The air in the library was cold and still, the only sound the soft rustle of ancient pages. Reia had been silent for a long time, her focus absolute, her gloved fingers tracing lines of text that hadn't been read in millennia. The others had given her space, sensing the gravity of what she was piecing together.
Finally, she leaned back, the old leather of the chair groaning. Her face was pale, the usual sharpness in her eyes replaced by a deep, weary horror.
"It's not a song," she said, her voice quiet but cutting through the silence. "It was never a song. That was a mistranslation. A prettier word for something... much uglier."
Evelyn looked up from a star chart she'd been studying. "What is it, then?"
Reia pushed the heavy book, The Origin of the Universe, toward the center of the table. The pages were open to a complex diagram that looked less like a creation myth and more like a scientific schematic of a bomb.
