The problem wasn't the silence anymore. It was what started growing inside it.
In the days after leaving the settlement, Reven noticed the change. Not just in the terrain, though even that had begun to shift in unnatural ways, but in the way people reacted to him.
They knew.
Even the ones who didn't recognize his face, who had never heard his name, still stared too long. Moved aside without being told. Stood straighter when he passed.
Kaela saw it first.
"They're watching you like you're carrying something they're afraid to touch."
"I am," Reven said.
She tilted her head. "And what's that?"
"Choice."
The trio followed a winding route eastward, circling the fractured perimeter of the Ashwood Wastes. Word had reached them, quiet, indirect, that several nearby tribes were going dark. Not destroyed. Not displaced.
Integrated.
One by one, they would "accepted peace." Installed memory harmonizers. Welcomed the Curated patrols.
It was happening faster now. Too fast to be coincidence.
Lirien dropped from a high ledge beside Reven, brushing dust from her coat.
"There's a signal," she said. "Faint. Old-world. Bouncing off mirrored terrain."
"Targeted?"
"Directed," she corrected. "Not meant for us. But someone will hear it."
Kaela drew a map shard from her pouch and snapped it flat. "How far?"
"Half-day's walk," Lirien said. "Maybe less."
Reven looked out at the sharp ridges rising ahead, the remains of a collapsed skyport now stitched together by makeshift structures and thin, humming towers.
Another hub.
Another attempt at a clean slate.
"We go," he said.
The first body was found just before dusk.
Propped against a cracked stone marker, half-covered in white cloth. No wounds. No blood. Just... gone.
Kaela knelt beside it, fingers brushing the skin. "Heart's still warm."
"Re-education wave," Lirien said. "Mid-cycle pulse. Precision reset. Fails if the subject resists too hard."
Reven stared down at the man's face, young, peaceful, eyes open but empty.
"They're not trying to erase people anymore," he said.
"They're refining the ones who can't be replaced," Lirien added. "Burn the noise. Keep the shape."
"And I'm the noise," Reven muttered.
Kaela stood, scanning the horizon. "Good. Let's be loud."
By nightfall, the settlement was in sight.
Smaller than the others. Newer. Still being shaped. But already wrapped in the same shell of sterile light and softly spoken protocols.
They didn't go in quietly.
Reven walked through the front gate alone.
Kaela and Lirien moved around the flanks watching the towers, disabling the drones before they could alert the core.
Inside, the people didn't run. They just paused. Like a system detecting an unknown variable.
A woman in uniform stepped from the centre structure. Not a guard. Not military. Just another functionary with mirrored eyes.
She tilted her head.
"You're not registered here."
"I'm not here to register," Reven said.
"You shouldn't exist," she replied.
He smiled.
"Then start a file."
The alarm tripped three minutes later.
Kaela took down the first enforcer with a short jab to the throat. Lirien followed, wings snapping wide as she dropped a tower with a compressed wind burst that shattered the base supports.
By the time Reven entered the central control room, the last operator had already fled. The console flickered with half-loaded data—re-education progress reports, memory diagnostics, status updates from something titled: PROJECT VEIL // EXECUTION PHASE ALPHA
He tapped the interface. It resisted. Then yielded and played a message.
"If you're hearing this, it means the system failed to contain him."
The voice was old. Not in age, in tone. A human voice. Measured. Broken. Still trying to sound like it had authority.
"He wasn't supposed to remember. None of them were. If this reaches the surface, burn the mirrors. Clean the echoes. And for the love of the world—do not let him reach the archive under Skygrave."
The message ended. Kaela stepped into the room. "Skygrave?"
Lirien landed silently beside her. "Buried city. Thought it was gone."
Reven stared at the screen.
"No," he said.
"It remembers me too."