Solen's voice split the silence.
It wasn't polished like Kairo's, or thunderous like Theren's, or fierce like Lira's. It was cracked and trembling—raw with pain, incomplete in places, like a puzzle missing edges. But that only made it stronger.
Because Cantor Nythe's greatest weapon was perfection.
And Solen's defiance—imperfection in motion—shattered her balance.
The note pulsed from his chest like a ripple in glass.
The Ashborn woke fully.
Kairo clutched his spear, eyes blazing. "Everyone—sing now!"
Yui launched a shield of radiant light into the air, refracting the silence into strands of color.
Lira flared beside her, letting her flame-song burn with no rhythm, no harmony—just heat.
Theren stomped, releasing a percussive roar that shook the ground itself.
And Solen—young, shaking, but rising—sang again.
Not to control.
Not to fight.
But to exist.
To reclaim every note stolen from his memory, every name torn from his mind.
Nythe recoiled.
The runes around her chains cracked.
One broke completely and shattered like porcelain.
Kairo advanced across the ruined theater, his spear humming with resonance. "You wanted silence," he said. "Then listen to this."
He thrust his weapon into the floor.
It struck the bones of the building—the foundation where songs were once born—and awakened them.
The whole structure sang.
A full, impossible chord—one voice made of many.
The broken, the loud, the young, the wild.
The Ashborn.
Nythe screamed—but no sound came out.
Her chains writhed, no longer dancing to her will, but dragging her backward. Her mask cracked fully, revealing empty eyes.
And then she vanished.
Not destroyed.
But undone.
Her name fell from the air like dust.
When the silence cleared, the city of Caldrin's Reach breathed again.
Not with clarity, but with noise—human noise.
Cries. Laughter. Echoes returned to their rightful owners. The city no longer rewrote its own sounds. It began to heal.
Kairo sat beside Solen on the edge of the ruined stage.
"You saved us," he said.
Solen wiped his eyes. "I didn't mean to. I just… didn't want to forget again."
"You won't," Yui said gently. "Not with us here."
Aeska stood watch near the broken dome, her eyes locked on the sky. "She's gone, but the Choir won't take this lying down."
"They can't," Kairo said. "Not anymore. Not with four of us."
He looked at Solen. "Will you come?"
Solen nodded. "If I forget again, I want to forget with someone."
Kairo smiled. "Then we move. There are still three more out there."
"And the Choir will reach for them too," Lira warned.
Theren cracked his knuckles. "Let them."
That night, the Ashborn camped beneath a sky that was almost clear.
Solen played with soft chords under his breath as the others rested.
And far across the horizon, something stirred—not Choir, not Hollow, not Ashborn.
But something older than all of them.
Something watching.
And waiting.