Selene didn't wait for Valerius to finish. Her husband's voice rang behind her, sharp with command, but it was nothing more than a distant echo compared to the frantic, pounding rush of her own heartbeat.
She gathered her skirts and swept from the throne room in a storm of motion, the stunned guards scrambling to open the towering doors before she reached them.
"Your Majesty—!" one started, but Selene's glare was so cutting it silenced him mid-breath. She didn't stop. She couldn't.
The great marble corridors of the palace blurred around her as she half-ran, half-stumbled through them. Her slippers slapped against the cold stone, breath coming in ragged bursts. Servants flattened themselves against the walls, bowing hastily as she passed, but she barely saw their faces.
The prisoner's final words throbbed in her mind with every step.
"When the Weaver falls, chaos shall ascend, and silence shall claim all."
Anna's face rose before her, soft and innocent. Her daughter's laughter, her tiny hands clutching Selene's own, her quiet humming when she thought no one was listening.
Selene's pace quickened, near-desperation driving her forward.
A song only you can hear…
The madman's whisper gnawed at her thoughts, chilling her to the marrow. He had spoken truth. Somehow, impossibly, he had known.
She rounded a corner sharply, nearly colliding with a startled maid, and stormed down the hall that led to the private wing of the palace. Two royal sentries stood at attention outside the arched doorway leading to Anna's chambers and those of her caretakers. Their spears lowered reflexively at her approach, but she thrust out her hand, fury flashing in her eyes.
"Stand aside!" she barked, her voice cutting through the air like a whip.
The guards immediately obeyed, stepping back in rigid formation. Selene shoved the doors open and swept inside.
Aeloria was there, seated at a table scattered with ancient tomes and scrolls, the faint scent of ink and crushed herbs lingering in the air. She looked up, her dark eyes immediately sharpening with concern as she took in Selene's wild, pale face and trembling hands.
"Selene?" Aeloria rose quickly, pushing her chair back. "What's happened?"
Selene slammed the door shut behind her, leaning against it for half a heartbeat as though to bar the whole world from entering. Her breath came fast and shallow, her chest heaving.
"Aeloria," she gasped. "There's no time. You must listen to me."
The mage's expression hardened. She crossed the room swiftly, steadying Selene with a firm hand on her arm.
"I'm listening."
Selene's gaze darted toward the adjoining chamber—the one where Anna slept. The door there was slightly ajar, and she could just make out the soft glow of candlelight within. She lowered her voice to a near-whisper, as though even the stones might overhear.
"In the throne room," she began, each word trembling with urgency, "the prisoner… he knew, Aeloria. He spoke of Chaos, of the end of the song, and of the Songweaver."
Aeloria froze. The name alone seemed to ripple through the air, like a plucked string vibrating in some deep, unseen place.
"Songweaver," she repeated slowly. "That is… a word from the old tongue. From the oldest stories."
Selene gripped her arm harder, her nails digging in.
"He said Chaos will stop at nothing to destroy her. He said that When the Weaver falls, chaos shall ascend, and silence shall claim all."
Aeloria's breath caught, her face paling. She turned sharply toward the partially open door to Anna's chamber.
"And he looked at you when he said this?"
"No," Selene whispered, her voice breaking. "He looked through me. He saw her, Aeloria. Somehow, in that madness, he knew."
For a heartbeat, the two women stood in silence, the weight of understanding settling between them like a physical thing.
Then Aeloria moved with sudden, sharp precision, her hands flying to the protective wards etched into the floor near Anna's doorway. She traced glowing sigils into the air, reinforcing barriers that already shimmered faintly with power.
"Selene," she said, her tone iron-hard, "you must tell me exactly what he said. Every word."
Selene swallowed hard, fighting to steady her voice as the images of the madman's final moments burned in her mind.
"He spoke of the song beneath the world—the heartbeat of creation. He said it falters. That the Silence comes when the song dies." She drew in a shuddering breath. "And he said that Anna's song—her resonance—is what Chaos will seek to destroy first."
Aeloria's eyes darkened with sudden recognition, her jaw tightening as the memory clawed its way to the surface.
"Resonance… the Songweaver…" she muttered under her breath, almost to herself, her fingers tapping the edge of the table in a staccato rhythm. "That name… I've seen it before. In a text older than the Empire itself. I never thought it would surface again."
Selene's wide eyes fixed on her. "What do you mean? You know what this is?"
