No one ever talked about Deralin.
It wasn't just banned from speech—it was erased from memory. Maps that once showed its borders now displayed an empty void. Every citizen had been reassigned or buried. And the few who knew of it spoke the name only in whispers:
The City That Sang Itself to Death.
They arrived at dusk, standing before a city of hollow spires and roads cracked by silence.
Even the wind didn't dare enter Deralin.
"It wasn't bombed," Nima whispered. "It was… absorbed."
Arian stared at the skyline. "This place feels like a grave."
Kes nodded. "It is."
They entered the ruins through a shattered dome once used for open-air concerts. Music halls stood like skeletons. The marble beneath their feet was warped, scorched by unseen forces.
Their path led them to the Spiral Tower, the place Ilya Van had marked on the encrypted shard.
At the top, a man waited.
Old. Pale. Dressed in a faded conductor's uniform.
His back turned to them as he played a silent symphony on an invisible piano.
Kes took a breath. "Velar."
The man stopped.
Then turned.
His eyes were hollow, mechanical, like twin lenses stripped of purpose.
"Arian," he said. "I've been expecting you."
They entered the atrium. The walls were lined with rusted instruments. Flutes without holes. Violins without strings. Each one perfectly silent.
Velar sat, motioning for Arian to do the same.
"I'm not here to fight," Arian said. "I need your voiceprint."
Velar smiled faintly. "Of course you do. That's all anyone ever wanted."
Nima stepped forward. "You led the Voice Rebellion. You had a chance to change everything—and you gave them our names."
Velar's smile didn't falter. "I did worse than that. I gave them yours."
She froze.
Velar nodded slowly. "Your mother… she trusted me. I gave her away."
Silence fell like a guillotine.
Arian's fists clenched. "Why?"
"Because I believed in order. I thought the Silence would save us from ourselves."
Kes whispered, "And now?"
Velar's smile finally cracked.
"I was wrong."
Velar stood and walked to a locked chest. He retrieved a single object: a metallic tuning fork, pulsing with light.
He handed it to Arian.
"This was my voice. It won't respond to just anyone."
Arian held it.
It burned cold.
Then, a vibration.
A vision.
A trial. A tribunal. Velar in chains.
A choice: Deliver the rebellion's location—or watch Deralin burn.
He chose survival.
And they burned it anyway.
The vision faded.
Arian opened his eyes to Velar's face—wet with tears.
"I gave them my soul," he said. "And they gave me silence."
The symbol activated.
A fifth echo burned into the disk.
Velar exhaled.
"Now you have it. But I need to warn you. The sixth Host… they're not like the rest of us."
Nima tilted her head. "What do you mean?"
Velar looked at Arian.
"The sixth was never born."
Kes narrowed his eyes. "That's not possible."
"It is," Velar said. "The sixth was engineered. A synthetic voice. Pure resonance. They call it: Orca."
Before they could ask more, a tremor shook the tower.
Drones.
A whisper activated in Arian's head. Hallow protocol... priming.
His hands trembled.
"We're out of time," Nima said.
Velar placed a hand on Arian's shoulder.
"Don't become me."
Then, he stepped back into the shadows of the atrium.
And began to sing.
A song that cracked the walls.
A song that turned drones to ash.
A song that could only be sung once.
And as the tower collapsed behind them, Velar sang Deralin back to silence.
They escaped the city with the fifth echo.
But they left behind a man who betrayed everything—
So that one day, someone might do it right.