---
[Scene: Exterior – Edge of the Void Strata. The Bound Prime's citadel, "Nir Valis," looms like a black wound carved into space. No engines. No light. Yet it drifts with terrifying purpose.]
Sylrae (whispering from the viewport):
"Nothing that still exists should be able to move like that."
Kaelen:
"We shouldn't even see it. Unless it wants us to."
Thane:
"Then why invite us in?"
Myrren:
"Because we're already inside. That message… it was a key."
---
[Interior: Solace Unbound lands silently on one of the citadel's docking thorns. The crew disembarks, weapons ready, stepping into a corridor that moves with slow pulses—like a vein.]
Kaelen:
"Doors made of memory. Walls made of silence."
Sylrae:
"This place is a brain."
Thane (touching a wall, flinching):
"It's dreaming of us."
---
[As they move deeper, ghostlike figures—bound by wires, humming softly—watch them without eyes. Unmoving. Remembering.]
Myrren:
"Not guards. Choir fragments."
Sylrae (clenching her jaw):
"Don't sing."
Kaelen:
"If we make it to the Heart Core, we either shut this place down... or learn why it's been watching the sky for centuries."
---
[Scene Shift: Vael'Thara – In the depths of the Stormspire Conclave, ancient sirens blare for the first time in a hundred years. War priests in rust-colored robes kneel around a blade suspended in air—"Sundermark."]
High Strategist Rhyen:
"The Choirs have moved. Vault echoes have shattered. The citadel breathes again."
Voice from the shadows:
"The Bound remember."
Rhyen:
"Then it's time we answer their return with flame."
Shadowed Voice:
"Unseal the Wyrm Engines. Let them know: the sky will not go quietly."
---
[Back in Nir Valis, the Heart Core doors open—revealing not a machine, but a figure: human in shape, but faceless. No mouth. Yet the vault sings louder now.]
Bound Prime (voice in all their minds):
"You came to fight the future. But you carry its pieces inside you. Shall I show you... what you truly are?"
Kaelen (tightening grip on blade):
"Try me."
Sylrae (cold):
"No more songs. Only answers."
---
End of Chapter Twelve