VANIESHA TURNER Midnight Echoes Break Beyond Silent Thrones (English Edition) lit

The kingdom of Drosmere was not a place of sound, but of silence. Not the soft, peaceful hush of a still lake or a forest at dusk, but a silence heavy and suffocating, enforced and unyielding. To speak too loudly in the shadow of the Silent Thrones was to risk the attention of watchful eyes, and no one desired their gaze. It was said that words were dangerous things, sharper than blades, and that silence was the only way to preserve order. Thus, the people had learned to whisper, to let their voices fall into murmurs barely distinguishable from the sigh of the wind.
But even silence has echoes.
At the stroke of midnight, when the moon hung pale and indifferent in the velvet sky, those echoes stirred. The people whispered in taverns, in shadowed alleyways, and in the dim corners of candlelit rooms. They spoke of prophecies, of voices returning, of the thrones themselves beginning to tremble. No one dared to say such things in the daylight, for fear of the Wardens, but in the depth of night, the whispers gained strength.
It was on such a midnight that a storm broke over the city of Tharelin, the capital of Drosmere. Rain lashed against the rooftops, drumming with a ferocity that rivaled a thousand unsung words. The streets were slick and empty, save for cloaked figures who moved as though shadows themselves had come to life. Each footfall was muffled, each breath measured.
Among them was a boy of no more than sixteen winters. His name was Caelen, though few knew it. Names, like voices, were guarded in Drosmere; the fewer who knew yours, the safer you remained. He pressed himself against the wall of a narrow lane, watching as the Wardens marched past with their black-lanterns. Their faces were hidden behind silver masks, expressionless and cold, and their boots struck the cobblestones in perfect rhythm.
Caelen waited until they vanished around a corner before exhaling a breath he had not realized he was holding. His heart thundered louder than the rain, and he cursed himself for leaving his shelter. Yet something had called him out tonight, something deeper than curiosity. He had dreamt of a voice—clear, commanding, and utterly unlike the mutterings he had grown used to hearing. It had whispered his name, again and again, until he awoke with sweat dampening his brow.
“You will not hide forever,” the dream-voice had said.