The Namrata docked at the edge of a sunless shore.
No birds.
No waves.
Only bones.
The beach was made of ivory fragments, skulls of beasts and men tangled in seaweed. Strange structures rose in the distance—twisted towers and bridges made of rib cages and spines.
Ghatakar stood silently under an ashen sky.
As the group ventured inland, the wind carried no sound. No chirp. No whisper.
Not even footsteps echoed.
"The silence is unnatural," Ishira murmured. "Something here devours sound. Sound… and soul."
They passed shrines to forgotten gods, cracked open and hollow. Corpses sat upright at crossroads, heads bowed in eternal meditation.
Then, they saw the first movement.
A woman. Skin gray. Eyes glassy.
She stood in the middle of the road, lips sewn shut with threads of silver bone.
She reached toward Aarav, then collapsed.
A scroll fell from her sleeve. Vayara picked it up.
It read: "Only the Bonekeeper may open the Hall. He who betrayed the Flame."
Ishira's face turned pale.
"I know who the Bonekeeper is," she whispered.
Aarav stared at her. "Who?"
She answered, voice heavy with memory.
"Your uncle. My brother. Kaalkrit was not my only family."