The music had disturbed more than the air.
Elder Varn stood long after the others dispersed, fingertips trailing lightly over the etched stone of the gallery rail. He had felt the tremor — not in the structure, but in the foundations of their order.
And it was unacceptable.
The boy — the musician — had not even known what he was doing. That made him dangerous. A spark in a library of kindling. The prophecy was stirring again, reaching out through threads of song and shadow.
He had warned them decades ago.
The verse should've been sealed. Buried beneath the deepest vaults, beyond even the reach of the archivists. But the council had grown soft. Romantic. Hopeful.
Varn had no use for hope. Hope was chaos wearing perfume.
He turned from the rail and descended through the scholar's path — a narrow spiral sealed to all but the eldest. Here, under hollow torches and carved wards, knowledge was controlled. Not shared. Not spread.
In the chamber of quiet edicts, he knelt before the oldest tome — the one that bore no title. Not even the High Recorder knew he had reactivated its protections.
He pressed his palm to the surface, whispered the passphrase of ash and thorn.
It opened.
The pages within writhed with living script — the record of the false flame. The prophecy they should never have recorded. And worse, the names that had begun to manifest along its margins — names aligning with movements in the world above.
Two had darkened tonight.
The boy's.And hers.
The Chronicler's daughter.
Varn's lips thinned. He had suspected her for some time. Too curious. Too quick to question. Too much like her mother.
He would have to move carefully. Isolate the boy. Discredit the girl. Remove the prophecy before it could fully awaken.
He had enemies beyond this tower. Whisperers who called for revolution, false gods in circuits and code. He would not allow this "symphony" to add fuel to their delusions.
He closed the tome with reverence. Or something like it.
From the shadows beyond the vault, a sigil pulsed faintly — the mark of something older than the Chroniclers themselves.
Not Heaven.Not Hell.
But something that promised silence.And control.
Varn bowed his head, then left the chamber. Dust settled behind him.
But the echo of the music still followed. And the dust did not settle for long.