Aeloria didn't answer immediately. Her mind raced, recalling a night from decades past, spent poring over tomes that had long been forbidden in the royal archives. There had been one book—dusty, bound in blackened leather, its pages brittle with age, written in the half-forgotten glyphs of the Old Tongue. It told of an entity older than memory itself, a force that lived in the space between worlds, devouring creation in the silence left when the Song faltered.
Her hand shot to a small bell on the table. She rang it sharply, the sound clear and cutting through the candle-lit room. Within moments, a young apprentice appeared, bowing low.
"Go to my study," Aeloria said without preamble, her voice firm and urgent. "Fetch the Liber Abyssi. Every volume that speaks of the Descending Chaos, the Silence, and the Songweaver. Bring them here."
The apprentice nodded and hurried off, the echo of footsteps fading into the corridors.
Aeloria turned back to Selene, her eyes grave. "Selene, there is a being… a demon-god of the abyss, older than the mountains, older than the stars. The texts call it Chaos, the Descending, the Silent Hunger. It hungers for the unraveling of the Song—the resonance that holds reality together. And now… it knows the Songweaver has been born again."
Selene swallowed, trembling. "Anna… she's it? She's the Songweaver?"
Aeloria nodded grimly, her hands moving to the air again, tracing invisible threads as though weaving the knowledge into something tangible. "Yes. And every legend warns: Chaos does not act in haste. It waits. It strikes in whispers, in shadows, in the cracks between breaths. But if it succeeds in silencing her… then the world as we know it ends. The Silence… it consumes all."
The heavy wooden door to Anna's chamber creaked slightly as if protesting their intrusion, and Selene instinctively moved closer to it. Her heart pounded, the weight of prophecy pressing down on her chest.
The soft echo of hurried footsteps returned through the corridor, growing louder until the apprentice appeared in the doorway, sweat glistening on his forehead. In his arms, he carried three heavy, black-leather volumes, their spines cracked and pages yellowed with age. Dust rose in faint clouds as he set them carefully on the table.
Aeloria bent over the first book, brushing off the grime of centuries before opening it. The pages were thick, brittle, and filled with the angular, flowing glyphs of the Old Tongue. Illuminated illustrations depicted nightmarish forms—figures wreathed in shadow, landscapes torn asunder by invisible forces, and strange sigils that seemed to writhe under the candlelight.
Selene leaned closer, her eyes wide as she took in the strange diagrams. "What… what is all this?" she whispered.
"This," Aeloria said, her voice steady but edged with unease, "is everything the ancients wrote about the Descending Chaos—the Demon-God of the Abyss. Its hunger. Its whispers. Its servants in our world. And… the Songweaver." She traced a faded illustration of a small figure, radiant with lines of shimmering energy running from her hands and chest. "It speaks in riddles, but the meaning is clear. When the song falters, when the weave is broken, Chaos will consume everything. And this," she tapped the page, "is the first prophecy of the Songweaver's rise."
Selene's throat tightened. "So the prisoner… he was telling the truth."
Aeloria nodded grimly, flipping carefully to the next volume. The pages were filled with accounts of ancient wars, where the Songweaver—always unnamed, always shrouded in legend—stood against forces that would unravel reality. There were notes in the margins, written in the tiny, careful script of a long-dead mage, warning of the perils of training a child too soon, of the corruption that comes from touching the song before the soul is ready.
Selene's hands clenched in her lap. "And Anna… she's just a child."
"Yes," Aeloria whispered, almost to herself. "But even a child can wield the resonance if guided carefully. She must learn to hear the song, to call it, to weave it. And we must ensure Chaos does not find her before she can."
The apprentice shifted nervously, bowing. "Mistress… the third volume… it… it speaks of the Abyss itself. Of the forms it takes, the ones who serve it in this world. It…" His voice faltered, and he swallowed hard. "It warns that some who hear the Songweaver's melody are drawn to her, and some are destroyed by it."
Aeloria's eyes darkened as she took the third volume into her hands, turning its brittle pages with reverent caution. The glyphs seemed to writhe beneath her gaze, and the illustrations of writhing shadows and ethereal figures made her chest tighten. But it was the text itself—the words, the careful, archaic phrasing—that made her blood run cold.
Her breath caught as she read aloud, voice low, almost hesitant:
"'The Songweaver binds the resonance of the world, calling forth the ley lines to weave harmony from the chaos beneath the stone and soil. Their heartbeat mirrors the heartbeat of the world, and in their hands, the weave of creation can be mended—or unraveled.'"
