The Choir's song thickened as they moved deeper into the chamber.
What had once been a hum now carried shape. The melody rose and fell like breath it was ancient, deliberate, layered with intention rather than chance. It wasn't just noise. There was structure in the song. It was indiscernible, but quite present.
Arata slowed near the centre of the crystal floor, drawn by the vibration travelling up through his boots. The sound pressed against him from below, not loud enough to overwhelm, but intimate enough to demand attention.
Inside it, beneath the resonance, he thought he heard words. Words too distant to grasp but too human to ignore.
Lyra came to stand beside him. She didn't look surprised. "You feel that too."
He nodded. "It's the same rhythm Flora used when she sang."
Farworth's voice carried across the chamber, low and steady. "Of course it is. The world never forgets a song it learns through death."
Tomas looked up sharply from his console. "Sir—" His fingers moved fast over the controls. "I'm detecting a secondary pulse. Different frequency."
Farworth crossed to him at once. "Show me."
A thin red line cut across Tomas's monitor, spiking erratically. It didn't align with any known harmonic pattern—no symmetry, no cycle. The pitch rose sharply, metallic and strained.
Below them, the rivers of light began to shift. Blue bled into red.
Lyra straightened. "That's not part of the Choir."
"No," Farworth said quietly. "That's something answering it."
The air thickened.
The crystal floor glowed brighter, light swelling from beneath as if pressure were building inside the earth itself. The low hum climbed into a chord that rattled dust from the ceiling. The walls vibrated insistently.
Arata's hand tightened on Resonance's hilt.
He didn't draw the blade.
He didn't need to.
It sang from within its sheath, vibrating in counterpoint to the sound below in response, not leading.
The chamber shuddered.
Lines of light rose slowly from the floor, thin strands like molten glass pulled upward by unseen hands. They weren't striking. They weren't attacking.
They were reaching.
Lyra stepped back instinctively. "Farworth—"
He lifted a hand. "Don't move."
The strands split as they rose, branching into threads of colour that hovered in the air, trembling. For a breathless moment, they formed outlines with suggestions of shape.
Human.
Hollow silhouettes, fragile as candle flame.
Arata felt his chest tighten.
Then the song shifted became too sharp, too high to endure and the figures collapsed inward, dissolving back into flowing light.
Silence followed. It settled into the chamber, pressing into bone and breath alike.
Farworth broke it, his voice barely more than a whisper.
"They've learned to imitate us."
The Choir continued to hum beneath their feet.
But now...It was listening back.
The lights steadied, returning to their slow pulse. Tomas powered down the console and stepped back. "All systems normal again," he said, voice still laced with fear.
Lyra exhaled. "Normal is relative."
Farworth turned for the lift. "We have what we came for. Any longer, and the Choir will start noticing the tempo of our hearts."
They began the ascent. The hum followed them until the doors closed, muffling the sound to a dull pulse.
Inside the lift's narrow light, Arata caught Tomas's reflection in the steel wall he was quiet and steady, hands folded over his equipment case as if it were something alive. The young man met his gaze and offered a small, reassuring nod. Nothing more.
Arata returned it.
For the first time since Flora's death, he realised how much he missed the simple, human steadiness of another heartbeat near his own.
...
Magister Kohler stood alone by the tall window of his office, hands clasped behind his back. Below him, the Academy moved as it always had—cadets changing rotations, instructors correcting stances, order continuing because it did not know how to do anything else.
Lyra entered without ceremony.
"You were in the lower Veinworks," Kohler said, without turning.
"Yes."
"And you didn't request clearance."
"I thought Farworth did"
He nodded once. Not in Approval but Acknowledgement.
"Report," he said.
Lyra stepped closer, resting her tablet on the desk but not activating it. "The Choir responded to stimulus. Not to any form of disruption but stimulus. It altered tempo, produced secondary harmonics, and then… something answered."
Kohler turned at that. "Answered how?"
"Imitation," she said. "Pattern recognition. It tried to form us."
Silence stretched.
Kohler finally exhaled. "That's earlier than expected."
Lyra's brow furrowed. "Expected?"
He met her gaze. "The Choir was never passive. It was dormant. The Flame taught us how to burn safely within it—but we never taught it how to remain asleep."
Lyra hesitated. "Arata was the catalyst."
"Yes," Kohler said calmly. "And not by force."
She folded her arms. "He doesn't channel resonance the way the others do. He doesn't assert."
"No," Kohler agreed. "He listens."
That word lingered.
"Which makes him dangerous," Lyra said.
"And necessary," Kohler replied.
She studied him. "You're protecting him."
"I protect all my Cadets." Kohler replied.
Lyra's voice hardened slightly. "The Tribunal won't see it that way."
"They don't need to," Kohler said.
She tapped the desk once, frustrated. "He hears memory through resonance. Not stored, not copied but sort of continued. That shouldn't be possible."
Kohler looked back out the window. "Neither should the Choir responding to grief."
Lyra softened, just a little. "He doesn't understand what he is yet."
Kohler nodded. "That's what buys us time."
"And when he does?"
Kohler's reflection in the glass looked older than usual. 'Then the Academy will have to decide whether it trains soldiers…"
"…or learns how to listen."
Lyra was quiet for a moment. "If the Choir is waking—"
"It is," Kohler said. "And it will not be satisfied with obedience."
She drew a slow breath. "What do you want me to do?"
"Stay close to him," Kohler said. "Not as an overseer. As a witness."
Lyra raised an eyebrow. "That's not a role the Academy usually assigns."
"No," he said. "Which is why it has failed before."
She turned to leave, then paused at the door. "Magister… if Arata asks me what's happening—"
"You can handle it on your own discretion" Kohler replied.
Lyra left.
Kohler remained at the window, watching the Veins pulse faintly beneath the stone—steady, patient, alive.
For the first time in years, he wondered whether the Flame had ever truly been in control at all.
...
The Academy had gone quiet again.
Not with peace, but with the hush that follows a collective decision to forget.
Three days since the Choir's awakening, the lower Vein sectors were sealed under "re-calibration." The official explanation spoke of magnetic fluctuations, unstable currents, and structural risk. None mentioned the voices.
Arata had been down there long enough to know what a lie felt like.
The hum had not disappeared. It had only grown polite—waiting.
At dawn, the summons came.
A short notice from Farworth: "Expedition resumed. Report to the Freight Lift."