The Singer's question hung in the vast, silent chamber, a weight more crushing than the tons of rock above them. It was a demand from a demigod, and James, a boy armed with a strange and volatile power, was the one who had to answer. His mind, strained from the effort of suppressing the violet thread, felt fragile, on the verge of shattering. How could he explain love, duty, and sisterhood to a being who had been alone with her own grief for half a millennium?
He couldn't use words. So he used the only other language he had: his own heart.
He closed his eyes, and instead of pushing his power outwards, he let his memories flow into the mental space between them. He didn't try to shape them, not at first. He sent a chaotic, raw torrent of emotion: the terror of watching Sophia's hand first turn grey; the bitter frustration of his failure at the Academy; the fierce, defiant love that drove him into the dark. It was a scream of mortal desperation.
The Singer's mental presence recoiled, not in anger, but in confusion, as if deafened by the noise. "Such chaos... such pain..."
Nyx's hand tightened on his, a steadying pressure. "No, not a scream," her whispers guided him, her thought flowing through their connection like a calming current. "A song. Let her hear your quiet notes, too."
James understood. He took a breath and focused. He pushed past the fear and let the simpler, purer memories surface. He showed the Singer an image of him and a much younger Sophia building a clumsy little fort out of blankets in their small apartment. He showed her the warmth of her hand in his as they looked out over the glittering expanse of Luminar at night. He showed her the simple, quiet, unconditional love that defined his entire existence. He showed her his song.
For a long moment, the ancient consciousness was silent, processing the unfamiliar melody. The oppressive anger in the chamber softened into a profound and ancient curiosity.
"You feel... so loudly," the Singer's voice returned, the cold edge gone. "Like the children of the sun I once knew. But the world you show me... it is wrong."
A new vision flooded James's mind, this one from the Singer. She showed him how her Ward was meant to work: a gentle, shimmering field of energy that wrapped around her city, making it fade from perception, a soft, timeless stasis to wait out the age of monsters. A Lullaby.
Then, she showed him the present. She showed him the Great Pattern of Luminar, a rigid, glowing net of pure logic pressing down upon her ancient, fluid spell. The sheer weight and force of the Weavers' magic was compressing her Ward, twisting and corrupting its purpose. The gentle command to be still had been warped by the Weavers' unyielding logic into a brutal order: become stone.
"Your city of Weavers is the poison," the Singer's voice concluded, filled with a sorrow that dwarfed James's own. "They have turned my cradle into a cage, my lullaby into a dirge."
Before James could grasp the full, horrifying implication, a deep, rhythmic THUMP echoed from far above them, vibrating through the crystalline floor. It was not the sound of the city's machinery. It was the sound of marching.
Nyx's head snapped up, her glowing eyes wide with alarm. She could sense things James couldn't. "They are here," she whispered, her voice tight. "In the Grades. Marching. Cold Patterns. Ordered. Many of them."
Warden Valerius had arrived.
The Singer felt their presence too. The sorrow in her mind instantly hardened into a core of pure, ancient hatred. "The Weavers. They have come to reinforce my chains, to silence me again before their precious lie is exposed."
Her violet eyes, a universe of patient grief, fixed on James with a new, terrifying intensity. She had seen his memories. She had seen him unravel the world.
"You can break things," her voice was a sharp, focused point in his mind. "I feel it in you. You are an Unraveler. The antithesis of their Weaving. I will offer you a pact, child of the sun."
The pressure on the thread he was suppressing lessened, a gesture of trust, or perhaps a test.
"I can sever the corrupted link to my daughter," the Singer declared. "I can pull the poison from her veins myself. In return, you will do one thing for me. You will stand before the heart of my prison, the nexus of their Great Pattern that holds me here... and you will help me unravel their city of lies."
The choice was laid bare before him, stark and absolute. The power to save his sister was being offered to him. The price was the destruction of his entire world.