Silence wrapped the chamber like a final verse.
Not the oppressive stillness of the Choir. Not the emptiness of Cantor Nythe's void. This was the silence that came after—the sacred stillness that follows the final note in a song so ancient the world itself forgot it was listening.
Kairo stood at the edge of the pool, the man's words still echoing in his chest:
You are the Coda.
The final breath.
The closing line.
The part that ties all meaning together… or tears it apart.
Behind him, the others remained frozen in thought.
Lira sat cross-legged, running her fingers through the threads of flame now flickering along her arms. "I always thought the Ashborn were warriors. Survivors. But we're just… fragments of something trying to fix itself."
Solen whispered, "What happens if we sing it wrong?"
Yui knelt beside the water, staring at the seven lights still swirling beneath the surface. "There are two more out there. Two notes still waiting."
"And the Choir knows," Aeska added. She paced like a cornered blade. "They'll try to take them before we can reach them."
Kairo turned to the waiting man.
"You said we were remnants. That the Song scattered us when it was broken. But what broke it?"
The man raised his hand.
The water shifted again—this time showing a vision of the First Choir.
Not the Ardent Choir. Not the Silent one. But the true original: singers of truth, of memory, of balance. And within them, something else—a presence, vast and subtle, coiling beneath their voices.
"It was not just the Choir that broke the Song," the man said. "It was what hid inside their harmony. A voice too old. Too still. It offered control. It offered unity."
"And they let it in," Kairo said darkly.
The man nodded.
"And in doing so, they birthed the Silence."
He stepped forward now, eyes heavy with a pain that had no age.
"I once bore the mark you wear."
Kairo froze. "You were Ashborn?"
"I was the first," he replied. "But I was not the Coda. I was the Verse. The first to awaken the Song… and the first to fail it."
He pulled back his sleeve.
There was a mark there still—faded, cracked, barely glowing. But recognizable.
Kairo stared at it. "Why show us this now?"
"Because," the man said, "you will be given a choice."
"What choice?"
"To restore the Song… or rewrite it."
That shook them all.
Theren's fists clenched. "You mean we could change the world?"
"Not change," the man corrected. "Remake. A new Song. A new law. One without the pain that came before."
"But at what cost?" Yui asked.
The man looked down.
"All Songs must have silence. All beginnings must end something else."
The chamber darkened.
The seven lights in the water flickered.
A pulse rippled through the chamber—slow, low, distant.
Then another.
And another.
Lira grabbed Kairo's shoulder. "That's not from the pool."
"No," he said, heart racing. "That's from the world."
The spiral canyon outside began to rumble.
The mountain walls groaned.
The Songmarks on every Ashborn flared.
Then, from far above, a voice they hadn't heard in many chapters:
"ASHBORN—YOUR TIME HAS ENDED."
The Choir had found Cadenza.
And they were bringing their final chorus.