The wind changed as soon as they crossed the borderlands.
It wasn't just colder—it was aware.
Gone were the shifting dunes and broken cities of the Choir's influence. Now the land was jagged and ancient. The mountains that framed the edge of the world loomed like stone sentinels, carved not by erosion, but by will.
They rode through a graveyard of giants.
Statues—not of gods or rulers, but of singers—lined the canyon path to Cadenza. Each bore a unique mark on their forehead. Each had one hand raised to the sky and the other to their chest, as if forever mid-song.
"Are they Ashborn?" Solen whispered.
Kairo nodded. "The First Choir. The ones who didn't survive the Silence."
Theren walked beside him, eyes narrowed. "And the ones who became it?"
Kairo didn't answer.
It took three days to reach the mouth of the spiral.
Cadenza wasn't a city.
It was a chord written into the earth.
The mountain range didn't rise in peaks. It bent in a spiral canyon—each ridge folding into the next, like grooves on a vinyl record carved by the hands of the world. At its center was a single black tower, low and wide, sunk into the earth like an echo sealed in stone.
It pulsed faintly with blue light.
Lira stood at the edge, her voice caught. "It's… singing."
Yui grabbed Kairo's hand. "But it's not calling us."
He nodded slowly. "It's waiting."
They descended the spiral path, the walls humming with layered harmonies. As they moved, the melody changed subtly with each step—shifting pitch, tone, and tempo. A song written for them, by them, before they even existed.
"It knows us," Kairo said. "It remembers."
At the base, the tower opened—not with a sound, but a pause. A moment of complete stillness that let them pass.
Inside was a circular chamber.
No throne. No relics. No guardians.
Only a pool of water, still and dark.
At the far edge stood the man from their dreams.
The one who waited.
No longer crowned.
Now cloaked in gray robes, embroidered with silver threads that formed no known symbols.
He turned slowly as they entered.
"I did not think you would come," he said.
Kairo stepped forward. "We had to. There's no one else who knows what we are."
"No," the man agreed. "There is no one else. That is the tragedy. And the design."
"What are we?" Lira asked. "Really?"
The man looked to each of them.
Then, without warning, he sang.
Not a word.
Not a melody.
A note—long, deep, ancient.
It struck the walls. The water. Their bones.
It wasn't a sound meant to be heard.
It was a sound meant to wake.
The pool at the center of the room began to shimmer, revealing images beneath the surface—memories.
Ashborn dying. Choirs consuming. The world folding in on itself. The Song breaking.
Then—seven sparks of light.
Each one rising from the ashes of the fallen.
Kairo.
Yui.
Lira.
Theren.
Solen.
And two more—faces still unknown.
"You are not chosen," the man said. "You are not cursed."
He pointed to the pool.
"You are remnants. Fragments of the original Song, made flesh. When the Choir shattered the last full harmony, the Song defended itself. It scattered its pieces into the world."
"And we're those pieces," Yui said, voice quiet.
"Each of you holds a key," the man said. "Each of you carries not just a note… but a law. A rule of what the world used to be."
Theren stepped forward. "Then why does it feel like we're being hunted by the world itself?"
"Because," the man said, "you are the end and the beginning."
He turned to Kairo.
"And you—Ashborn of Flame and Memory—you are the Coda."
Kairo felt his knees weaken. "The final word?"
The man nodded.
"The final breath before the world sings again."