Manual of the Witchcraft of Stillness, compiled from the ashes of the Kenttra Sanctum and the hymns of Huetown's cloisters.
No title upon its cover, only the faint
serpent-moon veve that glows when moonlight
strikes it.
I. The Origin of the Quiet Tongues
The Quiet Tongue was the first language unspoken.
It is said that when the Silent High Witch sealed her voice within Bramwell Zuwa's breath, her words did not die - they transformed.
Each syllable became a vibration,
each thought a symbol,
each silence a key.
To practice this art is not to speak but to resonate.
Witches of Kenttra call it "La Lang Trankil" - the tongue that listens to itself.
Every spell begins with a breath drawn slowly until the heart mirrors its rhythm.
Only then may the witch think the command into being,
and the air first lesson of the Grimoire:
"The world hears what silence means."
II. The Script of the Veiled Moon
Within the Grimoire are twenty-six sigils, each carved from the shape of the moons' reflection
and the faint pattern of Bramwell's heartbeat upon the Serpent Throne.
They are known as Les Run Silans - the Silent Rune.
Every rune holds two faces:
one for invocation, one for restraint.
A witch who cannot read both will call chaos instead of balance.
The Grimoire of Quiet Tongues
PAGE A – THE SILENCE OF ASH
Some words burn too hot to survive the mouth.
This tongue speaks only after destruction - when paper curls, bones char, and meaning becomes residue.
To speak it, one must scatter ash into moving air and wait.
If the ash drifts backward, the truth has accepted you.
If it falls, it has refused.
This silence is used only once in a lifetime.
Those who attempt it twice forget what fire feels like.
PAGE B – THE SILENCE OF BREATH
This tongue is carried between inhalation and release.
It is not voiced - it is withheld.
Practitioners learn to breathe around a secret until the lungs ache.
The longer the ache, the deeper the truth.
Those who master this silence can stand before gods and reveal nothing - and be believed.
PAGE C – THE SILENCE OF CANDLELIGHT
Flames flicker when lies are near.
This tongue is read in shadows cast by living fire.
To speak it, light a candle and do not blink.
When the shadow bends wrong, the message has been delivered.
Candles used this way never burn evenly again.
PAGE D – THE SILENCE OF DUST
All things eventually learn this language.
Dust remembers footsteps, prayers, and betrayals.
Those fluent in this silence read shelves, floors, and bones with equal clarity.
To invoke it, one must trace a sigil in dust and refuse to clean it.
Meaning gathers when neglect becomes devotion.
PAGE E – THE SILENCE OF ECHO
This tongue speaks only after sound dies.
Whisper into an empty space.
Do not listen to the first echo - that one lies.
The second tells the truth.
The third will beg you to stop.
Most never hear the third.
PAGE F – THE SILENCE OF FLESH
This tongue is written beneath skin.
Scars, shivers, gooseflesh - all are syllables.
The body speaks what the mouth was taught to forget.
Those who learn this silence can read pain like scripture
and healing like blasphemy.
PAGE G – THE SILENCE OF GLASS
Glass remembers faces long after they leave.
This tongue appears in reflections that hesitate.
A delay of breath beneath movement and mirror marks a message.
Those who break the glass before listening lose their own reflection forever.
PAGE H – THE SILENCE OF HALOS
A holy silence - and therefore dangerous.
This tongue belongs to fallen sanctity.
It speaks in the pressure behind the eyes during prayer.
Those who hear it learn that divinity does not answer questions -
it removes them.
PAGE I – THE SILENCE OF INK
Ink that refuses to dry speaks this tongue.
The words appear smeared, unfinished, ashamed of themselves.
Yet they are the truest statements the page can hold.
To read them, one must stain their fingers
and accept that some truth follow you afterward.
PAGE J – THE SILENCE OF JOINTS
This tongue is heard in the cracking of bones.
It speaks of age, of promises stretched too far,
of futures that no longer fit.
Those fluent in it know when to kneel
and when standing will break them.
PAGE K – THE SILENCE OF KEYS
Keys hum when near the door they belong to.
This tongue speaks in vibrations felt through metal.
Locks remember intentions.
Those who misuse this silence open things
that were sealed for mercy.
PAGE L – THE SILENT OF LIGHT
Light itself hesitates around certain truths.
This tongue is spoken by dimming rooms, flickering dawns,
and the way shadows cling longer than they should.
Those who master it can hide in brightness
and reveal horrors in full daylight.
PAGE M – THE SILENCE OF MIRRORS
This tongue refuses identity.
Mirrors using it show what you would be
if no one had ever named you.
Those who linger too long forget which version left the room.
