The Ashwind Plains stretched before them, desolate and blistered, an endless expanse of cracked glass and scorched dust. Strange flora twisted in the distance—flowers with metallic petals, roots that pulsed like veins. Above, the sky shimmered with fractured auroras, bleeding colors from dimensions not meant for mortal eyes.

  They had escaped Cantira, but the Echo Fragment in Vara’s possession throbbed with unrest.

  Ayara walked beside her, wrapped in silence. Auren trailed behind, scanning for drones or worse—Scour Striders, the long-limbed horrors bred in the ruins of the Eastern Forge. Vara couldn’t help but feel the plains were watching them. Listening.

  They made camp beneath the broken shell of a derelict Skycore engine. The machine’s frame buzzed faintly, corrupted but dormant. As night fell, the winds brought whispers.

  Voices.

  Children laughing.

  Ayara stood suddenly. “They’re here.”

  “Who?” Vara asked.

  Ayara didn’t answer. Instead, she lifted her hands and pressed her palms to the cracked ground. A gentle hum vibrated outward like a ripple in still water. The air responded with a harmony—a melody older than the Codex itself.

  Figures emerged from the dust.

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  Pale-skinned, glowing-eyed, their bodies partially translucent, partially nanite-woven. These were not ghosts, nor Hunters—these were Aeloria’s Children, descendants of the first Nomads who had once worshipped Aeloria, the goddess of stars and silence. Presumed extinct after the Silent Wars.

  Their leader stepped forward—Iveran, cloaked in shimmering threads of living light. His voice was soft thunder. “You carry a song that was never finished.”

  Vara stepped forward, holding up the Echo Fragment. “Then help me finish it.”

  Iveran studied her, his eyes like twin galaxies. “The Codex sings through you. But you are no priest, no prophet. Why do you seek to awaken it?”

  “Because something worse is trying to.”

  Silence.

  Then, he nodded. “Then you must hear the Star Psalm.”

  He raised a hand. The wind died. The sky flickered.

  And then they heard it—a haunting lullaby that seemed to pull threads from every corner of the world. A song not of destruction, but memory. Every note wrapped around Vara’s core, showing her glimpses of Aeloria’s last stand against Telthar, and the betrayal that shattered the stars.

  The Codex had once been whole. Then it had been rewritten.

  “The truth,” Iveran said, “was buried. We preserved a piece of it. And now, we entrust it to you.”

  He placed a second fragment into Vara’s hand.

  Two pieces of a god’s shattered voice now beat within her chest.

  But with the song came danger. The more complete the Codex became, the louder it called—to both allies and enemies.

  Far to the east, in the Steel Mire, Telthar stirred.

  And in the shadows of Vara’s thoughts, a new presence whispered.

  Not warning. Not anger.

  But recognition.