The melody came to Selena in the space between sleeping and waking, so faint at first that she thought it was merely the echo of a dream. But as consciousness claimed her fully, the sound remained—a lullaby, gentle and achingly familiar, drifting through the corridors of the Obsidian Tower like mist through ruins. She knew that song. Somewhere in the deepest chambers of her memory, buried beneath centuries of duty and war and transformation, she knew it.
Dante lay beside her, his breathing deep and even, still recovering from the collapse of his storm. In sleep, his face was peaceful in a way it never was when waking, the harsh lines softened, the perpetual guardedness absent. Selena hesitated, unwilling to leave him, but the melody called to her with increasing insistence. It tugged at something fundamental in her chest, a hook lodged in her very soul, pulling her toward its source.
