Where Names Go to Die
Beneath the Unspoken City, there are stairs.
They do not rise.
They do not lead back.
They descend.
And they never end.
Sevrien found them by instinct more than sight. His hand pressed to stone that wasn't stone. His breath drawn through air that wasn't air. Each step rang hollow beneath him — not echo, but absence.
Lys followed.
Not out of hope. Not out of loyalty.
Because she understood now: this was the last road.
There would be no returning from this descent.
At the threshold of the first gate, words burned into the wall.
Not with fire. Not with light. With memory itself, seared into the marrow of the place.
"Here lie the names that could not hold."
Lys touched the script.
Her hand came away empty.
The letters weren't meant to be understood.
Only endured.
"How far does this go?" she asked.
Her voice barely reached her own ears.
Sevrien didn't turn.
"Farther than Severance. Farther than Concordium. Farther than anything left above."
"And when we reach the bottom?"
He smiled.
"Then there's no farther to fall."
They passed through halls lined with mirrors.
Not reflections. Not images.
Each held a name, once spoken, now forgotten.
Yareth of the First Oath.
Selra of the Unlit.
Cairn of the Bound Breath.
Lys saw one with her own shadow curled inside it.
She did not stop.
"They died here," she said.
"No," Sevrien answered.
"They were rewritten here."
At the second gate, the script was deeper, carved through stone into bone.
"Speak no name here. Lest it speak you back."
Neither of them spoke after that.
The stairs changed.
They became ribs. Then roots. Then something softer, pulsing faintly with light like breath beneath skin.
Time bent.
They descended for hours. Or days. Or years.
Their bodies did not hunger.
Their wounds did not ache.
Only the mark on Sevrien's chest burned.
Not brighter. Not deeper.
Wider.
Like something unfurling beneath flesh.
At the third gate, there was no writing.
Only a door.
Wood black as teeth.
A handle shaped like a mouth, sewn shut.
Sevrien pressed his hand to it.
It did not open.
It did not need to.
It remembered him.
It let him through.
Beyond it: nothing.
And in the nothing…
A shape.
Not man. Not god. Not Concordium.
Something older.
Something waiting.
"You brought it back," the shape said.
Its voice was wind beneath water, stone beneath breath.
Not male. Not female. Not mortal.
A voice made of all the names that had ever been burned away.
"The Solituded One."
Lys flinched.
Sevrien did not.
"I didn't bring it back," he said.
"You never let it go."
The shape moved.
Closer. Larger. Smaller. Impossible.
Its mouth was stitched shut. Its hands bound in chain.
Its chest marked with the same brand Sevrien bore — older, deeper, still bleeding.
"You seek to end this."
"I seek nothing."
"Then why descend?"
"Because the world above won't stop."
"And you think this place will?"
"No."
"Then why walk further?"
"Because I can."
Lys spoke then.
Soft. Barely breathing.
"What is this place?"
The shape turned toward her.
If it had eyes, they did not open.
"This is where names go to die."
"And us?"
"You are already dead."
"And him?"
"He is what comes after death."
Sevrien stepped forward.
No fear. No reverence.
Only understanding.
"What waits at the bottom of this?"
The shape smiled.
Its stitches split.
Its mouth whispered through broken teeth:
"Your beginning."
The ground fell away.
The light vanished.
Only names remained.
Only silence held them.
Only memory burned.
And somewhere above, the moons paused in their drifting.
The sky shuddered.
The world waited.
The Solituded One had stepped beyond names.
Now… he would see what waited on the other side.