Silt and Shadow

The Siyan River is dead, replaced by a landscape of cracked earth, reeking of salt and decay. For the narrator, a final, reckless descent into the exposed riverbed reveals not just the detritus of a lost civilisation, but the cold, tangible evidence of its cruelty: ancient slave galleys and the skeletons of long-drowned priests. But the deepest secret lies sealed in the mud: a modern, black sedan. Trapped inside with the bodies of a landlord's daughter and a slave boy, whose skeletons are locked in an eternal kiss, the narrator discovers their final, desperate confession. It is a tale of love, defiance, and a society so rigid it forced two young lovers to trade their lives for an hour of freedom in the Siyan's icy current. Now, the river's shadows are restless, and the narrator must carry this dangerous, forbidden story back to a world that would rather let the dead-and their truths-stay buried.