The Seed Reaches were not mapped.
Not by the Codex.
Not by the Spiral.
Not by anyone who came back whole.
They stretched beyond the eastern cliffs, where even the Veinlight bent in strange angles. The sky here didn't shimmer like a dome. It pulsed — slow and heavy, as if remembering something it had no words for.
Kael stood at the edge of the broken Spiral, cloak flaring behind him, his new glyph spiraling in gentle rotations over his shoulder. Each pulse whispered of the Origin Tree's blessing. But even that ancient force didn't follow them here.
Here, something else ruled.
⸻
"This is wrong," Lira muttered, scanning the cliffs with both eyes and thread. "The land's too still. Not dead — watching."
"Because it remembers," Ryn said, crouched beside a splintered glyphstone. "These ruins… aren't Spiral."
"They predate everything," Aevor confirmed. "Even the Codex has no name for them."
Kael stepped forward. "That's because this place was erased."
⸻
The further they walked, the less sound existed. Not muted — devoured. Their footsteps didn't echo. Voices didn't carry. Even Soulthread fizzled when extended beyond arm's reach.
Sorell tapped his timecoil. "This thing's skipping beats. That's never happened before."
"No time," Ryn muttered. "No echo."
Kael stopped.
The wind shifted.
And then… he heard it.
A voice.
Low.
Wordless.
Not humming.
Grieving.
⸻
They crested the next ridge — and saw them.
Figures of ash.
Dozens of them.
Each statue hunched in a different pose of sorrow — hands over ears, mouths open in silent screams, arms stretched toward an unseen mercy.
They weren't statues.
They were remnants.
Soul forms flash-burned into reality — still weeping in the aftermath of whatever silenced them.
At the center of the field was a raised platform made of black stone. Not glyphsteel. Not Codex-born.
It vibrated in a rhythm that didn't belong to anything Spiral.
Or even alive.
⸻
"The Ash Choir," Kael whispered.
They all turned.
"You've heard of it?" Aevor asked.
Kael nodded.
"No. I remembered it."
⸻
A sudden gust of pressure — not air — swept the field. A tone like a funeral bell with no source rang through the ground.
The remnant statues twitched.
Not enough to move. But enough to be noticed.
Lira drew her blades. "That's new."
Ryn pointed toward the platform. "Something's waking."
⸻
Kael approached alone.
The others stayed back, too far to speak, too uncertain to act.
When he reached the black platform, his glyph dimmed.
And from beneath the stone, a crack formed.
A voice echoed — not in ears, but in memory.
"You bear the Spiral's breath… but not its song."
Kael clenched his fists. "I carry its fracture."
"Then you are late."
The stone split wide — and a shape rose.
Not a person.
Not a soulform.
Not a weapon.
A choir.
⸻
It looked like a woven mass of threads — some broken, some undone — all circling a void where a heart should've been.
But the face…
It had none.
Just a mouth, stretched open wide, never closing.
And from it, came the sound.
Grief.
Layered and infinite.
Thousands of voices — some screaming, some whispering, some begging — all playing at once.
Kael dropped to one knee, teeth gritted.
His Soulvein flared — rejecting the sound, shielding him.
But only barely.
⸻
"Name yourself," Kael shouted.
The Choir answered with another wave of loss.
This time, it wasn't sound.
It was memory.
⸻
Kael saw:
• A woman screaming as her Soulthread unraveled mid-song.
• A child locked in a silent cell for humming without glyph sanction.
• A mountain whose choir was silenced in one breath — an entire city with voices removed.
He realized what this was.
It wasn't a song.
It was what came after song was denied.
⸻
Ryn appeared at his side. "This is what the Spiral erased."
"They were singers," Kael said. "Threadless ones. People who didn't need the Codex to weave power."
"And so the Lords turned their voices into weapons," Aevor added. "And when they couldn't be controlled…"
"They were turned into echoes."
⸻
The Choir's voice pulsed again — and this time, it wasn't grief.
It was invitation.
⸻
It wanted Kael to join.
Not in death.
In restoration.
Let go of Fracture.
Let go of Spiral.
Become Song.
⸻
Kael stood.
"No," he whispered.
"You want to use me to echo Spiral's end — but that's not what this is."
He reached into his glyph — the Origin Tree's thread laced with the Spiral's oldest failure — and fused them.
A new glyph formed on his palm.
A circle with a tear through its heart… and a pulse of sound drawn across the split.
Balance.
⸻
The Ash Choir howled.
The statues shook.
Some cracked.
But none fell.
Instead, the platform collapsed.
The Choir dissolved into strands of silence…
…and sang.
Not grief.
Relief.
⸻
Kael lowered his hand.
All was quiet.
The statues turned to dust — not in pain, but in peace.
And from the center of the platform, a thread rose.
Black.
Rootless.
Wild.
He reached out.
And took it.
⸻
"What is that?" Lira asked as the others joined him.
Kael looked toward the east.
"A new voice."