Anna's white-glowing eyes flickered, and for a heartbeat, the resonance storm stilled.
Then she saw her.
Her Grandma Aeloria—the indomitable empress, the shield of the empire, the woman who had stood unbroken against gods and monsters—now lay motionless on the shattered stones below, her silver hair matted with blood, her chest frighteningly still.
"GRANDMA!!!" Anna's scream tore from her throat, raw and breaking, and with it the very fabric of the air cracked.
The sigil above the city convulsed, its intricate runes splitting apart into wild, jagged patterns. Resonance magic, once beautiful and precise, now surged out in chaotic waves, unbound and furious. The sound was unbearable—like every bell, every horn, every string of the world's song being struck at once.
The monster staggered back, bellowing as the uncontrolled resonance ripped into its flesh, peeling away layers of blackened sinew and bone. Its crown of bone cracked, its glowing veins splitting open as torrents of crimson light spilled out.
Anna's tiny frame arched as power coursed through her, her sobs echoing across the broken city.
"You HURT her! You tried to TAKE her!" she cried, her voice a mix of fury and heartbreak. "I won't let you—I WON'T LET YOU!!!"
The resonance obeyed her grief.
Spears of sound crystallized from the air, vibrating so violently they blurred as they launched into the beast, pinning its writhing limbs. Shockwaves erupted with every beat of her heart, shattering stone towers, ripping apart corrupted thralls in an instant.
The beast tried to move, to lunge at her, but its body was unraveling under the storm. Its cavernous maw opened to scream—only to be drowned out as Anna's power screamed louder.
Above them all, Anna hovered like a blazing star, her tears glowing as they fell, her power berserk and endless, the full fury of a broken heart unleashed upon the nightmare that had taken her grandmother.
The beast's vessel writhed as Anna's resonance storm consumed it. Every strike of her power tore flesh and bone apart until the once-godlike abomination collapsed in a heap of shrieking shadows and dissolving ooze. Its crimson veins dimmed, its crown of bone splintered—and with a final, deafening crack of sound, the vessel of Chaos was obliterated, scattered into nothing.
But the power didn't stop.
Anna floated in the sky, eyes blazing white, tears streaming as sobs turned into raw screams. The resonance continued to surge outward in uncontrolled waves, shredding buildings, crumbling walls, and splitting the very streets of Crestwood apart. The runes of the vast sigil writhed violently, no longer precise but chaotic, feeding endlessly on her grief.
"She's… she's tearing the city apart," Rowan gasped, clutching his bleeding head as the vibrations nearly split his eardrums.
On the ground, Aeloria stirred. Her body trembled, every breath shallow and ragged, her chest still bleeding from the monstrous wound. Through blurred vision she saw the child she loved more than her own life—floating, breaking, consumed by the very gift meant to save the world.
"Anna…" Aeloria whispered, her voice a broken rasp. "No… not like this…"
She tried to rise, but her body would not obey. Still, her eyes never wavered. She understood in that moment—if Anna was left unchecked, the resonance would not stop with the monster. It would consume the capital. The empire. The world itself.
Aeloria's bloody hand clenched weakly in the dirt as she whispered a prayer—not to gods, but to the Song itself.
"I know what I must do."
The ground trembled beneath Aeloria as she struggled to rise on one knee, her body shaking from blood loss. Above, Anna's voice broke the sky itself, her screams rattling through the bones of Crestwood as the resonance ripped apart stone and air alike.
A sound of crunching rubble cut through the storm.
From the haze of smoke and ruin, Empress Selene emerged—her robes scorched, her crown tarnished with soot, yet her bearing unshaken. In her arms she carried the weight of history: the Codex of Resonance, its bindings glowing faintly as if stirred awake by Anna's unleashed power.
Selene stopped before her mother. Her hands shook as she lowered the ancient tome, its pages opening on their own to a sequence of sigils older than the empire itself. She did not speak—not a word passed her lips. Instead, a single tear slipped down her soot-streaked cheek.
Aeloria looked at her daughter-in-law. No words were needed. They both knew.
Selene's hands lingered on the Codex for a moment longer, as though reluctant to let it go. Then she placed it firmly into her mother's bloodied palms.
Aeloria's trembling fingers curled over the sacred text. For a brief instant, her gaze softened—the steely queen, the resolute warrior, replaced by the grandmother who had once sung Anna to sleep.
The sigils in the tome burst to life, leaping from the pages in radiant spirals of light that wound around Aeloria's arms and chest, filling the broken empress with strength not her own. The air quivered with harmony, notes of the primordial Song thrumming through every shard of stone, every drop of blood, every heart still beating in Crestwood.
Above, Anna's body jerked violently as the resonance surged, her white eyes blazing brighter. Her cry fractured into something raw, animal, unstoppable.
Aeloria pressed a hand to the glowing Codex, then raised her gaze to the child in the sky.
"Forgive me, my songbird," she whispered.
Aeloria staggered upright, every bone in her body screaming in protest. The Codex pulsed against her chest, its sigils burning brighter with every beat of her faltering heart. Above, Anna's shrieks tore through the heavens, her power spilling uncontrolled, waves of resonance so raw they ripped spires from their roots and shattered the skyline of Crestwood.
Selene was at her mother's side, steadying her, but Aeloria shook her off, her eyes blazing with grim resolve.
"No," she rasped. "This is mine to bear."
She raised her hand and the sigils leapt outward, weaving into a lattice of light that shimmered like a net across the broken sky. Each symbol was a note of the Song—ancient, resonant, heavy with meaning that predated empires. With every gesture she forced them higher, closer to the raging child at the center of the storm.
