The failure of the elders’ counter-narrative created a vacuum, and into that vacuum stepped a young storyteller named Lyra. She had grown up on the stories of the Harmonists, but she had also been one of the first to be touched by the narratives of the Council of Whispers. She saw the fear in the elders’ story, and she felt the truth in the questions of the Council.
One day, during the great Festival of Harmony, when the entire community was gathered to celebrate the beauty and rightness of their way of life, Lyra stood up. In the midst of the prescribed songs and stories, she asked a question. It was a simple question, but it was also a radical one. “Why,” she asked, her voice clear and steady, “are we so afraid of silence?”
A hush fell over the crowd. The elders, who were seated on a raised platform, looked at each other in stunned disbelief. No one had ever asked such a question in public before. It was a direct challenge to their authority, a crack in the smooth, unblemished surface of their world. The First Public Question had been asked, and nothing would ever be the same.