The night that followed the battle was silent—unnaturally so.
Even the wind in Ashwood had gone still, as if the forest itself was waiting for a cue it didn't recognize.
Aeren sat at the edge of the crater, arms wrapped around his knees, the Codex resting beside him like a sleeping beast. Lyssa was nearby, watching him carefully as the blue flame of his Verse flickered low.
"You burned out your soul to win," she said quietly.
Aeren didn't respond immediately. He looked at his hands, still faintly glowing with unstable resonance. They didn't feel like his anymore.
"They weren't fighting me," he said finally. "They were fighting what I might become."
---
Far beyond Ashwood, in a realm uncharted by mortal maps—where space bent around echoing chords—something stirred.
He stood on an inverted stage of shattered notes and forgotten rhythms. Draped in a coat of black silk stitched with symphonic sigils, he held no Codex.
He was the Codex.
> The Conductor.
Where the Choirs sought control and the Bearers sought change, the Conductor sought neither.
He sought completion.
From his perch in the Outer Verse, he watched Aeren through a mirror of fractured resonance.
"So the First Composition stumbles forward," he mused, voice like a cello dragged across bone.
Behind him, dozens of empty thrones floated in orbit—each bearing the remains of a Composer who had failed before Aeren.
He turned to a shadow standing behind the mirror.
"Release the Echo Twins. Let's see if the Ashborn can hold his song when the past sings back to him."
---
Back in Ashwood
Lyssa finished treating the gash along Aeren's ribs.
"You said it wasn't the last," she said, tying off the bandage. "The Prototype. What's next?"
Aeren looked at her, eyes glowing faintly.
"I saw the Verse. Not just mine—all of it. There's something else behind the Codex. Something trying to write the final chapter without me."
"And you're going to stop it?"
Aeren stood, gripping the Codex tighter.
"No. I'm going to finish the book… on my own terms."
The Codex responded, a low hum of anticipation echoing across the forest.
Then the air trembled.
Two figures stepped out of nothingness, dressed in matching black-and-white cloaks, faces obscured by veils of mirrored glass.
> "Aeren Vire," they said in unison.
"The Conductor sends his regards."