Chapter 28
The poppies were the first to die.
Kian knelt in the monastery garden, fingers brushing petals that crumbled to ash at his touch. The golden veins threading their crimson folds had vanished, leaving behind brittle husks. Above him, the sky hung unnaturally still—no wind, no birds, no echo of the Flame's song. Only silence, thick and suffocating.
"It's spreading," Liangu said, emerging from the shadow of the cloisters. His hands trembled as he gestured to the horizon, where the distant mountains blurred like smudged ink. "The Voidspire's touch."
Lian crouched beside Kian, his silent presence a familiar ache. The boy's fingers traced symbols in the ash: Not safe here.
Jin Yue's voice cut through the stillness. "We've got company."
The Fractured Pilgrims
They came at dusk, hooded and chanting. Their robes were stitched with jagged gold thread, their faces hidden behind masks of shattered glass. At their head walked a child—no older than ten—with Lian's face and the Fractured's hollow eyes.
"The Weeping Hierophant," Liangu whispered. "A prophet born from the cult's madness."
The child raised a hand, and the pilgrims froze mid-step. "Kian of the Shattered Song," they spoke in unison, their voices layered with static. "You stole our god. Now you will burn."
Jin Yue's Spark-scarred arm flared, casting jagged light across the courtyard. "Try it."
The Hierophant tilted their head, glass mask cracking into a smile. "You first, Sparkbearer."
The Discordant Ritual
The pilgrims surged forward, glass shards glinting in their hands. Kian moved on instinct, his body recalling battles fought in another life. But as his fist connected with a cultist's jaw, he froze—
—The man's face shifted. For a heartbeat, it was Lian's.
Jin Yue's scream shattered the illusion. Her glowing arm had pierced a pilgrim's chest, but golden light now coiled up her veins like parasitic roots. "Get… out !" she snarled, tearing her hand free.
The Hierophant laughed, a sound like breaking mirrors.
"The Voidspire sings through you, Jin Yue. It always will."
Lian lunged, silent and swift, tackling the child to the ground. The Hierophant's mask shattered, revealing a face that was neither Lian's nor the Fractured's—but something older.
"You're not real," Kian hissed.
"Neither are you," the Hierophant replied, their voice now singular. "Just a relic of a song no one remembers."
The Echoing Scars
The monastery trembled. Jin Yue collapsed, her arm searing the stone where she gripped it. "It's in my head," she gasped. "Visions… of a world where I let the Spark take over. Cities burning. You and Lian… dead by my hand."
Liangu knelt beside her, pressing a vial of murky liquid to her lips. "Drink. It'll dull the connection."
"Since when do you brew medicine?" she spat, but swallowed it.
"Since I realized the Voidspire wasn't the only threat." His gaze flicked to Lian, who stood apart, staring at his reflection in a shard of the Hierophant's mask.
Kian approached the boy. "What is it?"
Lian pointed to the glass, where his reflection mouthed words he couldn't speak: You were never meant to be free.
The First Whisper
That night, Kian found Liangu in the archives, hunched over a scroll etched with Aria's name.
"You knew," Kian said. "About the Voidspire. About her."
Liangu didn't look up. "I thought she died when I bound her to the Flame. But the Voidspire… it's her voice. Her rage."
"Why hide it?"
"Would you have trusted me if I'd said my daughter became a cosmic parasite?"
Outside, a scream tore through the silence—Jin Yue's.
The Hunger
They found her in the courtyard, her Spark-scarred arm twisted into a blade of molten gold. The Hierophant's corpse lay at her feet, its blood evaporating into black smoke.
"I didn't… I couldn't stop—" Jin Yue's eyes bled gold.
The Voidspire's voice poured from her lips: "Chaos requires order. Order requires sacrifice."
Lian stepped forward, placing his hand over her heart. The gold receded, but not before Kian saw it—the faint outline of a chain, binding her soul to something vast and hungry.
"We need to leave," Liangu said. "Now."
The Shattered Path
They fled as the monastery collapsed, its stones dissolving into the Voidspire's gathering storm. At the edge of the blighted lands, Kian looked back. The horizon pulsed with a new structure—a spire of liquid shadow, its apex tearing holes in the sky.
"The Voidspire's heart," Liangu said. "Where Aria waits."
Jin Yue flexed her scarred arm, now dormant but trembling. "How do we kill a god?"
Lian traced words in the dirt: With a better song.
Above them, the first note of the Voidspire's chorus shook the earth—a dirge of perfect, crushing order.