The Choir never expected a reply.
They were used to silence. To fear. To the power of forgotten names staying forgotten. But when that second song rose from the far side of Wyrmspine Valley—when another Ashborn answered Kairo's call—the Choir faltered.
And Kairo ran straight into the chaos.
The sigil he'd cast still hummed at his back, a beacon blazing across the stone. His body moved like flame caught in wind—faster, sharper than he'd ever felt before. The marks on his wrist and back pulsed in rhythm with the song rising from the valley's heart.
Aeska moved alongside him, twin daggers drawn.
Yui followed behind, her spelllight dancing in her palms.
Below, Choirbinders began casting, their blood-bound tomes flickering open. They chanted silently, tongues carved with old oaths, but the silence of their spells was now strained—the air rejecting their suppression, warped by two rising songs.
That second Ashborn's voice grew louder. It wasn't words—just a tone, fierce and unrelenting, threaded with lightning and wrath. The Choir's runes began to unravel midair, burning out before they could complete.
From a ridge of broken glass and bone emerged the source:
A girl—barely older than Yui—wrapped in a stormcloak stitched from scavenged silk and feathers. Her arms were covered in scorched ink, runes burned into her skin like firebrands. Her hair was a shock of silver-blue, tangled and wind-swept.
Her eyes glowed white.
She was screaming a note that fractured the earth.
Kairo reached her just as a Silencer lunged from the mist.
With one fluid motion, he pulled her behind him and struck.
The Choir weapon collapsed into dust—not ash, not blood, just memory undone.
The girl caught her breath, her voice crackling with residual magic.
"You're him," she said, gasping. "The one from the flame."
"And you're one of us," Kairo said.
She nodded. "Name's Lira. My song woke the moment yours touched the sky."
More Choirbinders charged over the ridge.
Kairo stood beside Lira and raised his hand.
Yui and Aeska closed in behind them.
And for the first time in over a generation, two Ashborn sang together.
Their harmonized voices shattered spell walls. Choir tomes combusted mid-incantation. Silencers fell to their knees, their null auras cracked wide open. Even the rain stopped falling.
The air around them warped, responding to each note, each rhythm.
Yui unleashed a wall of searing light that sent the last Choirbinder stumbling off the ridge.
Aeska sprinted past a fallen Silencer, planting a charge of shimmerdust on his chest. It exploded a moment later in a thunderclap of silver fire.
Then it was over.
Silence fell—not enforced, but earned.
Lira slumped against a rock, still glowing faintly.
Kairo offered her his hand. "You okay?"
She grinned through the blood on her cheek. "Tired. But alive. That's new."
He helped her up.
Aeska looked between them. "If she's the second… how many more?"
Kairo turned westward, the marks on his skin pulsing again.
"Five," he said. "And we'll find them all."
Lira raised a brow. "We going to sing the Choir into dust?"
"No," Kairo said, his voice low and steady.
"We're going to sing the world back into truth."