The Sundered Sky
THE ELDER’S TESTIMONY
The woman who greeted them at the cottage door was old — older than anyone Lyra had ever met. Her hair was white, thin, pulled back from a face that was lined with a century of grief. Her eyes were the color of rust, sharp and knowing.
She wore robes that had once been blue, now faded to gray.
“Lyra Vane,” she said. “I have been waiting for you.”
“You know my name.”
“I knew your mother. I taught her. I was there when she —” The old woman’s voice cracked. “I was there when she died.”
Lyra’s throat tightened.
“You’re a Chorister.”
“I am Morwen. The last of the elders.” She stepped aside. “Come in. There is much to discuss.”
The cottage was warm and cluttered, filled with books and scrolls and artifacts from the time before the Silence. Morwen sat in a chair by the fire, her rust-colored eyes fixed on the flames. Davin stood by the window, watching the valley. Lyra sat on a stool, her hands folded in her lap.
“Your mother,” Morwen began, “was the bravest person I ever knew. She was not the most powerful Chorister. She was not the wisest. But she was the bravest.”
Lyra listened.
“She came to me when she was sixteen. Younger than you. She had already broken her Binding — the same as you, with the help of a stone like yours. She could sing. Not well. Not powerfully. But she could sing.”
Morwen paused.
“She asked me to teach her the deep songs. I refused. She was too young, too inexperienced, too reckless. She would have killed herself trying to learn them.”
“So she found someone else to teach her?”
“No. She taught herself. She went to the Spire of Echoes, the old Chorister stronghold, and she climbed to the top. No one had done that since the Silence. The wards were still active, still dangerous. She almost died a dozen times. But she made it.”
“And at the top?”
“At the top, she found the sleeping Chorister. The one who has been dreaming for a hundred years.”
“The sleeper didn’t wake?”
“She did not. But she spoke to your mother. In dreams. In fragments. She told her about the deep songs. About the Sundered King. About the prophecy.”
“Prophecy?”
Morwen recited:
“When the Silence breaks and the gods return,
the last Chorister will sing the song of mourning.
Seven voices will answer from the deep.
And the Sundered King will fall.”
“Seven voices,” Lyra said. “There are seven Choristers?”
“There were. Now there are only three. You. Me. The sleeper.”
“Then the prophecy is broken.”
“Prophecies are not instructions. They are possibilities. Your mother believed that the seven voices could be gathered — not from the living, but from the dead. Their songs still echo in the Spire of Echoes. Their voices are not gone. They are waiting.”
“How do we wake them?”
“We cannot. Only the sleeper can. She has been dreaming for a hundred years. If she wakes, she can call the dead Choristers back. Briefly. Long enough to sing the deep song.”
“Then we wake her.”
Morwen nodded.
“But the Inquisitor has fortified the spire. He knows we are coming. He knows what we are trying to do. He will do everything in his power to stop us.”
“Then we do everything in our power to succeed.”
Morwen smiled.
“You are your mother’s daughter.”
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
They left the Hidden Valley at dawn.
Morwen came with them, her old legs surprisingly strong on the mountain paths. Davin walked beside her, his hand on his sword, his gray eyes scanning the horizon for danger.
Lyra led.
The stone was in her hand, warm and pulsing. Its light guided her, pulled her, dragged her toward the spire. She could feel it in her bones — the need to reach the sleeping Chorister, to wake her, to learn the deep songs.
The Sundered Plains stretched before them, black and dead.
Behind them, the mountains faded into the mist.
Ahead, the Spire of Echoes waited.