> "They built the world with silence.
She will break it with song."
---
🌌 Far Above – The Thrones Reeling
The second throne's destruction echoed like a scream across the cosmos.
The Serpent Judge recoiled. The Pale Matron vanished into a deeper shadow. The Warden of Law shattered his scepter in fury.
> "Two thrones fallen. One by name. One by truth," the God of Chains growled.
"The next… must fall by death."
But no god spoke the name of the Third Throne.
Because to speak it was to awaken it.
And even the gods feared the Throne of Song.
---
🜂 Ashmarch – The Hours After the Battle
The Beast was gone. The army still stood.
But something was changing.
The runes on Aralyndra's arms no longer shimmered.
They sang.
She walked among the soldiers barefoot, her armor cracked from divine fire. Where she passed, the wounded rose. Not healed — but remembered. Their names returned to them. Their ancestors whispered from within.
One soldier wept as he said his real name aloud for the first time in decades.
> "Thank you," he said.
> Aralyndra only smiled faintly. "Don't thank me," she whispered. "Thank her."
---
🔥 Within the Tent of Echoes
Karna knelt before a Fragment stone.
It pulsed. Slowly. Like a heartbeat syncing with his own.
Every night since the first throne fell, he'd dreamed of her.
Astraeva.
He had never seen her face.
Only her hands.
One reaching into flame.
One held out to him.
And every time he tried to touch her, the stars screamed.
Tonight, he heard her voice clearly.
> "Do not fear what you carry," she said.
> "Even a sword forged from silence can remember how to sing."
He woke with a gasp.
The Fragment was burning in his hand.
And etched on his chest in ash:
"Third."
---
🌠 South – At the Spine of the Dead God
A city built on the ribs of a slain deity. Its people had forgotten its name long ago.
But tonight — they remembered.
The Third Throne stirred.
It had not been destroyed like the others.
Because it was not held by a god.
It was held by a song.
And in the silence between heartbeats, that song began again.
Not sung by a god. Or even a queen.
But by a child with frost-white hair and stars in her blood.
The Echo knelt in the ruins of the Spire. The dragons formed a circle.
And she sang.
---
🜃 The Song of Astraeva (Fragmented)
> "Before the first word was spoken,
She sang the sky into breath.
Before the first sword was forged,
She whispered steel into flame."
> "And before the first king rose,
She gave him a name."
> "That name was Vaeren."
"That name was truth."
> "And that name—"
"Will be sung again."
---
🌑 Far Above – The Throne Cracks
The Throne of Song did not fall in silence.
It shattered with music.
A burst of celestial harmony broke through all nine heavens.
Every temple chime across the world rang at once.
Scrolls rewrote themselves.
Bones remembered names.
Mouths opened — and spoke verses lost for millennia.
In the Celestial Assembly, the gods howled.
Because now they could hear her again.
Astraeva.
Her voice.
Her vow.
And it was not done.
---
⚔️ Ashmarch – As the Fire March Grows
Karna stepped from his tent with the mark of "Third" glowing faintly on his skin.
He looked to the sky.
Aralyndra joined him, now bearing fragments not only of power — but of memory.
> "She's preparing us," Karna said.
> "For what?" Aralyndra asked.
He turned to face the east.
> "The fall of the Fourth Throne."
> "And the world that comes after."
She nodded, then raised her hand to the army.
They had no horns. No bells.
They had voice.
And when they roared…
The sky cracked again.
---
🌌 Far Away – Vaeren Smiles
The Bound King stood upon the void bridge.
> "Three down."
He whispered.
And his sword — which was not a sword but a broken vow made iron — hummed with light.
> "Six to go."
And far behind him, something stirred from the black beyond names.
Not a god. Not a king.
A usurper.
Watching.
Waiting.
For the Voice to break the world enough…
For it to take the pieces.
---
End of Chapter 10 – The Song That Breaks the World