Chapter 35
The world had become a symphony of chaos. Mountains hummed in low, resonant frequencies, their peaks dissolving into harmonic dust. Rivers flowed in staccato bursts, carving jagged paths through singing stone. The sky shimmered with half-formed memories—faces, voices, and places Kian recognized but couldn't name.
Jin Yue pressed her palms to her ears, blood trickling between her fingers. "Make it stop."
"It's not just sound," Kian said, staring at his trembling hands. The First Song's melody vibrated in his bones, warping his skin into transient patterns of light and shadow. "It's rewriting us."
A child's laugh echoed—Lian's laugh—but when Kian turned, he found only a ripple in the air, a fleeting chord.
The Shattered Sanctuary
They followed the Song's pull to a crumbling citadel, its walls etched with the astronomer's star charts. Inside, the air buzzed with fractured memories:
_Aria teaching Liangu to weave constellations.
The Fractured conducting his discordant orchestra.
Lian, whole and laughing, planting poppies in dead soil._
"It's a memory vault," Jin Yue said, her voice fraying. "The Song's preserving what it destroys."
Kian touched a mural of the dead tree. It dissolved into notes, reforming as a doorway. Beyond it stood a figure cloaked in starlight—the astronomer, or her ghost.
"You shouldn't have woken the Song," she whispered. "But now that you have… you'll need this."
She vanished, leaving behind a vial of liquid silence.
The Devourers' Return
The ground quaked. The Devourers descended, their forms denser now, armored in stolen melodies. Their song clashed with the First Song's, shearing the citadel's walls into dissonant shards.
"They're evolving," Jin Yue spat, hurling a star-chart fragment. It pierced a Devourer's core, which exploded into a scream.
Kian uncorked the vial. "The astronomer's last gift. Use it."
The liquid silence spilled, freezing the air. Devourers recoiled, their harmonies smothered.
"Temporary fix," Jin Yue said. "We need to find the source."
A whisper threaded through the citadel: "Beneath the roots."
The Roots of the First Song
The citadel's floor split, revealing a cavern where the First Song's heart pulsed—a sphere of intertwined light and shadow. Around it stood spectral figures: Aria, the Fractured, Liangu, and Lian, their essences woven into the Song's fabric.
"They're anchors," Kian realized. "The Song's using their memories to sustain itself."
Lian's spectre turned, his voice a chorus of regret and hope. "You have to unmake it. Before it unmakes you."
Jin Yue leveled her blade at the heart. "How?"
"Sacrifice the anchors," Aria's ghost said. "But you'll erase them from existence."
"No," Kian said. "There's another way."
He stepped into the heart's light.
The Merge
The Song flooded Kian's mind, fracturing his identity into a thousand refrains. He was Liangu, burying his daughter. He was the Fractured, howling into the void. He was Lian, dissolving into starlight.
"Stop fighting," the Song urged. "Become the harmony."
"No," Kian gasped. "I'll be the bridge."
He seized the anchors' threads—Aria's grief, the Fractured's rage, Lian's hope—and pulled.
The Discordant Hope
The heart shattered. The cavern collapsed. The spectral anchors dissolved, their final whispers weaving into Kian's soul.
When the dust settled, Kian stood alone, his body glowing with unstable harmony. Jin Yue stared at him, her blade trembling.
"What did you do?"
"I kept them," he said, tears of liquid sound streaming down his face. "All of them. But the Song… it's inside me now."
Above, the sky fractured. The Devourers rallied, their chorus swelling.
"Then we fight," Jin Yue said. "Together."
The First Song's melody shifted, discordant but alive.