The echoes of the throne room still lingered in Indra's bones — the confrontation with the Revenant Sentinel had left a silence deeper than battle ever could. As he and Kaelari emerged into the next chamber — a vast atrium of broken statues and overgrown moss — a strange calm settled over them. The tension in the air thinned, the magic here old, but… not hostile.
A single shaft of light spilled through a crack in the stone ceiling, illuminating a broken fountain at the center. Water trickled softly, the sound oddly melodic.
Indra stepped into the light and exhaled slowly, lifting his gaze. Something tugged at his heart — a thread of memory, warm and unguarded.
Then, without thought, he began to hum.
The tune was simple, wordless — a lullaby born of wind and echo. Notes floated gently into the air, soft as falling leaves. Kaelari paused, blinking in confusion, then listening. She'd never heard him sing before. Had never even imagined he could.
Indra's voice gained strength as the melody unfolded, and for a moment, he wasn't the Thunderheart or the storm-scarred warrior. He was just… a boy. One shaped by love as much as pain.
And then, to her surprise, Kaelari joined in — not with words, but with harmony. Her voice wove around his like a quiet breeze around a flame.
The dungeon didn't resist.
It listened.
As the last note faded into the ancient stone, a flicker of something unspoken danced behind Indra's eyes — and he chuckled, low and nostalgic.
"You know," he began, still half-smiling, "my adoptive father hated that song."
Kaelari raised a brow. "Why? It's beautiful."
"He said I'd sing it so much, even the goats learned to scream it back," Indra smirked. "My mother though… she loved it. Said it reminded her of the winds before the monsoons."
Kaelari leaned against a column, intrigued. "You never talk about them."
Indra stepped away from the light, his fingers brushing along the mossy edge of the fountain. "They were simple folk. Farmers. Lived in the highlands near the Cloudreach Ranges. I don't remember how I got there. One day, they just found me. Wrapped in storm-soaked cloth, unconscious. No name. No past. Just a baby with strange markings and thunder in his cries."
His voice softened, touched with the ache of old affection.
"My mother — Kaveri — used to call me her 'Skyfall.' Said I dropped out of the heavens just to annoy her goats and break her pots. My father, Dhuran… gods, he tried to teach me discipline." Indra chuckled. "Didn't last a week. I'd sneak into the temple ruins at night, try to draw the storm sigils I saw in my dreams."
Kaelari folded her arms, smile faint. "So you were always like this."
"I was worse," he grinned. "Once, I tried to ride a lightning bolt during a monsoon. Got flung halfway across a rice paddy. Nearly drowned. Dhuran made me rebuild the irrigation channels by hand."
Her laughter surprised him — a real, unguarded laugh. "That explains so much."
Indra's gaze drifted upward again. "I miss them. The food. The scoldings. Her lullabies. His calloused hands on my shoulder after I messed up but tried anyway…"
A pause.
"Do you think," he said softly, "that we're allowed to carry memories into war?"
Kaelari's voice was quiet. "Only the ones that make us fight harder."
Indra nodded once. "Then I'll carry them all."
A warm breeze stirred through the atrium, whispering past the stone — and in that moment, something ancient shifted in approval. A hidden door, long forgotten, opened behind the fountain with a soft hiss of stone on stone.
Kaelari raised her blade, amused. "Did your childhood singing just unlock a secret passage?"
Indra smirked, "Apparently, even the ruins appreciate good music."
They stepped forward into the newly revealed corridor, light trailing behind them.
And though they walked deeper into unknown darkness, the song — soft and wordless — lingered in the air, as if the past had granted its blessing.