Chapter 34
The poppy glowed faintly in Jin Yue's palm, its crimson-gold light a fragile counter to the ashen stillness of the barren tree. Kian stood at the edge of the dead grove, his missing arm a phantom ache. The sky, though no longer bleeding chaos, hung heavy with the weight of unanswered questions.
"It's colder," Jin Yue said, her breath visible in the air. "Like the tree's death stole the warmth."
Kian nodded. The world's newfound balance felt precarious, a taut wire between silence and song. "We need to decide. Now. Before they come back."
Jin Yue's gaze hardened. "If we revive him, we risk everything. Again."
*"And if we don't?"* Kian gestured to the horizon, where the fractured colors of the sky blurred like smeared paint. "The Silence isn't gone. It's waiting."
A wind stirred, carrying the faintest echo of Lian's voice: "Together."
The Astronomer's Legacy
They found her camp picked clean—except for a single star chart nailed to the petrified trunk of the dead tree. The constellations shifted under Kian's touch, rearranging into a map of the cavern where they'd shattered the Silence's heart.
"Look," Jin Yue muttered. A phrase was etched beneath the ink: "The Devourers are but heralds. Beneath the roots, the First Song sleeps."
"First Song?" Kian's fingers brushed the words. The poppy in Jin Yue's hand pulsed, its light flaring.
"She knew," Jin Yue said. "The astronomer knew this wasn't over. Whatever 'First Song' is, it's tied to Lian. To the tree."
A rustle in the dead branches above. The Fractured's cultist, half-mad and cloaked in tattered gold, lunged for the poppy.
"The Discordant demands it!" he screeched.
Jin Yue's dagger found his throat before his fingers grazed the flower.
The Fractured's Shadow
More came at dusk—cultists drawn by the poppy's glow. Their eyes were hollow, their chants a mangled rendition of the Fractured's symphony.
"They're insects," Jin Yue snarled, her blade carving through the rabble. "Why risk their lives for a dead god?"
"Because the Silence promises nothing," Kian said, crushing a cultist's Voidspire shard underfoot. "And nothing is worse than this." He gestured to the barren world.
The poppy trembled, its light dimming as the last cultist fell.
"It's reacting to the blood," Jin Yue noted. "Or the absence of it."
The First Song
That night, the poppy bloomed.
Its petals unfurled, releasing a note so pure it cracked the air. Visions flooded Kian's mind:
_A primordial void. A single voice splitting the silence—the First Song.
The Song fracturing into shards: Flame, Voidspire, Discordant.
Aria's face, not as a child, but as an ancient entity, weaving the Song into a prison._
"It's a key," Kian gasped, waking drenched in sweat. "The poppy—it's meant to wake the First Song. And Lian… Lian is part of it."
Jin Yue stared at the flower, now twice its size. "If the First Song created the Flame and the Voidspire, waking it could erase everything."
"Or save it," Kian said. "The astronomer's notes said the Devourers are 'heralds.' They fear the Song. Maybe it's the only thing that can destroy them."
The ground trembled. The dead tree's roots writhed, peeling back to reveal a staircase descending into the earth.
"Looks like we're invited," Jin Yue said dryly.
The Garden of Echoes
Beneath the tree lay a garden frozen in time. Flowers of crystalline light sang in hushed harmonies, their melodies weaving into the walls. At the center stood a pedestal shaped like a poppy, its stem fused with chains of starlight.
"Place it there," a voice whispered—the astronomer's voice, echoing from nowhere. "Complete the circle."
Jin Yue hesitated. "This reeks of a trap."
"All choices do," Kian said. He took the poppy and stepped forward.
The chains stirred. The garden's song swelled.
The Choice
As Kian placed the poppy on the pedestal, the chains snapped. Light engulfed the chamber, and for a heartbeat, Lian stood before them—whole, smiling, alive.
"Thank you," he said.
Then the vision fractured. The garden's flowers wilted. The pedestal crumbled.
And the poppy's light went out.
The Reckoning
The ground split. The dead tree collapsed, its roots dragging the garden into the abyss. Kian barely grabbed Jin Yue's hand as the earth swallowed itself.
"What did you do?" Jin Yue shouted over the roar.
"I don't know!"
Above them, the sky tore open. A melody older than time poured through—the First Song, raw and unfiltered.
The Devourers screeched, retreating into the void.
But the Song kept growing.
The Cost
They crawled from the wreckage at dawn. The world was silent. Truly silent.
The poppy was gone. The tree was dust.
And the horizon?
The horizon sang.