Maelin still had comet dust smeared across her cloak—looked like she'd rolled through a dying nebula. She stepped into the heart of the Starforge, and honestly, the place felt more like a daydream than anything built by hands. The air flickered purple, like it was on fire, but—get this—no heat. Just cool, electric magic. Crystals hung everywhere, spinning around nothing, whispering stuff you'd probably go mad trying to understand unless you carried the Whisper's mark.
Caelum crept in after her. The guy who never flinched at anything suddenly looked like he'd seen a ghost. "This place shouldn't even be real," he muttered, kind of dazed. "It's like something out of the Choir's wildest hallucinations."
Maelin just shrugged, half a smirk. "Who says we're outside those dreams? Maybe we're smack in the middle of the memory the stars can't let go of."
Right in the center, this pedestal waited for them—etched with the constellation, the Whisper herself. The lines glowed steady now. No more flickering out. As Maelin stepped closer, the whole room sort of bent around her—shadows pulling back, light curving in, and the Starforge singing a note straight into her bones. Freaky, but kind of beautiful.
And then—bam. A blade rose up from the pedestal.
Not some massive Excalibur thing. Just the length of her arm, sharp as regret, made of starlight frozen in the act of falling. The hilt was wrapped in what looked like rippling music—a song she'd heard before, first in ancient parchment, then echoing all those sleepless nights. The whole thing buzzed with power, but also this weird, aching sadness.
"A Choir relic," Caelum breathed, barely audible. "Or…no. More like a piece of one."
Maelin reached out, hand trembling just a bit—but before she could touch it, the crystal fog boiled and a figure stepped out.
Couldn't call it human, couldn't call it beast. Something in between, hanging there, hollow eyes blazing with leftover starfire. Its body was basically stitched together from lost prayers, and when it spoke, the sound made Maelin's skin crawl.
"You're not ready, Key-Bearer," it grated. "The blade remembers betrayal."
Maelin didn't so much as blink. "Good. Let it remember redemption, too."
The blade didn't blaze. It hummed—deep and clear, a resonance that felt like it could shake the whole universe loose. And the Whisper inside Maelin? It answered, like a duet only she could hear.
Right then, her fate—girl, warrior, whatever else—clicked into place, tangled up with the stars above and the ghosts below.
Oh, and somewhere way beyond the Forge, something ancient started to stir. Because of course it did.