The next morning dawned gray and cold, the skies heavy with unfallen rain.
In the throne room, light filtered dimly through towering stained-glass windows, their brilliant colors muted beneath the overcast sky. The vast chamber was hushed, but tension coiled beneath its silence like a taut bowstring.
Emperor Valerius stood at the foot of the dais, his posture rigid, hands clasped tightly behind his back. His dark cloak swept the floor like a shadow, his expression carved from marble as he stared at the banners hanging high above.
Selene sat upon the high-backed throne, her own features carefully composed, though exhaustion lingered beneath her eyes. She had slept little, her mind still caught between the memory of Anna's fevered whispers and the terrible conversation with Aeloria the night before.
Anna now rested under heavy guard in the private chambers, with Aeloria keeping vigil beside her. Selene's heart ached with every breath she took away from her daughter, but courtly duty demanded her presence here.
Valerius spoke first, his voice a low rumble that filled the vaulted hall.
"They dare to strike at my family—at our daughter." His fists clenched, the leather of his gloves creaking. "An attack on the heir is an attack on the Empire itself. Whoever did this will suffer, Selene. I will see to it personally."
Selene's hands tightened on the arms of her throne.
"And what if they were merely a pawn, Valerius? Destroying one enemy will not end the rot if its roots run deeper than we can see."
His head snapped toward her, eyes flashing with imperial fury. "Then we burn the roots along with the tree."
For a moment, their gazes locked—two rulers bound by blood and love, yet divided by their approaches to power.
Before Selene could answer, the heavy doors at the far end of the hall boomed open, slamming against the walls.
A line of royal guards marched in, their polished armor catching what little light there was, red plumes swaying with each precise step. At their head strode Captain Darien Varro, a battle-scarred veteran whose loyalty to the throne was beyond question. His jaw was set, his expression grim.
Behind him, two guards dragged a cloaked and bound prisoner, their boots scraping harshly against the marble floor. The figure's head hung low, a dark hood concealing their face.
Valerius's eyes narrowed, his voice cold and sharp.
"You've returned sooner than expected, Captain. I trust this means you bring me good news."
Darien dropped to one knee at the base of the dais, fist striking his chest in salute.
"Sire. Majesty," he said, addressing them both with equal deference. "We scoured the Ashenwood through the night. At dawn, we caught the one responsible for the ambush."
Selene leaned forward slightly, her breath catching.
"You're certain?" she asked, her voice taut with restrained urgency.
Darien nodded once. "Beyond doubt. Witnesses saw this one among the band that attacked the royal convoy. The others were slain or scattered, but this one was captured alive, attempting to flee deeper into the woods."
The prisoner shifted at his words, issuing a low, guttural sound—half-snarl, half-laugh.
Valerius descended the steps in a slow, deliberate stride, his presence filling the chamber like a gathering storm. He stopped mere feet from the prisoner and spoke with icy authority.
"Remove the hood."
One of the guards obeyed instantly, yanking the coarse fabric back.
The prisoner's face was revealed—a gaunt man with hollow cheeks and wild, feral eyes. His skin bore the ashen markings of ritual scars, twisted symbols etched with painful precision. His mouth curled into a jagged smile, revealing teeth filed to sharp points.
Selene's breath caught in horror. "Gods…"
The man lifted his chin defiantly, spitting blood onto the polished floor.
"You think you've won," he rasped, voice cracked but brimming with madness. "But the Ashenwood is only the beginning. The roots go deeper than your precious stones and steel. You cannot cut what you do not see."
Valerius's voice boomed through the hall, fury barely restrained.
"Who sent you? Who dares raise a hand against my bloodline?"
The prisoner threw back his head and laughed—a ragged, broken sound that echoed through the vast chamber. It was not the laughter of a man, but of something fraying at the edges, something unmoored. The sound curdled the air, raising the hairs on Selene's neck and sending an uneasy ripple through the line of guards.
"Bloodline…" he hissed between gasping chuckles, his body shaking with mirth. "Oh, mighty emperor, you still believe your blood matters. You think walls and blades and banners will keep the darkness at bay." His voice dropped to a whisper that seemed to slither across the stone floor. "But the end is coming. Even now, the song falters."
Selene stiffened. "The… song?"
The man's head snapped toward her with unnatural speed, his wild, fever-bright eyes locking onto hers.
"Yes, Majesty. The song beneath the world. The heartbeat of creation. The weave that binds all things." His voice grew louder, more frenzied, until it reverberated through the vaulted hall. "I have heard it in the roots and the stones, in the rivers and the marrow of the earth. It hums… always hums. But now…" He began to sway, chains rattling against the marble. "Now it stutters."
The prisoner spread his arms wide despite the restraints, his laughter spiraling into a near scream.
"The symphony will cease, and there will be only silence. The end of all songs, all dreams, all order!" His eyes rolled white for an instant, and when they focused again, they seemed to bore straight through Selene.
"Chaos is coming, and you—your Empire—are nothing but dry leaves before the storm."
"Enough!" Valerius's roar crashed over the madman's words, his fury filling every corner of the throne room.
"You speak in riddles, filth. Tell me who commands you, or I will see you broken before the sun sets."
The man's lips peeled back into a ghastly grin, revealing those sharpened teeth.
"You think this is about a commander? A lord? A king?" He spat, red and black flecks staining the floor.
The prisoner leaned forward as far as his chains would allow, his gaunt frame trembling with barely contained mania. His voice dropped to a guttural whisper, the kind of sound that seemed to slither beneath the skin.
"No kings. No lords. No thrones," he rasped, spittle clinging to his cracked lips. "Only the Descending Chaos. The formless truth that comes before the first dawn and after the last dusk."
