The Council gathered under torchlight.
They had not done so in years—not since the aftermath of the Demon General's war. Back then, most of these seats were empty. Now, every seat was filled, though not with comfort.
Fear laced every whisper.
And at the center of it all stood Callan, cloaked in silence.
"I assume you all heard it," he said.
None dared deny it.
The Song had echoed through them. Some wept. Some screamed. But none were untouched.
The envoy from the Western Caldera stood shakily. "We lost three villages overnight. No sign of struggle. Just... doors left open. Fires still burning. As if they walked away willingly."
Callan nodded grimly.
"They answered the song."
Outside the council chambers, Solenne paced with Lysander.
"You see it too, right?" she asked. "He's changing again."
"He has changed," Lysander replied. "He stopped being normal the day he survived the Shard Ritual."
"But this is different," she pressed. "He's... drawn to the song. Almost like he recognizes it. Feels at home in it."
Lysander didn't answer.
He remembered the way Callan touched the mirror. The way he spoke to his own reflection. And most of all—the way the reflection had spoken back.
"If he's remembering who he was..." Lysander finally said. "Then we might be losing who he is."
Callan walked alone through the Inner Vault.
Behind walls laced with nullstone and sealed by blood oaths, ancient relics slept.
He stopped before a coffin-shaped box wrapped in black cloth and silver chain.
He unwrapped it slowly, revealing what lay within: a sword.
But not just any blade.
His blade.
The one he had buried a lifetime ago beneath a mountain of corpses and regret.
Ashendrix.
The Sword of Falling Names.
He gripped the hilt.
It did not resist.
Instead, it sang.
A single, pure note that resonated with the pulse of the shards, the sigils, the mirrored past.
"I thought I buried you," Callan whispered.
Ashendrix pulsed in response.
You buried the name. Not the truth.
That night, he dreamt again.
But not of the mirror.
Of the battlefield.
A scorched wasteland, ringed in broken stars.
He stood atop a mound of ash and heard the voices.
They chanted—not in fear, not in anger.
But in reverence.
They were naming him.
Not Callan.
Not General.
But the name he had sworn to erase.
Zareth-Kal.
The Demon General.
He woke with a gasp.
Sweat poured down his face. His heartbeat echoed in rhythms older than memory.
Solenne was already in the room, drawn by the sound of the blade unsheathing itself in the dark.
"You dreamt again?" she asked.
Callan nodded.
"I remember the name."
"Whose name?"
His eyes met hers.
"Mine."
By dawn, emissaries from the far provinces were flooding the Citadel.
All of them carried the same message:
The Choir is rising.
And worse—They are looking for their Conductor.
Callan stood in the courtyard where his new soldiers trained. They didn't know his past. Only the legend. Only the victories.
He watched them clash with practice blades and elemental bursts, unaware that the man they idolized was the very thing their ancestors had feared.
"Will you tell them?" Solenne asked from behind him.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because they need hope," he replied. "Not history."
She touched his arm.
"And what about us? What do we need?"
He looked up.
The clouds above were darkening.
Not with rain.
But with wings.
From the eastern mountains came the first of the skyborn.
Not birds.
Not beasts.
But choir-born echoes—constructs of memory and song, with bodies made of shardlight and ancient melody.
They descended in silence.
Not to attack.
But to listen.
To watch.
And when they saw Callan, they knelt.
The capital gasped.
Callan did not speak.
He only turned to Solenne and said:
"It's beginning."