The Sundered Sky
THE COST
The cost of the Sundering was higher than Lyra had imagined.
She learned the numbers over the following weeks, as messengers trickled in from the surviving cities and villages. Ironhold had lost half its population. The smaller towns had been wiped out entirely. Thousands of people were dead. Tens of thousands. Maybe more.
And the land itself was scarred.
The black grass still grew on the Sundered Plains. The rivers were still dark with shadow-stain. The soil was poisoned in places, unable to grow crops. The survivors faced a winter of hunger and cold.
Lyra walked through the Spire’s lower chambers, where the refugees had gathered. They slept on the stone floors, huddled together for warmth. Their faces were gaunt. Their eyes were hollow. They had lost everything — their homes, their families, their futures.
She wanted to help them.
But she could not speak above a whisper.
She could not sing.
She could only listen.
Davin walked beside her.
“You’re blaming yourself,” he said.
“I could have sung sooner. I could have stopped the Sundering before it started.”
“You didn’t even know you were a Chorister before the Sundering started.”
“I should have known.”
“How? Your mother hid you. The Inquisitor hunted you. The Binding silenced you. You were a child. You did what you had to do to survive.”
Lyra stopped walking.
She looked at the refugees.
At the children who had lost their parents.
At the parents who had lost their children.
At the old people who had lost everyone.
“It’s not enough,” she said. “Surviving. It’s not enough.”
“Then what is?”
“Helping. Healing. Rebuilding.”
Davin nodded slowly.
“Then let’s start.”
They started with the garden.
The Spire’s lower levels had once contained a vast greenhouse, where the Choristers had grown their own food. The greenhouse had been destroyed during the wars, but the soil was still there. Dark. Rich. Alive.
Lyra knelt in the dirt, her hands buried in the earth. She could not sing. She could not speak. But she could feel. The soil was cold and damp, teeming with life she could not see — worms and insects and microbes, all of them working together to create something new.
She closed her eyes.
She remembered the Song of Healing.
Not the words. Not the melody. The feeling.
She hummed.
It was not a song. Not really. Just a vibration, low and soft, barely audible. But the soil responded. She could feel it warming beneath her fingers. She could feel the seeds she had planted stirring, reaching for the light.
She hummed for an hour.
When she opened her eyes, tiny green shoots were emerging from the earth.
Davin knelt beside her.
“You did that.”
“The soil did it. I just helped.”
“Don’t be modest. It doesn’t suit you.”
Lyra almost smiled.