The morning of the Moon-Feast arrived not with the usual clanging of the refinery bells, but with the persistent, ethereal hum of the mountain. Aster woke as the first rays of light hit the obsidian spires of the city. He lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, the gears of his mind already turning at full speed. At fifteen, his body had caught up to the sharpness of his mind—he was tall, lean, and possessed a quiet intensity that felt like a coiled spring. Finally, he thought, today is the day the silence of Orestes breaks.
The humming music from the mountain also stopped because aster made it so that it would stop playing after a certain amount of time has passed.
Breakfast was a quiet, high-stakes affair. Aster sat with his mother, Arliene, and his sister, Astra. Elian was there too, looking pale but resolute. The Orestian boy who was 5 years younger than the twins, and today, he looked like he was preparing to walk into a furnace. He sipped the last of his throat-soothing tea, adhering strictly to Aster's "Vocal Silence" protocol. He didn't speak, but his eyes were fixed on Aster with a mixture of terror and absolute trust.
Arliene watched her children with a mother's pride masked by the poise of a Royal Consort of Wynfall. She knew that today wasn't just about a wager; it was about her children proving that their philosophy of "Music and Singing" could bridge the gap between two vastly different worlds.
As the day progressed, the city felt like a bowstring pulled to its breaking point. Aster had named the event the "Moon-Feast," a strategic masterstroke designed to align with the Orestian worship of the Moon Goddess. By tapping into their existing spirituality, he was bridging the gap between "foreign art" and "sacred tradition." He spent the afternoon in a state of hyper-focus, reviewing the mana-light schematics one last time.
***
By 5:30 PM, the atmosphere in the Great Arena was thick with an anticipation that felt like static electricity. But when Aster peered through the heavy velvet curtains of the backstage area at 6:00 PM, his brow furrowed.
The arena, a masterpiece of acoustics designed to hold twenty thousand souls, was only half-full. Approximately ten thousand people sat in the stone tiers—mostly nobles in their dark furs, shopkeepers, and those who lived in the Upper Tier. The thousands of miners who were just finishing their shifts in the deep shafts—the very heart of the audience Aster wanted to reach—had not yet arrived. There was a hollow echo in the empty seats that felt like a cold draft, threatening to swallow the energy of the performance before it even began.
"They aren't here yet," Astra whispered, standing beside him. She was dressed in a gown of shimmering silver silk that seemed to catch every stray spark of light. "Aster, if the arena is half-empty, even after the sun fully sets, then it would mean, there is a very big chance that we will lose."
"Then we have to make those ten thousand have the time of their lives," Aster replied, his voice hardening into a blade of pure intent.
Arliene stepped forward from the shadows of the wings, placing a hand on each of her children's shoulders. "You have prepared for this since you came here into this nation. Don't play for the seats; play for the souls who had the thought to show up. The rest will hear the echo and follow."
Lumine hurried into the backstage area, her pink hair windswept and her rose-quartz eyes wide. "The King is in his royal box. He's looking at the empty seats and smirking, Aster. He's already telling his advisors that the 'Snowflakes' have failed to move the masses."
Aster checked the clock on the wall. 6:01 PM. "We don't need to wait anymore, If we are worth it, then people will defenitely come even if they are late. We will show those who are here what it means to truly enjoy music. If we move the ten thousand, the rest of the city will be drawn in by the sheer gravity of the sound."
He turned to Elian, who was trembling. "Elian. Look at me."
The boy looked up.
"You are the final act. You are the voice of this mountain. For now, stay in the backstage. Let Astra and me pave the road for you. When it's your turn, don't think about the King. Think about the song you sang for copper coins in the mud. Today, you are going to sing for the whole nation."
Elian gave a single, sharp nod.
***
The lights in the arena suddenly dimmed, replaced by a soft, silvery glow that Aster had engineered using mana-conductive crystals.Then there was a big silence in the arena. The sudden absence of sound was so jarring that the ten thousand people in the crowd gasped as one.
