**Kelly Thompson's POV**The storm isn't a storm-it's a *mouth*.A vast, yawning chasm splits the horizon, its edges lined with jagged teeth of obsidian and starlight. The air hums with a subsonic growl, the ground trembling as if the earth itself is being digested. Eden staggers, his scars now blackened fissures leaking a viscous, iridescent fluid that hisses where it strikes the soil. The melody in him is no longer a hum-it's a *drone*, a dirge that makes my teeth ache."It's not the Maestro," he says, voice fraying. "It's... hungrier."The chasm exhales.A stench rolls over us-decayed meat and burnt sugar. Shapes writhe in the darkness below, too large and too many-limbed to name. Eden grips my arm, his fingers slick with that strange fluid. "We can't fight this.""We don't have to," I lie.A bridge forms from the chasm's teeth, slick with saliva that glows faintly green. At its center stands a figure, humanoid but wrong, its limbs too long, its head a faceless orb etched with rune
**Kelly Thompson's POV**The storm isn't a storm-it's a *reckoning*.The sky fractures, shards of light and shadow raining down like glass. The ground beneath us is no longer solid; it shifts and writhes, a living thing made of whispers and static. Eden stumbles, his scars flickering faintly, the melody in his veins a ghost of what it once was. He grips my arm, his breath shallow, his eyes wide with a fear I haven't seen in him since he was a child."It's not the Maestro," he says, his voice trembling. "It's... something else."I nod, my own pulse quickening. The air is thick with the scent of ozone and something metallic, like blood but sharper. The horizon is a jagged line of broken light, and from it emerges a figure-not cloaked in shadows or crowned in lightning, but *woven* from the fabric of the storm itself.Its form is fluid, shifting between human and wolf, storm and void. Its eyes are twin voids, its voice a vibration that resonates in my bones.*"You have broken the symphon
**Kelly Thompson's POV**The coast isn't a border-it's a wound.Saltwater foams crimson where it meets the shore, the tides clawing at cliffs pocked with caves that hum in discordant harmonies. The sky here is a sickly silver, the stars blotted out by a haze that isn't cloud or smoke but something *older*, a residue of the Veil's decay. Eden walks the shoreline ahead of me, his shadow fractured by the void-and-lightning scars webbing his arms. The storm I absorbed thrums beneath my ribs, restless as a caged thing, its voice a static-laced growl. *"This place reeks of her."**Her.* The Weaver.But the Daughters come first.They descend at twilight, riding comets of starfire that crater the beach, their silhouettes etched in violent light. The tallest steps forward, her hair a cascade of dying constellations. *"Last chance, sister. Surrender the storm. Or we'll unmake the boy to reach it."*Egen's laugh is a rasp, his fingers flexing as obsidian brambles erupt from the sand. "You're wel
**Kelly Thompson's POV**The silence isn't silent.It's a vacuum, a pressure that gnaws at the eardrums, leaving behind a phantom tinnitus-a high-pitched whine that isn't sound but the *absence* of it. The Valley of Echoes stretches before us, its jagged obsidian spires clawing at a sky stripped of color. Eden's breaths are shallow, deliberate, his hands clenched to stifle the faint hum still leaking from his scars. The Cantor's melody is quieter now, but not gone. A sleeping beast, not a dead one.The Maestro's presence lingers here, heavier, as though the valley itself is his instrument, waiting to be played.Eden signs to me, hands sharp in the dead air: *No sound. They'll hear.*I nod. The Dirge's warning hangs between us-*The Maestro will finish your song.* But the valley's rules are clear: a single footfall, a gasp, a heartbeat too loud, and the Requiem will find us.We step onto the glass-like rock, its surface etched with fractures that glow faintly, like dormant veins. The pa
**Kelly Thompson's POV**The city of glass and gold hums with a melody that isn't sound-it's a *vibration*, a frequency that reshapes the air into jagged harmonies. My teeth ache, my bones ringing like tuning forks. Eden walks ahead, his steps steadier now, but his hands keep flexing as if missing the gauntlets' weight. The city's gates yawn open, unguarded, their opalescent surfaces reflecting distortions of our faces-mine etched with storm, his with a crown of shadows.A figure waits on the bridge, her silhouette blurred by the warped light. As we near, the distortion clears. My breath catches.*Lila.*Not the Lila I remember-thorn-scarred and snarling-but a polished version, her skin flawless, hair coiled in gilded braids, eyes twin pools of liquid mercury. She smiles, and the melody sharpens."Hello, Kelly," she says, her voice syrup-smooth. "You look like hell."Eden steps forward, fists clenched. "You're dead. I watched you die."Lila's laugh is a wind chime's shiver. "Death's a
**Kelly Thompson's POV**The city isn't a city-it's a *cacophony*.Towers of living metal twist like serpents mid-strike, their surfaces crawling with glyphs that burn and rewrite themselves in real time. The air thrums with a mechanical heartbeat, gears grinding in the sky where cogs orbit like malformed moons. Eden staggers beside me, his breath ragged, the raw scars on his arms glowing faintly as if the crown's ghost still flickers in his blood."They built this place to last," he mutters, eyeing the nearest structure. A spire unfurls, revealing a mouth of piston-teeth that hisses steam. "Or to *eat*."The ground shudders. A road peels itself from the earth, metallic tiles slotting into place like scales, leading us toward the city's core. There are no guards, no sentinels-only the hum of engines and the creeping sense of being *digested*.A shadow detaches from a tower. Not a Harbinger, not a wolf. A child-sized construct of wire and molten glass, its voice a distorted recording o