PAGE N – THE SILENCE OF NAMES
A name unspoken still works.
This tongue erases identity by refusing to acknowledge it.
It is the most feared silence among gods.
Those erased by this tongue continue living -
but never again recognized by fate.
PAGE O – THE SILENCE OF OPENINGS
Doors, wounds, beginnings.
This tongue exists in thresholds - moments before entry.
It asks one question only: Are you certain?
Most who answer yes are lying.
The silence knows.
PAGE P – THE SILENT OF PRAYER
This tongue speaks after faith collapses.
It is the silence left when no one is listening anymore.
Prayers offered here are not granted -
they are accepted, and that is worse.
PAGE Q – THE SILENCE OF QUESTIONS
Questions that should not be answered hum quietly.
This tongue is felt when curiosity turns heavy.
The silence grows until the question dissolves.
Those who persist receive answers
that refuse to stay answered.
PAGE R – THE SILENCE OF RUST
Time speaks through decay.
This tongue appears where metal weeps orange and red.
It tells of neglect, abandonment, and inevitability.
Those fluent in rust know when something is truly dead -
and when it is merely waiting.
PAGE S – THE SILENCE OF SHADOW
Shadows speak when light is careless.
This tongue moves independently of its source.
When a shadow lingers too long, it is delivering a warning.
Those who ignore it eventually cast no shadow at all.
PAGE T – THE SILENCE OF TEETH
This tongue is clenched.
It speaks through restraint, grinding, and refusal to confess.
It is the silence of survival.
Those who break it do not scream -
they fracture.
PAGE U – THE SILENCE OF UNDOING
This tongue erases.
It speaks when something unravels without noise:
relationships, realities, gods.
To witness it is to know that endings do not announce themselves.
PAGE V – THE SILENCE OF VEINS
Blood carries memory.
This tongue pulses beneath skin, speaking lineage, oath, and inheritance.
It cannot be learned - only remembered.
Those who awaken it discover
they were never alone inside themselves.
PAGE W – THE SILENCE OF WITNESS
This tongue does not intervene.
It speaks in watching, recording, and refusing to act.
It is the High Witch's most dangerous language.
Those who wield it must live with everything they saw.
PAGE X – THE SILENCE OF CROSSINGS
This tongue exists between states.
Life and death.
Truth and lie.
Here and elsewhere.
Those who hear it often forget which side they chose.
PAGE Y – THE SILENCE OF YESTERDAY
Memory speaks softly.
This tongue lives in nostalgia that aches.
It reminds without forgiving.
Those fluent in it can revisit the past -
but never change it.
PAGE Z – THE SILENCE OF ZERO
The final silence.
This tongue is not absence - it is completion.
All sound eventually learns it.
Those who reach this page close the grimoire
and never speak of it again.
Every sigil is traced not with ink but with shadow -
the witch moves her hand through candlelight until her reflection completes the mark.
III. The Circle of Breath
To cast in the Quiet tongue, a witch must create a Circle of Breath.
This is not drawn; it is formed by rhythm.
Four slow inhales, four exhales, then a stillness that hangs between heartbeat and word.
In that stillness, the soul touches the current of the Serpent Circle.
The practitioner becomes neither body nor spirit but bridge -
as Bramwell was, as the High Witch remains.
The Kenttran initiates say:
"If you hear your breath, you have not
yet entered silence."
Only when the breath disappears and the pulse hums in perfect accord
does the spell begin to shape the world around it.
IV. The Ritual of Moon-Binding
At the height if each lunar conjunction,
the Quiet Tongue covens of Kenttra and Huetown perform The Binding.
One stands facing the silver moon, another faces gold;
their shadows meet at the center of the ritual ground.
They chant nothing.
The breathe together until the air between them stills.
When their shadows fuse, the moonlight passes through them,
and the ground beneath their feet ripples like water.
In that reflection appears the serpent-moon veve, glowing faintly.
This mark sacrifices the area for thirteen nights -
no lie can be spoken within it,
no wound can remain unhealed,
and no spirit may cross uninvited.
Thus, the Quiet Tongue maintains the balance between speech and silence,
between creation and restraint.
V. The Last Lesson of the Silent High Witch
At the end of the Grimoire, in script so fine
it can only be read by moonlight, is her final teaching:
"Power unspoken is power unbroken.
Those who speak must remember the silence that birthed them.
Those who listen must hear what has not yet been said."
Beneath it lies a single space of blank parchment -
untouched, waiting.
For every witch who reads to that end must add her own silence there,
her own breath pressed into the page,
that the lineage may continue.
The World of 'The Inheritance' Universe 
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