The Silent Streets

The city of Lorynth changed as night fell.

Elya had seen many cities under moonlight—some that glowed with lantern-lit revelry, others that shrank into uneasy silence. But Lorynth did something else entirely. It did not sleep, nor did it stir. Instead, it watched.

The streets, which had been cautiously busy during the day, emptied with a quiet urgency. Doors shut without slamming. Windows latched softly, their shutters drawn like closed eyelids. Even the air grew thick with something unseen—an oppressive weight that pressed against her skin.

Elya moved carefully through the narrow streets, her boots making almost no sound against the uneven cobblestones. The mist had thickened, curling low along the ground like something alive. It licked at the edges of doorways, sank into the crevices of walls, and pooled in the hollow spaces where light did not reach.

She carried no lantern. Instinct told her not to.

Instead, she relied on the thin silver glow of the moon, barely visible through the shifting clouds overhead. The buildings leaned in on either side of her, their warped facades casting deep, slanted shadows. Many bore signs of age—cracked plaster, sagging beams, ivy creeping like veins up their surfaces—but none of them felt abandoned. The city was old, but it was not dead.

Something was breathing here.

She felt it in the way the air seemed to shift, in the way the mist moved not with the wind, but against it.

Somewhere in the distance, water dripped from a broken gutter. The sound was rhythmic, a steady plip-plip-plip that should have been unremarkable. And yet, it made her skin crawl.

Elya turned a corner and found herself in a wider street lined with ancient stone buildings. Above her, one of the seven towers loomed, its massive form rising into the night like a silent sentinel. The bell at its peak was enormous, its metal surface dull with age. Its chains hung limp, unmoving.

She exhaled slowly.

There were no guards patrolling these streets, no watchmen keeping vigil. The city seemed to police itself through silence and unseen eyes.

She took a step forward.

A whisper scraped against the edge of her hearing.

She froze.

It had been faint—so faint she almost doubted it had been real. The sound had not come from behind her, nor from ahead. It had come from above.

Her pulse quickened. She tilted her head up, slowly, deliberately.

A window stood open on the second floor of the nearest building, its shutters swaying gently.

Nothing unusual. And yet—

The darkness inside was wrong.

It was not simply shadowed. It was empty. Not in the way a vacant room should be, but in the way a space might feel if it had never been meant to exist at all.

A flicker of movement.

Elya's breath caught.

Something shifted inside the darkness—not a figure, not a person, but a disturbance in the air itself. Like a ripple in water, subtle and wrong.

She took a step back.

The shutters stilled. The wind did not blow.

She turned sharply, forcing herself to move, to keep walking. Her every instinct screamed at her not to look back.

The mist thickened at her heels.

She did not run. Running would be a mistake. Running would mean she had seen something she was not supposed to.

She counted her steps.

One.

Two.

Three.

A footstep echoed behind her.

She did not stop.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Another step. Not hers.

Not human.

The breath in her lungs turned cold, like frost creeping along glass. She tightened her grip on the hilt of her dagger, though she knew it would be useless against something she could not see.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

The sound stopped.

The air shifted again, and the weight of unseen eyes lifted slightly.

She kept walking.

The city streets grew narrower, the buildings pressing closer together, as if they, too, had been holding their breath. The mist began to recede, curling away from her boots like tidewater retreating from shore.

Elya did not allow herself to exhale until she reached the next intersection.

She turned, quickly, sharply.

Nothing.

The street behind her was empty.

But she knew—without a doubt—she had not been alone.

⸻

She reached the marketplace minutes later.

By day, the square had been filled with cautious merchants and hurried customers. Now, it was desolate. The empty stalls stood like abandoned skeletons, their awnings sagging, their wares packed away. The only signs of life were the caged lanterns hanging from iron hooks, their flames flickering with the occasional gust of wind.

She moved toward the old notice board. The parchment she had seen earlier was still there, its ink untouched by the moisture in the air.

Names. Dates. A pattern stretching back centuries.

Her fingers brushed the edge of the most recent notice.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, another name would be added.

Her pulse quickened. If she stayed—if she watched—perhaps she could see who was chosen. Perhaps she could stop it.

But as she traced the edge of the parchment, something caught her eye.

A faint smudge at the very bottom.

Ink.

Someone had written something here, then attempted to rub it away.

She reached into her coat, withdrawing a small vial of water and a scrap of cloth. Dipping the fabric lightly, she pressed it against the paper, careful not to damage it.

Slowly, a single line of text emerged beneath the list of names.

They are taken, but they are not gone.

A chill crawled up her spine.

She stared at the words, the ink slightly smeared but still legible. Someone had tried to erase this. Someone had not wanted it to be read.

A gust of wind swept through the square, rattling the wooden stalls. A lantern flickered violently before its flame went out entirely, plunging the far corner of the marketplace into darkness.

Elya exhaled slowly.

She knew, then, that she would not be leaving Lorynth.

Not until she had found the door.

Not until she had heard the bell toll with her own ears.

And not until she knew—truly—what lay on the other side.