The first tremor came before dawn.
Nakala woke to the sound of glass screaming — a high, keening note that seemed to tear through the city itself. The walls of her chamber rippled like liquid. Runes flickered, extinguished, then reignited in uneven rhythm.
She staggered to her feet, blade in hand. Outside, the once-golden sky above Zerune was bleeding violet.
From the temple corridor came hurried footsteps. Serah appeared, her flame-dyed robes half undone, her torch guttering in the unstable air.
> "The pulse is collapsing," she said breathlessly. "The Bound Names are burning."
The floor shuddered. Far below, a dull roar rolled through the veins of the city. Nakala followed Serah out onto the high balcony, and what she saw made her chest hollow.
The pillars of light — the Bound Names that stretched through Zerune's heart — were flaring uncontrollably. Some had gone dark entirely; others burned white-hot, spitting arcs of Histinak energy that cracked across the air like thunder. The sound was unbearable — a thousand souls crying out in dissonant rhythm.
> "Can you fix it?" Nakala shouted over the noise.
Serah's eyes glowed with fear — and fury. "It's not just the names! Something's feeding on the rhythm. The pulse isn't dying — it's being devoured!"
Nakala felt it then — the invisible pull beneath her ribs, the same violet rhythm that had marked her since the Bound Names changed. The fire inside her was awake again, drawn to the chaos like breath to flame.
They are calling you, Esh'ra whispered. They know what you are.
Nakala tried to steady herself, but the heat behind her eyes blazed brighter. She could feel Zerune's heart beating inside her own chest, could hear the rhythm of its agony — and without meaning to, she answered.
A pulse of violet light erupted from her, rippling through the balcony and down into the city. Wherever it touched, the collapsing pillars stilled, their screams quieting into a strange, unnatural silence.
For a single heartbeat, the entire city stopped.
Then it began again — but wrong.
The Bound Names flared to life with new color: violet and black intertwined. The runes changed shape, re-forming themselves around Nakala's name, weaving it through every line of the city's rhythm.
Zerune was no longer breathing on its own. It was breathing through her.
Serah turned, eyes wide. "Nakala, stop! You're fusing with the pulse!"
"I'm not—" Nakala gasped. "I can't control it!"
Her skin burned with the same patterns that glowed on the pillars below. The goddess's voice thundered within her skull, a thousand echoes layered into one.
Let it happen, child. You were born for this.
But another voice fought back — smaller, human, afraid. Nakala's own.
"Serah—!"
Serah reached her, pressing both palms against Nakala's chest. Her lips moved — not in speech, but in song. A deep, resonant note filled the air, ancient and terrible in its beauty. The flames in the city dimmed as her voice grew louder, weaving through the chaos like a binding net.
The sound carried power — the Histinak of Binding, the secret rhythm of Keepers.
Nakala felt her divine fire recoil, twisting and shrinking under Serah's melody. The air cracked with the clash of two opposing forces — one made of silence, the other of storm. Her knees buckled. The balcony beneath them fractured.
Serah's voice faltered; blood trickled from her mouth.
> "Hold on, Nakala. Don't let it take all of you—"
The goddess roared in protest.
You dare silence me, little singer?
The temperature plummeted. Every light in Zerune went out.
Then, with a sound like a thousand hearts breaking at once, the temple collapsed.
Stone shattered. Flames spiraled upward. And through the dust, Nakala saw Serah one last time — her hands outstretched, her body haloed in golden fire. Her voice had become pure light now, not sound, and that light wrapped around Nakala as everything fell.
When the echo faded, there was only darkness — and the faint rhythm of breath.
Nakala opened her eyes to find herself lying in the ruins, Serah beside her, motionless but still warm.
The city was silent.
But in that silence, something breathed — slow, alien, wrong. From beneath the rubble came a sound like whispering roots crawling through stone. Nakala could feel them moving, ancient and curious.
The N'gai had found Zerune.
And the rhythm of the world would never sound the same again.