The Revision Choir stood in formation.
Eleven voices lifted in perfect synchrony. Their song peeled the laws of flame apart, one thread at a time. Across Emberveil's outer towers, the world warped. Glyphs collapsed. Flame circuits unraveled. Even the sky pulsed in and out of phase.
But the twelfth did not sing.
---
The Broken Note
At first, Jiang didn't notice. He was too busy holding the front gate with Tian Xue and Lin Suyin, holding their flame threads together through Su Lian's echo boosters.
But Yan Feng saw it from the upper spire.
"One of them… isn't singing," he murmured.
Indeed, the twelfth Choir member—smaller than the others, cloaked in the same black robes—stood motionless. No hand lifted. No voice joined.
Just silence.
And then, a step backward.
---
A Voice Emerges
"Name yourself!" Lin Suyin shouted from the rampart.
The cloaked figure turned… and removed their mask.
Gasps rang out across the Nexus.
A young woman, maybe a year older than Jiang Han, her eyes glowing faintly with burnt-gold flame runes. Her expression—strained. Conflicted.
"I was Flameborn once," she said.
"My name is Xia Zhi. I was rewritten when I was ten."
Su Lian whispered, "She's a rewritten initiate…"
The woman looked directly at Jiang.
> "You made the flame remember.
And now… so do I."
---
The Choir Falters
The other eleven turned as one, their song wailing into static.
They didn't speak. They projected.
> RETRACTION IS NOT PERMITTED.
> REINTEGRATE.
> REINTEGRATE.
But Xia Zhi stepped forward again.
And with her voice—not a command, not an attack—but a note, raw and human—
> "I remember my brother's flame.
He died refusing to kneel.
And so will I."
She sang.
And her note bent the Choir's structure.
---
Memory Unbound
As Xia Zhi's song pierced the wave of erasure, Jiang felt something strange stir deep within his own flame.
Not energy. Not chaos.
A vision.
A boy, very young. Holding his hand out to a girl surrounded by fire restraints.
> "Don't forget who you are," the boy said.
The girl—Xia Zhi.
The boy—Long Chen?
No. Not quite.
It was a memory seed.
Something Long Chen had once touched… planted in others.
Jiang gripped Echofang tighter.
"Flame is memory," he whispered. "It's not just fire. It's every moment that mattered."
---
The Song Grows
Su Lian raised her voice—she couldn't sing, but she wove her glyphs into Xia Zhi's melody.
The Shadowguard twins flanked the central gate, looping their stealth-thread rhythms in harmony.
Even Tian Xue added a bladebeat—a rhythm built on battle and motion.
And together—
They began to undo the Choir's erasure.
One tower re-lit.
One bridge re-formed.
The sky shimmered back into clarity.
---
A New Chorus
The Choir staggered.
Two singers collapsed.
A third turned and ran.
For the first time, the Sovereign's most perfect weapon had failed.
And it failed because of a song they didn't teach.
A song of self.
A song of refusal.
A song of return.