Selene leaned in, her brow furrowed. "The… heartbeat of the world?"
Aeloria's fingers trembled as she traced the lines of text, her mind snapping back through memories she had long buried. The description—the resonance, the binding of the ley lines, the delicate balance of threads—struck her with a recognition that was impossible to ignore. Her chest tightened as a single, undeniable thought crystallized.
"My mother…" Aeloria whispered, her voice shaking. "She was a Songweaver."
Aeloria's eyes widened as the truth pressed itself fully into her mind, sharp and undeniable. Her fingers hovered over the fragile pages, trembling as though afraid to touch the knowledge of centuries.
"All this time," she murmured, her voice low and reverent, "we believed the legends were symbolic… that the Songweavers were merely myths, stories to frighten or inspire. We thought those who wielded resonance were powerful mages, yes—but ordinary, in a sense. Masters of elemental control, healers of the land, manipulators of energy… but never this."
Selene frowned, uncertain. "This…?"
Aeloria's gaze lifted, dark and piercing, fixed on Selene. "This," she said firmly, "is the truth. Every Resonance mage in myths and legends, every master of ley lines—my mother included—they were not merely mages. They were Songweavers.
Selene's eyes widened, disbelief and awe warring across her face. "Songweavers… all this time we thought they were just skilled mages, manipulating elements, bending resonance. You mean… they were shaping the very fabric of the world?"
Aeloria's hands trembled slightly as she spread the pages of the book before them, pointing to delicate glyphs entwined with illustrations of glowing threads snaking through landscapes. "Yes. Every so-called 'resonance' we studied—the control over energy, the flow of ley lines, the healing, the wards—it was all part of the song. The true power of a Songweaver is in harmonizing with the world itself, feeling its heartbeat, calling it into being, mending or unraveling it through the resonance of their own soul."
Selene swallowed hard, her throat dry. "Then Anna… she isn't just talented. She's… born to this. The Songweaver."
Aeloria's gaze softened for a moment, but there was a fierce edge to it. "Exactly. And that is why the prisoner—mad as he seemed—knew. He recognized her, even without seeing her. The resonance calls to those attuned to it, especially to those who serve Chaos. They sense the threads before they are even woven fully."
Selene's hands clenched in fists, the weight of urgency pressing down on her chest. "But if every Songweaver is so powerful… why did my generation never hear of them? Why did the Empire keep it hidden?"
Aeloria's eyes darkened with memory and sorrow. "Because the song is dangerous. The resonance is alive—it tests, it demands, it can corrupt or destroy. My mother hid her true nature, trained me in secrecy, and told me little. Even the greatest mages of the Empire only brushed against the surface, never understanding the full harmony. Songweaving is a responsibility older than the throne itself. That is why it was buried in myth."
Selene's gaze fell toward the faintly glowing wards by Anna's chamber. "Then the prisoner's words weren't just threats… They were warnings. Chaos hunts her because she is the first Songweaver in generations."
Aeloria's voice was grim, resolute. "Yes. And if we fail to teach her, to awaken her fully to the resonance of the world, she will be vulnerable. The Silence that follows the faltering song will not wait. It will consume everything."
Selene drew a shaky breath, her resolve hardening. "Then we begin tonight. We prepare her. She will not face this alone."
Aeloria nodded sharply, her fingers tracing the air, calling faintly to the ley lines beneath the palace. "First, we attune her. She must feel the pulse of the world before she can call the song aloud. Only then can she hope to weave it—and only then can she stand against Chaos."
The room seemed to hum faintly in response, as if the resonance itself acknowledged the beginning of the awakening. In that moment, mother and grandmother both understood the gravity of what they were about to undertake: the rebirth of the Songweaver and the first line of defense against a force older than memory.
Suddenly, a deafening roar shattered the night, echoing through the palace halls. Windows rattled, dust and loose papers spun into the air. Flames licked the distant skyline, smoke curling skyward, carrying a smell of scorched stone. The resonance of the explosion thrummed faintly beneath their feet, unsettling and foreboding.
Aeloria and Selene dashed to the tall window, hearts hammering. Through the haze of smoke and flickering firelight, the courtyard and distant rooftops were engulfed in chaos. Shadows twisted among the flames, and the air carried the acrid sting of burning wood and iron. Selene's breath caught as a single, terrible thought pierced her mind—it's already here.