The Name Without Letters
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For three days, the village holds.
The Whisperless no longer come. The river flows normally. The sky holds steady, gold and cloudless. But it is not peace.
It is pause.
The kind that comes just before something final.
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Mira feels it in her bones.
She walks the edge of the forest every morning, waiting for signs. Birds that circle too long. Trees that bleed from the bark. Stones that hum.
Each day, she finds more.
A tree in the western wood with its roots shaped like a human mouth.
A fish in the river that speaks, then dissolves into black dust.
A pile of leaves that whispers her name when no one is near.
The world is folding in on itself.
The Root King is close.
---
Tano begins drawing in reverse.
He cannot stop.
Every shape he makes bends inward, spiraling toward an unseen center. His hands shake when he finishes one.
“I’m not drawing for me,” he says. “I’m drawing for him.”
Mira burns each one in the fire.
Esi watches with wide eyes.
“There’s one more
