The stars did not fall.
They shuddered.
Across every mirrored lake, every broken temple, and every child's dream, the celestial thread known as the Loom of Songs began to fray—unseen by most, but felt by all.
And in its unraveling, truths long buried rose like mist.
When Threads Begin to Snap
In the mountain sanctum, the ancient Loom—a wheel of suspended golden strands connecting fate to melody—began humming erratically. Threads glowed. Threads snapped.
Each snap was a death.
Each vibration was a secret waking.
Damaris gripped the hilt of his sword. "What happens if it falls apart?"
Kelu stared, voice quiet. "The world becomes what it truly is… not what it was woven to be."
Morya's eyes burned. "And some things will escape that should never have existed."
Serai's Fragment
The harp's core now burned red. Not from fire—but memory.
Amira heard Serai's whisper again, now laced with panic:
"I stitched time with song. I gilded pain with stars. And now the melody unbinds me."
She saw visions:
Serai weeping before the Silver Architects, begging them to erase her.
A cradle of songbound infants, each one carrying a note of her broken soul.
The eighth, hidden deep inside Amira's ancestral line.
The Architect's War Table
Far above, in the floating Spire of Hollow Light, the remaining Silver Architects gathered in a circle of light and bone.
Teyrion the Pale addressed them:
"She's touched the Unwritten Chord. The Eighth Note is awake."
Another Architect—faceless, speaking through echoes—declared:
"Then we have no choice. We must summon the Lacrimoths."
"Even the Weepers?" someone gasped.
"They were built for this," Teyrion nodded. "To feast on melody. To devour soul-string."
A Crack in the Living Earth
As Amira stepped outside, she saw the earth open.
Not violently.
But as if something beneath wanted to see her.
Roots. Not of trees—but of song. Living script etched into black veins of soil. The first melody, predating Serai.
The Loom was older than gods.
Older than memory.
Older than right and wrong.
And it was waking her.
Destiny Is Not a Cage
Under the starlight, Amira stood atop the broken monolith where the First Harp once stood, harp in hand.
She raised her voice—not in song, but in defiance.
"I am not your puppet, Serai."
"And I'm not your weapon, Architects."
"If the Loom unravels, let it."
The stars flickered.
And one… blinked back.
Final Scene: The Lacrimoth's Arrival
The sky bent.
A silence heavier than death fell over them.
Then, through a tear in the clouds, descended a creature of grief and starlight:
A Lacrimoth—its wings stitched from forgotten lullabies, its mouth a weeping maw of unspoken sorrow.
It didn't roar.
It wept.
And everything it touched forgot why it ever sang.
Final Lines of the Chapter
As Amira clutched the harp, she whispered:
"Then I'll sing for the forgotten."
"Even if the sky forgets me."