ᚺᛖᛚᚺᛖᛁᛗ
The Echoing Silence
Beyond the warmth of the living, where heroes do not tread, lies the domain of the half-living goddess. Step into the shadows, where every exhaled breath crystallizes into ice, and the silence is deafening.
This is the final destination for the uncelebrated—those who faded quietly in their beds, far from the clash of steel. Stripped of Valhalla's glory, the departed drift through a desolate, meandering fog, consumed by the creeping dread of an unremarkable demise. At the center of the gloom sits Hel. With a face divided between vital life and rotting bone, she binds the fallen to her realm. Her law is absolute; what crosses into the dark remains in the dark, a heavy anchor upon the scales of existence.
The Riddle of Echoing Silence
I have no tongue, yet tell of treason,
No hand, yet heave the highest throne.
I am a weapon without weight,
A seed of sorrow, silently sown.
I am locked within the living man,
A ghost that gnaws on a guilty heart.
Share me, and I shatter like glass,
Keep me, and I tear your soul apart.
What am I?