Ash fell like rain over the Fold's outer barricades, the gray sky weeping dust and embers.
Zen adjusted the grip on his blade as he crouched behind a crumbling pillar. Brann crouched beside him, peeking over the edge toward the courtyard below, where a cluster of white-robed guards and a towering amplifier pulsed with violet light.
"In the eastern wing," Brann whispered, "those amplifiers keep the entire harmonic grid running. We bring it down, and the Fold loses its voice."
Zen nodded "We move quiet until we move fast."
Brann smirked "Music to my ears."
They slipped down the ridge.
Zen struck first, his blade a whisper of steel through air. One guard collapsed before the alarm even started. Brann followed with a burst of fire that licked along the amplifier's base, warping its outer shell.
The second amplifier cracked as Zen drove his blade through its crystalline core. It released a shriek that echoed across the compound—half metal, half song.
But their success triggered response.
From behind the marble colonnades strode a Fold Commander clad in silver-threaded armor, wielding dual lances pulsing with harmonic energy.
Zen stepped into the clearing.
Brann's hands flared with flame. "Hope you've got another gear, Stoneface."
Zen didn't answer. He didn't need to.
The duel began in a flash of movement and a burst of heat.
In the lower sanctum, Solas and Nyra crept through the winding halls toward the core of the Choir.
Where the eastern wing was all order and function, this place resembled a cathedral twisted by madness. Pillars shaped like wailing mouths. Ceilings etched with Threads of memory, tangled and humming.
Nyra walked ahead, her steps ghostlike.
"The Choir chamber is three levels down," she said, pausing near a spiral staircase. "Once we disable the harmonic core, their control collapses."
Solas gave a mock salute "Lovely tune of sabotage."
She didn't respond.
As they passed a room lit by blue biolight, they saw children strapped to chairs—glass visors fused over their eyes, humming through gritted teeth.
Nyra's steps halted. Her jaw clenched.
"They make them sing pain," she whispered.
Solas's face darkened. "We're ending it."
They reached the Choir's heart.
Dozens of red-robed singers surrounded a hovering core, their voices a web of resonance that vibrated the walls. Solas's illusion charm cracked. Instantly, heads turned.
The first harmonic pulse blasted toward them.
Nyra flew into motion, weaving through beams of sound, her daggers slicing through red robes.
Solas ducked and rolled, planting a distortion spike against the core's stabilizer. It pulsed, once, twice.
Then silence.
The singers collapsed. Robes hit the floor.
The core dimmed.
Solas winced. "That's going to echo in the Veil."
But Nyra was staring at a wall near the platform, where names had been carved into the stone.
Hers was among them.
Etched in Fold script.
At the sanctum's center, Koshiro walked alone.
The halls around him were made of mirrorstone. With every step, reflections of himself blinked in and out—some smirking, some broken, one bleeding.
Ahead, atop a dais of Thread glass, stood Virell.
She turned, robes flowing like ink in water. Her face was serene, eyes lit with golden hue. Behind her shimmered a veil of living memory—Threads twisted into a lattice of sorrow.
"I knew you'd come," she said.
Koshiro stopped just short of the dais. "You speak like this was fate."
"It is," she replied. "The Fold exists to maintain harmony. You are dissonance incarnate."
Koshiro's rod shimmered in his hand, its symbols glowing.
"Then let's break your song."
Virell lifted her hands—and sang.
The sound bent the air. Koshiro dropped to a knee as the frequency pressed on his spine, turning memory against him. Visions of Lina, of his cell, of fire.
"You feel it?" she whispered. "How easily you break apart when you don't belong."
But Koshiro gritted his teeth.
And tapped the rod once against the mirrorstone floor.
A new note rang out.
Not despair. Defiance.
The Threads in the sanctum responded. Mirrors shattered. False Koshiros evaporated.
He rose.
"No more cages," he said. "Not for me. Not for anyone."
He leapt.
Rod met voice.
The sanctum shattered.
Back at the eastern wing, Zen and Brann stood over the crumpled body of the Fold Commander. The amplifiers smoked behind them.
Zen wiped blood from his brow. Brann panted beside him.
"Two more fights like that," Brann muttered, "and I'm retiring to some Threadless island."
Zen stared toward the central spire. "He's still fighting."
Brann nodded, suddenly quiet. "Let's hope he walks out."
Solas and Nyra stepped into the corridor just as another harmonic pulse vibrated the walls—this one collapsing into silence.
"That was Virell's sanctum," Solas said. "He's done it."
Nyra still looked shaken. "My name was on that wall."
Solas touched her shoulder with a cool look on his face. "Yeah and it looked so cool, even I want my name there"
They moved.
All paths converging.
The Fold was crumbling.
But none of them knew what would rise from its ruins.