The dreams came for all of them that night.
Not nightmares—but something worse: questions.
Solen dreamed of mirrors that didn't reflect. Of songs with no end. Of a stage lit by a sun that had no warmth.
Lira saw flame that whispered to her. "You were not born. You were kindled."
Theren heard drums beating in reverse—his every step erasing the ones before.
Yui dreamed of threads being cut—light unraveling from her fingertips like blood.
And Kairo… Kairo saw a face.
Not Choir. Not Ashborn.
Something other.
A man with a crown made of silence.
Eyes hollow but vast.
A voice that did not echo.
Only waited.
Kairo woke before the sun, the dream's residue clinging like ash to his skin. The others still slept, shadows flickering across their tents from the dying fire.
He rose quietly, stepped away from the camp, and stood atop a small ridge overlooking the broken plains of the north.
He felt it again.
The same feeling he had in the Vault of Stars before the first pulse—the sensation of being observed by something outside the weave of the Song. Not enemy. Not ally. Not even a presence.
Just patience.
Yui approached from behind, wrapping her arms around herself in the morning chill. "You felt it too."
He nodded.
"I don't think it's the Choir."
"It's not," he said quietly. "It's deeper. Older."
They stood in silence.
Then Lira appeared, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "There's something wrong with the marks."
Kairo looked at her wrist—and saw it.
The Songmark, usually pulsing gently with her natural rhythm, was flickering.
Hesitating.
"It's trying to harmonize with something," she said.
Solen stumbled up the ridge, yawning. "I heard someone humming. A man. But the hum was… wrong. Like a question without a note."
Theren arrived last. "I don't like this. We're being baited."
Kairo looked north.
Toward a black spire rising on the horizon—so faint it could've been a trick of light.
But it wasn't.
"I think we're being summoned."
That afternoon, they traveled in silence.
Even Aeska, usually vigilant and sharp-tongued, was unusually quiet as they crossed the shifting dunes between Caldrin's Reach and the next known Vaultsite. Every birdcall, every breeze, every footstep felt… distant. Like echoes out of place.
Then the Songmarks on Kairo's arm began to burn.
He collapsed to one knee.
Solen ran to him, catching his shoulder. "Kai?"
"I… I hear something."
The others froze.
Kairo looked up. His eyes were glowing—not violet, but gold.
"Not a voice. A void."
The world trembled.
Reality bent.
And standing on the hill above them, without warning or sound, was the man from the dream.
No armor. No robe. Only a long coat stitched with black threads and a crown of silence hovering just above his head.
He had no visible mark. No weapon.
And still… the Songmarks on every Ashborn flared, reacting violently.
Theren readied flame.
Yui summoned a shield.
Solen backed behind Lira, who stood protectively in front of him.
Kairo stepped forward.
The man raised a hand—calmly.
And everything stopped.
Time. Wind. Sound.
The birds froze mid-flight. Fire halted mid-flicker.
And in the stillness, the man finally spoke:
"I was the first to listen."
The words were slow, measured, impossible to mishear.
"And I am the last to wait."
Kairo's breath caught. "You're not Choir."
"No," the man said. "They are echoes of what I left behind."
"Then… what are you?"
The man tilted his head.
"I am the pause between every Song. I am the breath before birth. The silence no voice can escape."
He looked at each of them, eyes ancient.
"You call yourselves Ashborn. But you do not yet understand what you were born from."
Then he turned and began walking across the ridge—leaving.
Just before he vanished, he said one final thing:
"When you are ready to know the truth… find me at the End of the Song."
And then he was gone.
The wind returned.
Time resumed.
The world exhaled.
And for the first time since awakening the Song…
Kairo was afraid.