The bell had stopped ringing.
Or, at least, it had stopped making any sound.
Nima stood alone in the heart of the cathedral, her body frozen in place, as if the air around her had thickened into some unseen chain, holding her there against her will. Her chest felt hollow, her mind a shattered thing—like pieces of glass strewn across the dark expanse of her thoughts. The woman—the Silent Queen—had disappeared, but her presence lingered, pulsing through the stone and bones of the cathedral like a heartbeat she couldn't escape.
The altar before her was now just that—an altar, still and inert. The body of the queen was gone, or perhaps had never been there at all. The bones of the altar had returned to their original form, fractured and broken, like some ancient, crumbling artifact left in the dust of a forgotten age.
But the words the Queen had spoken echoed in Nima's mind, drowning out everything else:
"The Choir has been broken.
The Hymn is incomplete.
You must gather the lost voices.
Or the world will rot in its silence."
Nima's knees trembled, and she took a slow step back, her hand still pressed against the cold stone of the altar as if trying to steady herself. Her eyes scanned the vast, empty space of the cathedral, but there was nothing. No sound. No movement. Only the weight of silence pressing down on her.
She thought of the town—the strange, perfect town—and the figure who had led her here. She thought of the bell suspended above the cathedral, now still, its chains hanging like lifeless veins in the air.
It had felt like a dream. A twisted, horrifying dream that clung to her like smoke.
But it wasn't a dream.
It was something worse.
She turned, her boots scraping against the floor as she walked toward the doors, past the shattered remnants of stained-glass windows that once depicted saints and angels, now cracked and forgotten. The world outside had changed, as though reality itself had become malleable under the weight of the Queen's song.
The bell had tolled once more, after all.
And the world had answered.
Outside, the sky had turned darker, like a bruise that spread across the horizon. The ground beneath her feet no longer felt solid. It seemed to ripple, undulating with each step she took. She could see nothing but shadows, stretching and shifting, always just beyond her vision. The fog had returned, creeping from the edges of the town, swallowing the streets and buildings, as if the town itself had begun to sink back into the earth.
Nima's breath quickened. She knew she couldn't stay here, not for long. The town was wrong, and every instinct within her screamed to leave. To find the voices. To piece together whatever had been broken.
The wind howled through the streets again, its sound like the wail of a thousand souls in torment. Her hand gripped the naginata tighter, her knuckles white against the worn wood. She had no idea where to go next, no sense of direction other than that strange, unyielding pull in her chest—the echo of the bell.
The town was waiting.
But it wasn't a waiting of peace.
It was a waiting of hunger.
She turned down an unfamiliar street, her boots clicking sharply against the stones. The houses she passed seemed to close in on her, their windows reflecting nothing but her own frightened face. There were no people here. No voices. The silence pressed in on all sides, suffocating her, and yet there was something else, too—something watching.
She paused in front of a large, ornate door, dark wood adorned with carvings that seemed almost alive, twisting in unnatural patterns. The air around it shimmered, like heat rising from the ground. She had passed it before—she was certain of it—but now it seemed different. Now it seemed important.
Her fingers brushed the door, and it swung open with a groan, the sound of metal scraping against stone.
Inside, the room was vast, far larger than it had any right to be. The walls were covered in tapestries, their images faded and worn with age, but the figures still seemed to move, their eyes tracking her every step. In the center of the room was a pedestal, upon which rested a book.
The Book of Voices.
Nima knew it without ever having seen it before. She didn't question how she knew—it simply was. She walked toward it, her heart pounding in her chest. The air felt thick, pressing against her lungs with every breath. The book lay open, as though waiting for her, its pages yellowed and brittle with age. It looked ancient, but the symbols on its pages were unfamiliar, swirling into shapes that made her head spin.
She reached for it, her fingers trembling as they brushed the edges of the pages. A low hum vibrated through the air, rising from the book, and she recoiled for a moment, heart hammering. The humming grew louder, building until it was almost deafening.
Then, the pages began to turn.
Not by her hand.
The book flipped through the pages on its own, faster and faster, until it reached a single page, and everything stopped. The hum died, leaving only the soft rustle of the pages settling into place.
And there, in the center of the page, was a name.
Lyrissa.
It was written in the same strange symbols, but something about the name resonated deep inside her chest. Nima's heart stilled for a moment, as though the air around her had been sucked away.
She didn't know who Lyrissa was. But she knew, somehow, that the name was important. That it was a voice. A lost one.
The book had chosen its first.
The room around her seemed to pulse with energy, and she knew, in that moment, that the book had a purpose. That the voices it contained were not simply words written on fragile pages—they were the fragments of the world itself. The broken voices of those who had lived and died and forgotten. Voices that were not meant to be forgotten.
Lyrissa was just the beginning.
Her fingers hovered over the name, and as if sensing her hesitation, the book flipped another page.
Another name.
Marek.
Nima's breath caught in her throat. Marek. She knew that name, too. In the depths of her memories, buried beneath years of pain, she remembered a face, a voice—a figure standing beside her in a time before all this. Before the bell. Before the town. Before the Queen.
Marek had been her brother.
The pages of the book turned again, faster now, as though it had gained momentum. The names blurred together, but each one struck Nima like a blow. Faces flashed in her mind, unfamiliar and familiar all at once. Her hands reached out, grasping for the book, but the names kept coming, faster and faster, until she couldn't keep up. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think.
The book was swallowing her whole.
Then, a figure appeared before her, standing in the doorway of the room, casting a long shadow across the floor.
It was the figure in crimson, the one who had led her here. But now, its hood had fallen back, revealing a face that was no face at all—just an empty space, a void that seemed to suck in all the light around it.
"The Choir must be completed," the figure said, its voice like a thousand whispers crashing together. "Each voice must be found. Every lost soul, every broken fragment. The song must be whole again, or the world will die in its silence."
Nima stepped back, her mind reeling. The words—the warning—the book—they were all connected. But how? How could she possibly gather the lost voices of a world that was already crumbling?
She felt the weight of the bell in the air, still ringing in her chest.
The figure extended its hand, offering her something. A key.
It was wrought in the shape of a bird, its wings spread wide, the metal gleaming faintly in the dim light. It was delicate but strong, like something that could unlock the very heart of the world.
"Find the first," the figure whispered. "Find Lyrissa."
The figure stepped back into the shadows, and for the first time, Nima was alone again.
But she wasn't alone.
The bell had called her here, and now it was calling her to go further.
To find the voices.
To piece together the broken choir.
And to stop the world from falling into silence.