The Tower did not have a door.
It had an opening, like a wound—a jagged, vertical split in its obsidian skin, pulsing faintly with red light. As Kairo, Yui, and Aeska stepped closer, the shimmer around the structure intensified, like heat rising from coals.
Yui touched the edge of the entrance with trembling fingers. "It's humming."
"It's choosing," Aeska said quietly, her face tight with unease. "Old-world towers like this don't just open. They recognize blood. Memory. Intent."
Kairo reached into his coat and pulled out the shard again—the obsidian relic they'd recovered from the Vault. It vibrated in his hand, and the glow at the Tower's seam pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
"It's responding to me," he said. "To the mark."
Without waiting, he stepped through the threshold.
The world went silent.
Inside, the Tower was not made of stone or steel, but light.
Staircases unfolded like paper cranes, forming themselves as he walked. Walls shifted to reveal symbols—some familiar, others older than language. The air shimmered with echoes, songs trapped in glass.
Yui and Aeska followed, both visibly unnerved.
"This isn't architecture," Aeska whispered. "This is memory. Living memory."
They passed floating statues of people who shimmered and vanished like candle smoke. Some looked like Shardbound. Some were Ashborn. One—an ancient man with a fox mask split down the middle—turned his head as Kairo passed, and bowed.
"What is this place?" Yui asked.
Kairo could only stare.
They ascended spiral stairs that moved with them, past floating lanterns that sang softly when touched. At each level, more of the Tower's purpose revealed itself: murals made of song-lines and light, stained glass that displayed motioninstead of stillness—images of gods falling, stars cracking, and children bearing marks on their wrists.
"This place was a sanctuary," Aeska finally said. "For the Ashborn. Before the Choir erased them."
"They didn't erase us," Kairo muttered. "They buried us."
At the top of the tower, they found a chamber unlike any other.
A single, massive mirror stood at its center, framed in black stone and braided golden wire. Dozens of strings stretched from its edges into the air like a harp. As the wind passed through the open spires above, the strings vibrated, producing haunting tones.
"The Mirror of Song," Yui whispered.
Kairo stepped forward. "Is this…?"
He reached out and touched the glass.
It didn't reflect him.
It reflected her.
A girl cloaked in feathers and ash, standing in a place of stars and storms. Her voice rang clear, not with words, but meaning.
Kairo fell to his knees as knowledge flooded him.
He saw:
— A time before the fall, when Ashborn were guardians of the soul-realm, protectors of memory and magic.
— The betrayal of the Choir, who sought to control magic by erasing the voices that sang it.
— The forging of the Echo Princes—fragments of broken Ashborn, used as weapons to replace what they had destroyed.
— And finally, the map to the Vault of Stars, the last sanctuary of the First Song.
When Kairo opened his eyes, the mirror cracked.
Not broken. Unlocked.
The Tower let out a single note—low, resonant, full of finality.
"Did it show you?" Aeska asked, helping him to his feet.
"Yes," he said.
Yui stepped beside him. "Then what now?"
Kairo looked out from the open spire. The world spread before them like a broken instrument waiting to be retuned.
"We find the Vault of Stars," he said. "We gather what's left of the Ashborn."
He turned to Aeska. "And we end the Choir's silence—with a louder song."