Aster and Astra stepped onto the stage. At fifteen, they were a striking, formidable pair. Dressed in charcoal and silver, they moved with a synchronized, predatory grace. They didn't look like performers; they looked like architects of a new reality.
Aster stepped up to the center microphone, a device he had built to amplify not just volume, but the "frequency" of the speaker. His voice filled the hollow space of the arena with a cold, clear authority that demanded attention.
"People of Orestes," Aster began, his gaze sweeping across the ten thousand faces, picking out the skeptical nobles and the curious merchants. "I know this country does not value entertainment. I know you value the weight of iron, the heat of the forge, and the silence of the deep earth. You believe that music is a luxury for those who do not know the meaning of hard labor."
A murmur ran through the crowd—a ripple of defensive pride.
"I will be honest with you," Aster continued, a faint, confident smirk playing on his lips. "I was the one who pulled that stunt yesterday. I am the one who placed the device at the Sentry's Crown to wake and turn your mountains into a choir. If that was an inconvenience to your sleep or your work, then I am extremely sorry."
A few of the younger Orestians in the lower tiers chuckled, surprised by the prince's bluntness. Even King Boron, sitting high above, leaned forward, his eyes narrowing.
"But still," Aster's voice deepened, resonating through the stone floor and into the boots of every person present. "Nearly ten thousand of you came tonight. I don't know what expectations you had when you walked through those gates. Perhaps you came out of curiosity. Perhaps you came to see the 'foreigners' fail and be humbled by Orestian iron. or Perhaps you came here to really enjoy music"
Aster paused, letting the silence hang until it became uncomfortable.
"Regardless of why you are here, I will make one promise: you will leave this arena satisfied. You are about to hear the heart of Orestes, not in the sound of a hammer hitting an anvil, but in the vibration of a human soul. We are the Snowflakes of Wynfall, and tonight, we are going to show you that even the hardest iron can be melted if we heat it long enough through our music."
He turned to Astra, And astra started singing their first song of the night "Mountain's shadow"
As she started singing the sound didn't just travel through the air; it traveled through the ground. The ten thousand people in the audience felt it in their chests. It was a call to arms, a declaration of war against the silence.
***
Astra's song and beautifull angelic voice made the people get mesmerized by it, The people were watching a beautifll girl singing with an angelic voice,
As Astra was singing, columns of blue light began to rise from the stage, pulsating in perfect synchronization with the beat. The ten thousand people who had been sitting with crossed arms and skeptical glares slowly began to lean forward. They had never seen anything like this. In Orestes, light was for seeing the dark; here, light was being used for something different.
And after the second verse aster also started singing along with astra, this was a meaningfull song that depicted the hardships faced by the miners everyday.
Backstage, Lumine watched with tears in her eyes. "Finally," she whispered to Arliene. "They're doing what they said they are gonna do" and when they were singing.
Arliene looked. At the edges of the arena, the first wave of miners—men and women covered in the soot of their day's labor—were stopping in their tracks. They hadn't intended to come. They were tired, hungry, and cynical. But the sound pouring out of the arena was unlike anything they had ever heard. It wasn't a "foreign art." It was the sound of their own mountain, polished into a song of their everyday hardships
One by one, the miners began to enter. They didn't sit in the seats yet; they stood in the aisles, their lanterns still glowing at their belts, their faces turned toward the silver-haired twins on the stage.
Aster saw the influx of dark-clothed workers from the corner of his eye and felt a surge of cold, calculated triumph. The "vacuum" was being filled. The resonance was building.
"More," Aster muttered to himself. "We need more. we need to give the energy for them to sing along with us "
And after the first song, Aster joined Astra in a duet that captured the raw, brutal energy of the Orestian spirit.
The ten thousand people in the seats were no longer just observers. They were being swept up in a tide of sound. Some were tapping their heavy boots. Others were staring at the stage with a hunger they couldn't name.
The Moon-Feast had only just begun, and the Snowflakes were already melting the iron heart of the kingdom.