His eyes widened, pupils shrinking to pinpricks as he began to rock back and forth, the movement slow and deliberate, like a ritual dance. The chains rattled softly, the sound oddly rhythmic, as though mimicking some invisible beat.
"Chaos descends when the song falters," he hissed, his tone rising with each word. "The melody of the world—every heartbeat, every tide, every breath—ceases, and what remains is the Silence. Do you know what lives in silence, emperor? Do you know what waits when there is no song to hold it back?"
Valerius's jaw tightened, his fists clenching at his sides. "Speak plainly, wretch!"
The prisoner ignored him, his gaze unfocused, as though staring through the walls and stone to some distant, terrible horizon.
"The Silence is hunger," he crooned, his voice slipping into a maddening cadence. "The Silence devours. It swallows the stars, drinks the oceans, gnaws the bones of the world. It is the end of meaning, the end of name and shape and sound. And when it comes…"
His laughter erupted suddenly, jagged and wild, cutting through the hall like the scream of tearing metal. Several guards flinched, hands twitching toward their weapons.
"When it comes, the thrones will crumble, the towers will fall, and the mighty Empire of stone will be no more than dust on the wind! All will be unmade, returned to the formless Chaos from which they crawled!"
The prisoner's laughter tapered off into a ragged, wheezing chuckle, his thin chest heaving as he drew in sharp, broken breaths. Then, with a sudden, jerking motion, his head snapped toward Selene.
His eyes—wild, fever-bright, and full of unhinged clarity—locked on hers.
"But before the Silence devours all…" he rasped, his voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper that somehow carried across the vast chamber, "…the Songweaver will rise."
Selene's blood turned to ice. The title struck her like a blade.
The madman leaned forward as far as his chains would allow, his movements unnaturally fluid, almost serpentine. The guards instinctively stepped back, their armor clinking.
"The one who shapes the threads," he crooned, his tone both reverent and mocking. "The one whose heartbeat echoes the melody of creation. She will call the notes, draw the lines, weave the harmony that holds this world together." His cracked lips stretched into a ghastly grin, revealing his sharpened teeth.
"But Chaos cannot abide harmony. It hates the song. It HUNTS the weaver."
He began to sway again, the chains rattling like the faint tolling of bells.
"And when it finds her, when it tears the song from her throat, there will be nothing left but Silence."
Valerius's expression hardened to fury.
"Speak sense, lunatic! Who is this 'Songweaver' you speak of? Give me a name, or I'll—"
The prisoner cut him off with a shriek of laughter, his voice shrill and jagged.
"A name? Names are mortal things, emperor. Fragile threads easily snapped. But she is more than a name. She is a note, a chord, a bridge between worlds."
Then he stilled abruptly.
The hall fell into an unnatural hush as he tilted his head, slowly, deliberately, until he was staring directly into Selene's eyes. His grin widened, fevered and knowing.
"You know her," he whispered, the words as sharp and precise as a dagger point.
"You've held her."
Selene's breath caught, her body freezing as the weight of his meaning settled over her. She forced her face into stillness, but her heart pounded wildly in her chest.
He knows.
Somehow, through his madness, he knows about Anna.
The man's cracked lips moved again, his voice a hiss, intimate and venomous.
"She hums, doesn't she? Soft and sweet, like a lullaby only you can hear. But beneath it is power. The resonance. The song that binds the roots of the world."
Selene's fingers curled against the carved arms of her throne.
"Stop," she breathed, barely audible.
His grin sharpened, his gaze never wavering from hers.
"Chaos will stop at nothing to silence her," he rasped. "To rip her threads apart. To end her before her song can rise to its full crescendo."
Then, louder, his voice breaking into a ragged crescendo of its own:
"THE WEAVER MUST DIE, SO CHAOS CAN RISE!"
The force of his cry reverberated through the throne room, shaking the banners and sending a few of the guards stumbling back in alarm.
Valerius snarled and surged forward, his anger barely restrained.
"Enough of this madness! Who sent you? Who dares speak of harming my daughter?"
But Selene's mind was already reeling. She understood what Valerius could not—that these weren't just ramblings. They were truth, buried beneath madness. The Songweaver was Anna. And this creature, this servant of Chaos, had come to deliver a warning—or a threat.
Selene rose slowly from her throne, her composure icy despite the storm raging inside her.
"Tell me," she said, her voice cutting through the room like a blade of glass. "If the song is silenced… what comes after?"
The man's head tilted back, his laughter rising once more, jagged and broken.
"What comes after?" he echoed, eyes rolling white.
"Nothing. No song. No breath. No light. Only the eternal hush."
Then he lunged forward, so suddenly and violently that his chains snapped taut with a sound like shattering bone. His mouth opened in a final, inhuman scream—
"WHEN THE WEAVER FALLS, CHAOS SHALL ASCEND, AND SILENCE SHALL CLAIM ALL!!"
A heartbeat later, his body convulsed violently, and black froth bubbled past his teeth. His head jerked to one side with a sickening crack as poison did its work.
The guards shouted, some rushing to seize him, but it was too late. His lifeless body slumped forward, chains clattering to the marble floor like the last notes of a song fading into silence.
The throne room was left stunned, ringing quiet.
Valerius turned to Selene, his face a storm of rage and confusion.
"This is the speech of madmen," he snarled. "I will not be ruled by riddles and ghosts. Whoever stands behind this, I will crush them beneath the Empire's heel."
But Selene didn't answer.
Her gaze lingered on the corpse, on the blackened lips and hollow eyes. His final words burned into her mind like a brand.
When the Weaver falls, chaos shall ascend, and silence shall claim all.".
Selene's hand trembled as she clutched the folds of her gown, her thoughts spiraling inward.
Anna.
Her daughter was no longer just an heir to the throne—she was the key to the song itself. And Chaos had already begun to hunt her.