Maelin awoke to silence.
Not the crushing silence of the Hollow Light, but the kind that breathes — the kind that follows thunder and waits for answers.
She lay beneath a shattered sky, stars blinking overhead like curious eyes. The Celestial Locket, once searing with power, now rested cold and dull against her chest.
"…Maelin?" Caelum's voice was quiet, as if afraid she'd break.
She opened her eyes slowly. "Did I…?"
"You did," Eira said, stepping into view. Her armor was cracked, her braid half-loosened, but her smile was real. "The Whisper is gone. The Hollow Light — it's gone."
Maelin sat up, pain threading through her body like unfinished notes. The memory of Liraen's face lingered — not as a ghost, but as a truth finally spoken.
And yet…
Something was wrong.
She looked to the heavens. The constellations had shifted — seven stars had returned to their rightful places, aligned like they hadn't in eons. But one star — the brightest, the sentinel — was gone.
> "It didn't come back," she whispered.
Eira's smile faded. "We thought it was just…burnt out. A price."
But Maelin shook her head. "No. That star wasn't broken."
She stood on shaking legs, turning toward the Temple ruins. The stones trembled underfoot — not collapsing, but humming. Not from within the Whisper…
…but from something older.
Something deeper.
"I think," Maelin said, voice barely audible, "something else was listening."
---
Beyond the Reach
In a void older than time, far beyond the known stars, the silence cracked.
A shape uncurled from the shadow — massive, coiled, patient.
The final refrain had been sung.
The lock had turned.
> And now, the Warden would wake.
---
Back at the Temple
Eira and Caelum exchanged a glance.
"Do you feel that?" he asked.
"I thought the Whisper was the end," Eira said, drawing her blade.
Maelin didn't answer.
She stared at the horizon where no stars glowed — only blackness thick as oil, spreading like a stain.
> The Hollow Light was not the last melody.
> It was just the prelude.
And Maelin — girl, singer, savior — would have to become something more than human.
Because the next verse belonged to something that did not sing…
…it devoured.