaern.""Thir."
Soul. Loss. Hollow.
He awoke gasping. Snow had blanketed him, yet his chest felt hot. He threw off his cloak — and saw it.
A mark on his palm. Etched in faint gold.
A sigil.
Not given by the Seers.Not awakened in the Spiral Mirror.No ceremony. No chants. No blessings.
Just... there. It glowed faintly, like a truth the world wasn't ready for.
Yren returned in the morning with a skinned hare and a wild grin. But her grin dropped the moment she saw his hand.
"Well. Shit."
She didn't ask what it meant. She sat down, poked the fire, and said: "You ever heard of the Ghost Sigil?"
He shook his head.
"They say it was a myth. A glyph meant for one who would never cry, never belong. One who was born outside the thread."
"You've got that look." She studied his eyes for a while.
"They'll hunt you. Not just Drav'nar — the others too. Once they learn."
He blinked. "Others?"
She grinned.
"Oh sweet silence. You think there's only one Hollow?"She gestured to the world beyond the treeline."There are Fourteen Kingdoms, kid. Fourteen lands. Fourteen crowns. Fourteen sins."
He stared. Then whispered — his first words in weeks:
"Why didn't we know?"
Yren looked tired for the first time. "Because remembering is dangerous. Truth breaks the spiral. And your smile? It cracked the seal."
That night, she gave him a book.Old. Leather-bound. The pages shimmered when the firelight hit them just right. It was written in Veresh — the forbidden tongue. He couldn't read it. At first. But when he touched the page, ink began to flow like blood awakening in veins.
The words wrote themselves:
"Jirhan Osir Veth.""The Spiral Rejects the Crown."
His mark flared. Something in the snow groaned — not near, not far — just beneath.
And then…
He felt emotion.
Not wild. Not unstable. Just real.
A thread that hadn't been severed… only buried.
Yren sat beside him.
"I've seen things, boy. I've crossed the Dead Marshes. Watched the Sigil Reavers burn their own kind to hide secrets. I've felt the eyes of the Watchers under the Sea of Still Flesh."
"But I've never seen that."
She pointed to his mark.
"That's not a Sigil tied to any land. It's not one of the Fourteen."
"It's the Fifteenth."
"What does it mean?" he asked.
She looked into the fire.
"I don't know. But I think… I think it's the one meant to unravel all the others."
He looked down at his palm.
And whispered:
"Then I will."
They say Drav'nar broke its own children.
They say exile is a death sentence.
But as the boy walked into the storm — ribbon tied to his wrist, gold mark on his palm, and emotion in his heart — he didn't feel broken.
He felt awake.
And the Spiral... whispered back.