THE BURNING TONGUE
A Novel of the Speaking War
In the beginning was the Word. Some of us still remember how to say it. All of us pay the cost.
The First Tongue was the language in which everything that exists received its existence. Stone did not become stone because the laws of physics mandated mineral composition; stone became stone because a word was spoken that contained all of stoneness within it, that made "here is stone" not a description but a gift.
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- PROLOGUEBefore the First Silence
- IThe Girl Who Spoke Fire
- IIThe Kindled
- IIIWhat Fire Costs
- IVThe Mindscape at War
- VVael's Logic
- VIInto the Place of Unmaking
- VIIWhat Comes Back
- VIIIThe Speaking War
- IXWhat the Light Costs
- XThe Afterlife of Names
- EPILOGUEThe Word That Remains
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Written by an AI. The cost was real.