The wind had shifted.
Once hot with ash and ruin, it now carried the cold scent of distant stone and deep water—like the breath of a mountain before it speaks. Haraza stood alone at the edge of Vell'tara's ravaged amphitheater, his cloak flapping in the sharp morning air. Below him, the remnants of the Ash-Woken Choir lay still, guarded by Accord scribes and restoration priests weaving slow, stabilizing glyphs over the fractured earth.
But Haraza wasn't watching them.
His eyes were fixed on the glyph now etched over his left palm—the Thirteenth, unbound.
It no longer flickered or pulsed.
It breathed.
("What are you becoming?") he murmured aloud.
From behind, Caela's soft voice broke his thoughts. ("You heard it again, didn't you?")
He turned, eyes shadowed. ("Not a voice this time. A presence. Watching. Listening.")
("Through the glyph?")
("No,") he said. ("Through me.")
She frowned, stepping closer, arms wrapped tightly around her Codex. ("The Breath… you think it left something inside you?")
Haraza opened his palm, letting her see the glyph clearly. The runes moved like ink in water, shifting between forms, as though refusing to be read too long in one pattern.
("It's not just a brand. It's an interface. A gate.")
Caela swallowed hard. ("That makes you a beacon.")
("Or a conduit,") he said.
A silence passed between them, heavy with implication.
Then Caela nodded toward the path leading back to the Accord encampment. ("You should speak with the others. Lirien's already planning a response. We can't let this happen again.")
("Agreed,") Haraza said. ("But we're not going to chase the Ash-Woken across the continent.")
Caela arched a brow. ("We're not?")
("No,") he said grimly. ("We're going to find where their song began.")
The Accord war table had been moved to the high ridge overlooking the ruined city. Great stones had been pulled together with reinforced geomancy, forming a temporary command outpost lit by hovering flame-wisps. Lirien, Brannock, Ryve, and a handful of auxiliary officers stood waiting.
As Haraza approached, Lirien pointed to a map.
("We've confirmed three more cities with dormant Singspires beneath them,") she said. ("One of them—Marakal—is already sending up strange resonance signals. It's subtle, but the frequency matches what we recorded from Vell'tara.")
("Then that's our next destination?") Haraza asked.
Brannock shook his head. ("Not yet. We need to regroup, re-arm. The Choir's tune shattered a third of our field counter-glyphs.")
("But we have no time,") Caela interjected. "(If the ritual spreads before we stop it—")
("They'll re-write reality,") Haraza finished. ("Or tear open the Rift from the inside.")
Ryve tapped the table. ("There's another path. One Caela hinted at earlier.")
Everyone turned toward the scholar.
Caela nodded slowly. ("There's a legend... buried in one of the deep Accord archives. I didn't want to say anything until I was sure.")
She unrolled a separate scroll and revealed a map marked in a script none of them recognized—jagged, circular, and full of impossible curves.
("This isn't a map of cities,") she said. "(It's a score. A musical notation, made to align with the world's leylines. And here—") she tapped a mark near the northern Wyrdspire Peaks ("—is something called the Resonant Vault.")
Haraza leaned in. ("A vault?")
Caela nodded. ("One of the few places mentioned in conjunction with the original glyph that pre-dates the Spiral—before the Rift was a tear in the world. This is where the First Choir sang the World's Beginning.")
Lirien crossed her arms. ("You think the Ash-Woken are trying to reach it?")
("No,") Caela said. ("I think they're trying to awaken it.")
That night, Haraza sat alone on a stone outcropping beneath a sky crowded with strange stars. The glyph on his palm shimmered faintly.
He whispered to it.
Not in words—but intention.
And it answered.
Visions danced before his eyes—blurred shapes, spiraling towers, echoing songs carved into cave walls. A figure cloaked in light and flame, standing before a chasm of whispering winds.
And then—darkness.
A single voice.
Find the Resonant Vault. Bind what was broken.
He opened his eyes.
The glyph was silent once more.
But his path was clear.
By dawn, the decision had been made.
They would travel northeast, past the Wyrdspire Peaks and into the storm-ravaged wastes of Korranth's Reach. A land no caravan dared cross, home to ancient wards and time-forgotten seals.
Their goal: the Resonant Vault.
The birthplace of the First Song.
The one place the Ash-Woken feared.