Chapter Five: The Memory Isn't Yours (Part One)
The wind was too gentle.
It brushed the high grass with impossible calm, as if nothing had ever burned here. No screaming, no silence, no Choir. Just peace. A lie made of warmth and morning gold.
Zephryn stood still—his boots untouched by dirt, as if the earth refused to hold him.
Ahead, Solara knelt beside a shallow stream, cupping water into her hands like it was holy. Her reflection shimmered beside her, fractured in ripples but smiling back. She looked younger. Softer. No scars. No weapons.
He stepped forward.
The sound was off. No crunch beneath his footfall, no shift of air. Just light, filtered and unbothered, like the world had been painted that morning.
Solara turned.
"Sleep well?" she asked, and her voice wasn't hers. It was too smooth. Too practiced.
Zephryn's throat tightened. "Where… are we?"
She stood, wiping her hands on her skirt like she'd done a hundred times before—except he'd never seen her wear that color. A soft violet dress. No marks. No weight on her shoulders.
"You're home," she said gently. "Where else would you be?"
A glyph shimmered behind her—subtle, cracked into the sky like a vein of memory. Then another. Faint pulsework, lining the clouds.
The Threadglass was bleeding through.
Beneath the Lyceum, far beyond his reach, the Hollow Choir stirred.
"He's resisting," one hissed, veil-toned.
"Emotional recursion loop destabilizing."
"Increase silence threshold. Suppress the Monarch trace."
"Too late. The resonance is humming. She's waking it."
The Smiling Cantor leaned forward through the memory haze.
"Let him see it," he said softly. "Let him feel what they took. The fracture sings louder when the heart breaks naturally."
Zephryn blinked. Solara was closer now, arms gently wrapping around him. Her warmth was real. Her breath on his chest. But his own breath came too shallow. Too sharp.
"This isn't right," he said.
Her smile didn't falter. "You've been through so much. It's okay now. You can rest."
"No…" he breathed. "This isn't real."
He stepped back—and the sky above flickered. The clouds cracked in silent rhythm. Threadglass distortion—intensifying.
"Why are you wearing that dress?" he asked.
Her face softened, but she said nothing.
He turned—looking toward the stream. There were no fish. No stones. Just water that never bent, never flowed. A perfect illusion held still.
He clenched his fists. "You never wore violet. You hated it. You said it felt like bruised flowers."
Solara's eyes dimmed. Her mouth opened—but no sound came.
Then the hum began.
Not from her.
From the sky.
From something buried behind the veil.
A faint crystalline tone shimmered in the air, rising like memory on the edge of pain.
"The Monarch is waking," one Choir voice hissed.
"Stabilize the memory. Rewrite the edge—cut the stream!"
"He's locking to her song. If it completes—"
"Then the probe collapses."
Zephryn stepped forward again, and the air pulled away from him—like the world was afraid.
"Where did you hide it?" he whispered. "The Monarch. You buried it here, didn't you?"
Solara stepped backward. Not in fear. In grief.
"You weren't supposed to remember this," she said. And this time—her voice was hers. Older. Wounded. Real.
She raised her hand, and the light bent.
The illusion shattered in strips, like glass melting sideways. The field faded. The stream drained into nothing. And behind her—piercing through the ruin—
—stood the Crystal Monarch.
Shards of refracted light swirled around it. The blade's edge hummed like it knew him. Like it remembered the weight of his name. His scar. His silence.
Solara reached for it.
Zephryn's breath hitched. His knees shook. "Please… no…"
Her fingers gripped the Monarch's hilt.
And the Void began to open.