The song of the dead did not fade.
It settled, instead—soft and slow, like snow falling upon the ashes of a once-burning world. It folded into the fractures of the land, into the charred bones of the battlefield, like breath into the lungs of a dying god. Wordless, weightless, and unbearably old, the sound carried no melody, no voice—only memory. A lullaby that required no language to be understood. A hymn not for worship, but for remembering. It moved like wind through hollow places, threading grief into silence, sorrow into the marrow of those still alive. And in Selena's chest, it stirred not pain, but recognition—of something sacred she had once vowed to carry within her and, somehow, had forgotten.
And then he came.
The Mirror Prince.
