Chapter 32
The poppy wilted in Kian's hand.
Three days had passed since the Voidspire's fall, and the world was learning to breathe again. Rivers flowed in broken, arrhythmic currents. Trees sprouted leaves of mismatched colors. Even the sunlight seemed uncertain, flickering between gold and gray. But the poppy—Lian's poppy—was dying.
"It needs something," Jin Yue said, her voice hoarse. She cradled her skeletal arm, the gold plating now rusted and flaking. "Maybe we're not giving it the right… fuel."
"It needs him," Kian snapped, sharper than he intended. The words hung between them, raw and accusatory.
A wind stirred, carrying the faintest strain of laughter—the Fractured's laugh—before dissolving into the erratic chirps of newborn birds.
The Silence
They found the first corpse at midday.
A farmer, eyes wide and empty, kneeling in a field of half-grown wheat. His hands clutched his throat, though there were no marks. Around him, the crops stood unnaturally still, their stalks frozen mid-sway.
"No birds," Jin Yue noted. "No insects. Just… nothing."
Kian knelt, touching the man's shoulder. The body crumbled to ash.
"The Voidspire's death left gaps," he said. "Spaces where the song doesn't reach."
"Or where something else does," Jin Yue muttered.
A child's voice giggled from the tree line.
"The Hierophant?"
"Worse."
The Fractured's Gift
The village was a puppet show of horrors.
Bodies hung from rooftops, strings of golden light threading their limbs. Their faces were stretched into grins, their eyes sewn shut with Voidspire shards. At the center of the square stood a familiar figure—the Fractured, his form flickering between shadow and substance.
"You missed me," he crooned, arranging a corpse's arm into a wave. "Admit it."
Jin Yue's rusted arm creaked as she drew her dagger. "You're supposed to be dead."
"Death is a human concept." The Fractured gestured, and the puppets lurched to life. "I'm a symphony."
Kian's poppy trembled, its petals shedding crimson dust.
The Discordant Dance
The puppets attacked with jerking, brutal grace. Kian fought mechanically, his crystallized arm sparking with unstable energy. Jin Yue carved through golden strings, but for every one severed, two more sprouted.
The Fractured watched, amused. "You broke the Voidspire, but you didn't fix anything. Nature abhors a vacuum, Kian. And I… I am naturenow."
Lian's poppy glowed suddenly, its light piercing the Fractured's chest. He staggered, his form unraveling.
"You," he hissed. "Still clinging to shadows."
The puppets collapsed. The village fell still.
"What did you do?" Jin Yue demanded, eyeing the poppy.
Kian stared at the fading light in his palm. "He's still fighting."
The Wandering Star
That night, they met the astronomer.
She emerged from the woods, her robes stitched with constellations that moved, her eyes twin telescopes reflecting dying stars. In her hands, she carried a jar of liquid silence.
"You've met the Fractured," she said, though it wasn't a question. "He's harvesting the Silence to forge a new song. A Discordant."
"Why help us?" Kian asked.
She tapped the jar. Inside, a wisp of Lian's soul swam. "Because the boy's fracture is my fault. I'm Aria's mother."
Liangu's secret widow.
The Shattered Sky
The astronomer's camp was a nest of star charts and shattered mirrors. She spoke of Liangu's obsession, Aria's binding, and her own exile.
"The Fractured is using the Silence to resurrect true chaos," she said. "But Lian's soul can stop him. If you let him merge with the Silence."
"Merge?" Jin Yue echoed. "You mean die."
"I mean become more." The astronomer opened the jar. The wisp floated to the poppy, reviving it briefly. "The choice is yours."
Kian's hand closed around the flower. "No more sacrifices."
"Then the Fractured wins," the astronomer said. "And the song ends."
The Fractured's Lullaby
At dawn, the Fractured returned.
He stood atop a hill of ash, conducting an orchestra of corpses. The air thrummed with a new melody—sharp, jagged, alive.
"Hear that?" he called. "The first note of my magnum opus. I call it… Entropy."
Jin Yue's rusted arm flared, responding to the tune. "Kian—"
"I know." He pressed the poppy to his chest. "Do it."
The astronomer raised her jar.
And Lian's soul sang.
The Cost
Light erupted. The corpses disintegrated. The Fractured screamed, his form unraveling into static.
When the silence returned, the poppy was gone.
So was Jin Yue's arm.
And Kian…
Kian held a single seed, glowing crimson-gold.
"What did we do?" Jin Yue whispered.
The astronomer collapsed, her star-charts burning. "You planted a new song."
Above them, the sky cracked open—not with gold or shadow, but with color.