Long before the war of fire and fang, before scrolls vanished and tunnels became battlegrounds, there was a song — a single note, so haunting that even the bricks of Burrowdeep trembled. It was not sung by a rat, nor was it hummed by any human tongue. It came from the Pipe.
In the underbelly of the human city of Elarion, where shadows curled beneath walls and moonlight dared not shine, the rats had built a realm. A kingdom of clans, of whispers, of survival. They called it the Lowdeep.
Beneath stone and story, tunnels branched like veins. Some led to cities ruled by warlords, others to quiet dens of scholars, and others still to the forgotten corners where banished rats wept over broken oaths. But the heart of them all beat in one place — the throne-burrow of Queen Serecta.
Her chamber rested within Hollowtail Keep, a grand den carved from the hollow bones of a long-dead serpent. Here, carved glyphs pulsed faintly, and fires danced in glass-blown orbs powered not by flame, but by salvaged human "e-lec-tricity," as their scholars called it. The rats had no true sun, but they had stories.
And among those stories, none was more feared — or more sacred — than the tale of the Piper.
It was during the Feast of New Scrape, when younglings were named and old warriors recited their oaths anew, that the Pipe first sang again.
Marex, a lean rat with fur the color of tarnished silver and eyes as sharp as obsidian, was the first to hear it. He had not yet earned a title, nor a burrow to call his own. But he had ears — and secrets.
He stood near the far edge of Burrowdeep's seventh tier, beyond the steam pits and waste tunnels, where human trash rained like blessings from above. It was there he heard it: a low, keening whistle that pierced his bones and stilled his breath.
He crouched. Sniffed. Listened.
"Impossible…" he murmured.
The Pipe had not sung in over a hundred years. Not since the Betrayal. Not since the First Queen vanished beneath the silence of blood.
Yet here it was. A sound of old magic, drifting like dust on cold air.
Others did not hear it — not yet. But Marex knew what it meant.
The Piper's legacy had returned.
---
Far above, in the world of men, a child named Elira wept.
Not from sorrow, but from confusion.
She was born with what her mother called "ghost ears" — sensitive, unnatural. The physicians had tried to burn away her hearing, but each attempt only made her sharper.
And now, as she stared from her attic room in the House of Magistrate Orlen, she too heard the same sound Marex did.
A pipe. Singing beneath the floorboards.
No one believed her, of course.
Just as no one believed the stories of talking rats and buried thrones.
---
Back below, Marex raced through the narrow tunnels, claws scraping moss-lined stones, heart pounding.
He did not stop until he reached the Archive Burrow.
A quiet place. Forbidden, unless summoned. But Marex had never been one to bow to rules.
He slipped past the sleep-keeper guards, ducked beneath webs spun by albino tunnel spiders, and found the scroll. The one with a single glyph burned in gold: 𐐓 — the symbol of Song.
His paw hovered over it. He hesitated.
A voice crackled behind him.
"You should not be here."
He turned slowly. It was Greth, the Blind Inkseer — her eyes clouded like milk, but her nose sharp as ever.
"I heard it," Marex whispered.
Greth tilted her head.
"Lies are common in Burrowdeep."
"This was not a lie. The Pipe sang."
The old rat stilled. Her tail curled inward. For a moment, silence reigned. Then she stepped forward, claw tapping the ground in slow rhythm.
"Then the Throne is in danger. Again."
---
In Hollowtail Keep, Queen Serecta stirred in her sleep. Her dreams were thick with flames and fur, of cities above collapsing into their world below.
And in the dream stood a rat with eyes of black stone and a girl whose voice could split tunnels.
She awoke, heart thudding.
"Summon the Burrow Court," she hissed.
The silence of peace was ending.
The pipes had sung.
And everything... was about to change.