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Chapter 88 - The Cursed Heart of Elira

## CHAPTER 88: _"The Song That Could Not Be Sung"_

The silence wasn't empty. It was sharp. It cut deeper than war, deeper than betrayal. It stole not just sound, but meaning.

And in the heart of Elira, where love had once cursed and healed, even the birds refused to sing.

The child born from no mother—the girl called *Echo*—stood before a river of stilled time. Her skin glowed with runes not yet written. She had no memory, no past, only visions of futures that screamed her name.

She was the child of balance.

But balance was now a battlefield.

Arien and Lysia, drawn by dreams not their own, traveled to the river. Each step they took was mirrored in the reflections of the water, but not in the sky. Above, the sun stood still. Frozen. Watching.

"Do you feel it?" Lysia asked.

"I feel… a song," Arien whispered. "But it won't come out."

"The mute magic."

"No. Something older. Something that never wanted to be heard."

They followed the trail of stillness until they reached a broken harp resting atop a stone. Vines wrapped its strings, but not tightly enough to silence them.

Lysia placed a finger to the lowest string.

It didn't sing. It wept.

Far beyond, in the citadel of the immortals, the council watched.

"She is trying to sing," said one.

"She should not. The world remembers too much," said another.

"Let her," whispered the moon-wrapped one. "Let the silence learn fear."

Echo stood now between the harp and the river. She opened her mouth.

No sound.

Tears poured from her eyes.

Arien took her hand.

"You're not alone," he said.

Lysia stood on her other side. "You are not silence. You are the echo of everything they tried to bury."

Together, they stepped into the river.

Time shattered.

Memories poured like floodwaters—Arien's birth, Lysia's curse, the scream of the goddess who cursed Elira, the voice of a lover never kissed, a war never fought, a dream never dreamed.

Then—

The harp sang.

Only once.

But that note was enough to wake the sleeping god beneath Elira—the one who had written the laws of love and death.

The god who cursed affection. The god who silenced songs.

He opened his eyes.

He remembered.

He was not pleased.

His voice was a thunder no one had heard in millennia:

**"They dare rewrite me?"**

And the skies split.

From the heavens rained not fire, but **memories**.

Elira shook. The trees grew backwards. Rivers flowed in spirals. Lovers forgot each other. Enemies fell in love. War became dance. Death laughed.

The world broke into poetry.

And Arien, holding Echo's trembling hand, knew:

They had broken something that had no name.

And now, the world wanted an answer.

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