The night bled into morning, but none of the five had slept. The fire had burned to gray coals, and over it lay a silence born not of fear, but preparation.
Koshiro rolled the last of the maps Solas had drawn and tucked them into his satchel. He looked over at Zen, who was already up, strapping his blade to his back with slow, deliberate motions. Brann sat like a statue by the Cliffside, unmoving. Nyra was humming a fractured melody under her breath, twisting her dagger through her fingers. Solas, predictably, was asleep against a tree, snoring.
Zen nudged Solas with his boot. "You said you had a plan."
Solas cracked one eye open, smiled. "I always do. You just don't like it until it works."
"Talk."
Solas sat up, brushing ash from his coat. "Alright, here's how we don't die. The Obsidian Choir isn't just a base. It's a mobile cathedral. Think floating citadel meets torture opera. It's anchored over the Shardline Gorge—Thread resonance from the gorge powers their entire facility. That means we're walking into a sound-amplified fortress where the walls can hum you to death."
Nyra twirled her dagger. "Lovely. And here I thought my last ex had a worse taste in architecture."
Solas pointed to the map. "There's only one way in undetected—through the gorge caves. Old Veil tunnels run beneath the cliffs. Most of them are dead, but a few still pulse with fractured Threads. That's how we get in."
Brann's voice rumbled. "Unstable. Dangerous."
"True," Solas agreed, "but safer than ringing their front bell. Once we're inside, we split—Zen and Brann clear the eastern wing, take out the amplifiers. Nyra and I disable the Choir's harmonic core. Koshiro, you go for Virell."
Zen's eyes narrowed. "Alone?"
Solas gave Koshiro a sidelong look. "He is the only one who can counter it."
Koshiro said nothing. He just nodded.
As the group began packing up, the landscape around them unfolded like a silent witness. The Wild Ring, a fractured region of the continent, had once been a trade artery of the old world. Now it was a graveyard of Thread machines and buried cathedrals.
They passed old obelisks wrapped in Thread lines—some still glowing faintly with echoes of forgotten prayers. Once, this land had been ruled by the Luminaries: god-like beings that had ascended through harmonized Threads and became living concepts. When they fell, the Syndicates rose to fill the vacuum.
The Syndicates were not governments. They were belief engines, faith turned industrial. Each one claimed divine purpose—Asereth believed in order through hierarchy. The Fold believed in purity through pain.
And the Fold's reach was spreading.
Threadwalkers, like Koshiro, were the last remnants of an older order. Harmony had been replaced with extraction. Memory with obedience. The Instruments they carried were not weapons. They were reminders. Koshiro's rod was once used to teach children how to feel Thread harmonics. Now it was the only thing standing between him and annihilation.
By midday, they reached the gorge.
The Shardline Gorge was a wound across the land, a scar of cracked obsidian and glowing rivers of residual Thread. Its edges shimmered with soft distortion, like air over heat. Far above, the Obsidian Choir hovered, an impossible structure of spirals, black steel and chiming towers. It rang faintly, like bells underwater.
Nyra exhaled. "So that's it, the fold's cradle."
Solas chuckled darkly, "Cradle, tomb, same difference."
Brann knelt, pressing his metal hand against the stone. He closed his eyes, "Tunnel below, weak, But passable."
Zen stepped to the edge. "We move at night, less patrols."
Koshiro looked up at the floating fortress. His rod hummed, matching the dissonant tone in the air.
He whispered, "We silence the choir."
The others nodded.
As night fell, the group began descending into the gorge. The walls wept condensation that shimmered with memory. Koshiro paused, pressing his hand to one.
A voice echoed faintly from the stone:
"Do not forget who you were before the Thread."
He pulled his hand back, face pale.
Solas watched him. "These tunnels remember. Be careful what you touch."
They vanished into the dark.
And far above, in a tower woven with blood-chimes, Commander Virell turned her head.
"He's coming," she said to the shadows. "The boy who sings."
Her mouth curled into a smile too wide to be human.
"Then let the Choir prepare its last verse."