Location: The Winter Scar
Where time forgets, and the wind remembers.
---
The snow whispered like it had secrets.
Kairo pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders as he trudged forward, boots crunching through the frost-laced earth. The cold here wasn't just physical—it crept through memory, froze thoughts, gnawed at emotion.
This wasn't a battlefield.
It was a graveyard of decisions.
---
Behind him, Ayleth walked with quiet discipline.
Lyria left footprints shaped like thorns.
Gix floated above, curled in a scarf she stole from a dead noble five towns back.
And in front—
A girl stood alone in the snow.
She didn't shiver.
She didn't breathe.
She just watched them approach, a violin held at her side like a weapon she'd forgotten how to use.
---
Velvara.
Not as an echo. Not as a nightmare.
But her.
The real one.
---
Kairo stopped just feet away.
Neither of them spoke.
The wind howled.
And finally—
She whispered,
> "You didn't come when I died the first time."
He lowered his head.
> "I know."
> "Will you come next time?"
He looked her in the eye—stitched, closed, yet somehow piercing.
> "If there's a next time, I'll die first."
She nodded.
> "Then listen closely. Because death is coming."
---
SCENE SHIFT — MEANWHILE, ABOVE
From the frozen cliffs that surrounded the Winter Scar, an army stood in silence.
Not soldiers. Not even warriors.
They were too still. Too symmetrical.
Each one wore a white mask—smooth, featureless, emotionless. Their armor was black steel embroidered with frost.
And in front of them stood a man.
His mask was different.
Carved with a single eye.
---
The Masked General.
First Sentinel of the Hollow Refrain.
The man who'd once killed a god by singing it to sleep.
He held a long spear wrapped in prayer beads.
And when he spoke, the air stopped moving.
> "The Violin Heart has touched the Crownless."
"He must be silenced. Or made."
---
BACK TO KAIRO
Velvara stepped forward and placed something in Kairo's hand.
A snowflake.
Perfectly shaped.
But it didn't melt. It didn't move.
It was carved from bone.
> "This is the last piece," she said.
> "Of what?"
> "Of you."
The violin on her back wept a single note.
The ground trembled.
From beneath the snow, a tower of broken instruments erupted, reaching toward the sky—violins, harps, pianos, flutes—all fused together like the skeleton of a song that was never finished.
---
And at its peak, embedded in the highest string…
Was a mask.
---
Kairo felt it call to him.
Gix shivered.
> "That's not a memory, Meatblade. That's your origin."
---
FLASH – ECHO VISION
He saw himself again.
But this version… didn't fight.
He played.
On a stage built of bone.
To an audience of corpses.
Each note rewrote time.
Each note created a new Kairo.
Until the last note.
The one that broke Velvara.
---
BACK TO REALITY
> "The Sanctum lied," Kairo said. "This was never about prophecy."
Velvara nodded.
> "It was always about the song."
> "What song?"
> "The one that ends the world."
---
SCENE SHIFT — THE MASKED GENERAL DESCENDS
With a single step, he vanished from the cliff.
Appearing behind Kairo.
Spear drawn.
Velvara turned, eyes snapping open mid-air, the stitches unraveling as her voice pierced the snow:
> "DON'T TOUCH HIM!"
The spear struck—
CLANG.
Kairo blocked.
Just barely.
The shockwave shattered the trees.
Ayleth and Lyria were thrown back.
Gix hit a snowdrift with a curse and a mouthful of powder.
---
The General raised his head.
And spoke one word:
> "Play."
Velvara stepped forward, lifted her violin, and played the first note of the world's last song.