Anna screamed again, her body convulsing as arcs of resonance lashed outward, flattening whole streets. Aeloria pushed through it, step by agonizing step, the Codex feeding power into her failing body. Each step cost her years of her life, yet she pressed forward.
Selene's voice rose behind her, desperate:
"Mother, stop! You'll kill yourself! There must be another way!"
Aeloria didn't turn. Didn't answer. Her jaw clenched against the truth Selene didn't yet know—that the ritual demanded a price no one could return from.
Her voice rose instead in chant, clear and unyielding even through the roar of resonance:
"By Song begun, by blood sustained, by silence broken… let the weaver be bound."
The sigils surged higher, encircling Anna in a cage of golden resonance. The girl fought, her small frame writhing as tears streamed down her glowing cheeks. The sound she released was no longer words, but grief and fury given form—an orphaned song that tore at the heart.
Aeloria reached out, her hands trembling as she fought to steady the net. The symbols of the Codex strained, pulling more and more from her life force to hold their shape. Her hair, once white as snow, now seemed to shimmer faintly translucent, threads of her very essence unraveling into the spell.
Selene finally realized, horror dawning on her face.
"No… no, Mother, you didn't—"
But Aeloria only whispered, her gaze locked on the child in the storm:
"For her… I would give everything."
With one final, shattering cry, Aeloria hurled the full weight of the ritual forward, her life pouring into the spell like a river.
Anna's scream broke into a sob as the cage of resonance closed around her, the Codex's sigils binding her wild magic before it could consume her completely.
The air stilled. The city—though broken—was silent.
And Aeloria swayed on her feet, blood on her lips, the Codex slipping from her fingers.
Aeloria's knees buckled. The Codex clattered to the shattered stones beside her, its light fading as her body crumpled to the ground. Blood pooled slowly beneath her lips, her chest rising once, twice… and then falling still.
But as silence swept the square, a new light stirred.
Her spirit rose. Ethereal and radiant, Aeloria's form shimmered as if woven from moonlight and song. The battle-ravaged city seemed to hush at her passing, the chaotic winds stilled by the soft resonance of her presence.
Anna still hung in the air, her small body trembling as white-hot streams of resonance coiled from her like a storm untethered. Her eyes were wide and blank, her sobs warped into a terrible cry that threatened to rip the world apart.
"A-Anna…" Aeloria's spirit whispered, drifting upward. Her voice, though faint, threaded through the storm like a lullaby.
The child's head jerked toward it. For a heartbeat, her glowing eyes flickered with recognition.
Then Aeloria reached her, arms outstretched.
The spirit of the Grand Empress enfolded her granddaughter, pulling the trembling girl into an embrace. The resonance shriek faltered, breaking into ragged gasps as Anna buried her face against the warmth of the spirit's chest. Tears streaked down her glowing cheeks.
"Shh," Aeloria soothed, pressing her incorporeal forehead against Anna's. "I'm here, little one. You're not alone."
As she spoke, her aura spread outward, wrapping Anna in a cocoon of gentle, golden light. The raging sigils that had engulfed the city softened, dimmed, and folded back into her. The very air seemed to hum with a mother's song, soothing the frayed threads of resonance.
Then Aeloria's aura pressed deeper. It wrapped not just around Anna's trembling body, but into her very soul—slipping into the core of her power.
Anna gasped, a soft "Grandma?" barely escaping her lips as the light sank into her.
The storm broke.
Aeloria's essence wove itself like a veil across the child's spirit, severing her from the overwhelming pulse of the ley lines. The connection, once a roaring river, was stilled—locked away beneath the protective shroud of her grandmother's sacrifice.
Anna's glowing eyes dulled to their natural green color. Her body sagged, weightless in the spirit's arms, before the resonance storm released her entirely. She fell gently, drifting toward the ground, cushioned by the last remnants of her grandmother's light.
And Aeloria—her form fading, her song dimming—smiled through her tears.
"Live… for the both of us, little songbird. Live."
Anna's small body sagged to the ground, the last threads of golden light flickering out around her like dying embers. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths, her face streaked with tears. The ruined square was utterly still, the only sound the faint crackle of distant fires.
"Anna!" Selene's voice tore through the silence.
The Empress stumbled across the rubble, her silk robes shredded and blackened with soot. Her crown was gone, her hair undone, but none of that mattered—only the tiny figure lying limp among the broken stones.
She fell to her knees beside her daughter, hands trembling as she pulled the girl into her arms. Anna's head lolled weakly against her shoulder, her skin burning hot to the touch, yet her power—her unbearable resonance—was gone, locked away with Aeloria's sacrifice.
"No… no, no, no, stay with me," Selene whispered, rocking her, her tears dripping onto Anna's cheeks. "Please, my star… my little one…"
Valerius, broken and bloodied, dragged himself forward, leaning heavily on a shattered spear haft as a crutch. He stared at the scene before him: his mother's body, still and lifeless on the stones, and Selene clutching Anna like a drowning woman clings to driftwood. His lips trembled, but no words came—only a hoarse, hollow rasp of grief.
Around them, the Twelve Pillars stirred weakly, crawling out of the ruins of their defeat. Soldiers stumbled into the square, their faces ashen with shock at the devastation, their eyes fixed on the Empress and the unconscious child.
Selene pressed her forehead to Anna's, whispering brokenly through her sobs.
"Don't you leave me too. I've already lost her… I won't lose you…"