Chapter 13: The First Howl
The hype for the "Crossed Stars" collab was a tangible force, a pressure Qu Tang usually thrived on. But as she logged into the secure virtual green room, her palms were slick with a nervous sweat that had nothing to do with her audience. This wasn't a performance for faceless millions; it was a meeting with a ghost from a life she'd fled.
His avatar materialized across the room. It wasn't a stylized representation; it was just him. Lang Mo, rendered in perfect detail. He wasn't in the intimidating military gear she remembered, but in simple, dark clothes that made him seem more real, more approachable, and somehow more unnerving. He stood with a stillness that felt less like patience and more like a held breath. The silence was a physical weight.
Her professional mask slipped into place, a little shaky but holding. "Patriarch Lang," she started, then amended with a slight, nervous laugh, "Or... SilentListener? I have to admit, your comment on the Lydian mode in 'Stardust Lullaby'... it surprised me."
His ice-blue eyes, which had been scanning the sterile digital space, snapped to hers. There was a long pause, and she saw him processing her words, the human behind the legend. His voice, when it came, was a low, quiet rumble, devoid of its usual command. It was just a voice. "It felt... truthful. For a song about hope that isn't sure of itself."
Her nervousness evaporated, replaced by sheer artistic shock. He hadn't just heard the song; he'd understood its soul. "Yes," she breathed, her guard lowering. "That's exactly it. Okay. The Arena wants a 'fusion.' I was thinking... something ancient from your clan. A hunting chant, maybe? And I could build something new around it. A musical conversation."
He looked away, a flicker of something vulnerable in the set of his jaw. The chant clearly wasn't just music; it was memory. "There is one," he said after a moment. "The 'Howl of the Ironwood Pack.' It is about... endurance. Surviving the deep cold when hope is thin."
"Will you sing it for me?" she asked softly.
He hesitated, a man about to share a piece of his soul. Then he began. It wasn't singing. It was a deep, resonant chant, a raw and guttural series of tones that spoke of ancient trees, aching cold, and the stubborn will to see a new dawn. It was beautiful in its starkness. When he finished, the silence felt sacred.
Qu Tang felt tears prick her eyes, moved by the trust and the power of what he'd shared. "That's it," she whispered. "That's the heart of it." She closed her eyes, listening to the echo, and then she answered him. Not with words, but with a wordless, soaring melody that wrapped around his chant like a warm blanket. She sang of the same endurance, but through the lens of the morning after the storm, the first weak sun on snow, the resilience of a single, stubborn bloom.
Lang Mo's intense gaze was fixed on her, his usual detached mask gone, replaced by a look of profound, startled wonder. He could feel it. Her voice didn't clash with the harsh history of his chant; it soothed its ragged edges, finding a harmony he didn't know existed. It was an unexpected comfort, a balm on the old, cold loneliness the chant evoked.
Tentatively, almost shyly, he began his chant again, this time underneath her melody. Their voices intertwined, the Wolf's history and the Nightingale's hope weaving together into something fragile, new, and breathtakingly honest. For a few precious minutes, the past fell away. They were just two people, finding a common language in music.
The connection shattered with the sudden, blaring shriek of a proximity alarm from Lang Mo's end. He flinched, his head snapping up, the musician instantly replaced by the soldier, his body tensing with ingrained reflex. "Someone's here," he said, his voice tight.
A window popped up on Qu Tang's screen—a live security feed from his ship. Her blood ran cold. Two figures in black were slicing through his airlock with terrifying, silent efficiency. They weren't pirates; they were professionals.
"They're heading for the civilian comms relay," Lang Mo said, his eyes wide with a dawning, horrified realization. He wasn't the target. She was. "They're going to kill your broadcast. Permanently." This wasn't a smear; it was a silencing.
The cold dread in her stomach solidified. This had Jin Chen's paranoid signature all over it. Her collaboration wasn't art to him; it was defiance, and he was responding with overwhelming force.
Her fear was a live wire, but beneath it surged a fierce protectiveness—for her art, for this fragile connection they'd just forged. "What do we do?" she asked, her voice surprisingly steady.
Lang Mo was already moving, his movements sharp with concern. He grabbed a weapon, his expression grim. "We don't let them win," he said, his voice low and urgent. "Keep singing. I'll... I'll make sure you can."
The public feed, meant to show a harmless rehearsal, suddenly became a heart-pounding reality show. The view split: one side on Lang Mo's determined face, the other a dizzying, first-person view from his helmet as he stormed the comms room.
Qu Tang's heart hammered against her ribs. She saw the intruders turn, weapons rising. She saw Lang Mo fire, the plasma burst bright and terrifying. She saw him engage the second in a brutal, close-quarters fight, the grunts of effort and impact horribly real.
Terror threatened to choke her. But he'd asked her to sing. So she sang. She poured every ounce of her fear for him, her rage at Jin Chen, her desperate hope, into the melody. Her voice became a lifeline, a thread of beauty and defiance woven through the chaos. It was no longer a performance; it was a prayer, a battle cry, a promise that she would not be silenced.
As Lang Mo pinned the last intruder down, the fight leaving the man's body, Qu Tang's voice rose to a final, powerful, sustained note, pure and strong. It held, a sound of victory, as the struggle ended.
The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the sound of Lang Mo's heavy, ragged breathing. He looked into his cam, his face smudged with grime, his eyes finding hers. "It's over," he panted. "You're safe."
The public feed cut. The audience was left in stunned silence. But Qu Tang wasn't thinking about the audience. She was staring at the empty space where his image had been, her own breath coming in short gasps, the echo of their duet and the blaster fire ringing in her ears. The thrill of the music was now forever tangled with the terror of the fight, and the man she thought she knew had just revealed a layer of protectiveness she never expected.