The ruins of Zerune had stopped breathing.
Hours passed before Serah stirred. Nakala had watched her chest rise and fall in shallow rhythm, her hands trembling each time it hitched. When Serah's eyes finally opened, their glow was gone. Her irises were dull ember-gray — the color of ash after a storm.
> "You shouldn't be awake," Nakala whispered.
Serah's lips moved, but no sound came. She blinked in confusion, touched her throat, then frowned.
Nakala caught her hand. "Your voice—"
Serah shook her head once, slowly. Then she smiled, faint but deliberate. Still alive.
Nakala felt something twist inside her — part guilt, part relief. "The city's gone," she said softly. "The Bound Names… all silent."
Serah's gaze turned toward the smoldering skyline. Where towers once glowed with blue and gold Histinak, there were only pillars of smoke. Yet beneath that silence, Nakala still felt a pulse — faint, deep below. A buried rhythm.
They are not all gone, Esh'ra murmured. The names that were devoured still echo. You hear them, don't you?
She did. A low, resonant thrum beneath her feet, pulsing with unnatural steadiness. It wasn't the rhythm of the living. It was something feeding.
"We have to go below," Nakala said.
Serah frowned, gesturing toward the horizon where faint shadows writhed through the smoke — the N'gai.
"I know," Nakala muttered. "But whatever they are, they came from down there."
---
They found the old lift shattered, so they followed the temple's collapsed stairways down into the undercity — a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers once used to house Zerune's archives. The air grew colder, thick with a strange humidity. The deeper they went, the more the walls seemed to breathe.
Serah lit a flame in her palm — not Histinak, but simple oil and spark. Without her voice, she could no longer shape rhythm into fire. The ordinary flame flickered weakly in the dark, yet its light trembled as if something were exhaling against it.
The walls were covered in carvings — prayers to the Bound Names, each etched in a spiral leading downward. But the farther they descended, the more distorted the writing became. Lines curved into spirals, spirals into mouths, mouths into holes.
Nakala ran her fingers across one. "These aren't carvings," she whispered. "They're… eaten."
Serah nodded grimly.
A sound — a wet, dragging scrape — echoed from below. Nakala tensed, raising her sword. The sound repeated, closer this time. Then, faintly, a whisper:
> "…remember…"
The flame in Serah's hand flared — and in that light, they saw them.
Bodies. Dozens, maybe hundreds, scattered along the corridor walls. Human and demon both. But they weren't decayed — they were hollow. Their skin sagged inward like husks, their faces stretched in silent screams. Their eyes were gone, their mouths open — but within, no flesh. Just dark, pulsing emptiness.
They have been unmade, Esh'ra murmured, her tone suddenly reverent. Erased from the song of the world.
Serah knelt beside one body, touching the edge of its face. Her hand came away wet — not with blood, but with a silvery sheen that shimmered faintly, like reflected moonlight. Nakala leaned closer.
The liquid moved.
It slid toward Serah's hand, drawn to heat or life — or sound. She jerked back, but the substance pulsed once, then began whispering.
> "…name… name… name…"
Nakala's Histinak flared instinctively, violet light spilling from her skin. The whispering stopped. The liquid quivered, as though afraid, and retreated back into the hollow body it came from.
The silence that followed was unbearable.
> "They're not feeding on flesh," Nakala said softly. "They're feeding on what we are. The rhythm that remembers us."
Yes, said Esh'ra. They consume the residue of being. Words, songs, prayers — all rhythm is sustenance to them. And you… you are a feast.
Nakala clenched her jaw. "If they want rhythm, I'll give them one that burns."
Serah gripped her wrist, shaking her head. Her expression was pleading — not yet, not here.
Her silence was sharper than words.
Nakala exhaled, lowering her sword. "Fine. But we need to know what's beneath all this."
---
They reached the lowest chamber an hour later — a circular hall lined with shattered crystal veins. At its center stood a single, intact spire of black glass. It pulsed faintly, matching the slow heartbeat Nakala had felt since waking. Around it, fragments of runes drifted in the air like ash suspended in still water.
Inside the spire, faint shapes moved — like silhouettes pressed against thin ice.
Serah touched Nakala's arm and pointed. One of the shapes was… singing. Or trying to. Its mouth opened and closed, no sound emerging, but the vibration filled the chamber — a low hum that shook the bones.
> "…Ka… la…"
Nakala froze. "It knows my name."
They all do now, Esh'ra said. You are written into the rhythm itself. Every devourer will come for you, for through you they taste the pulse of divinity.
The shape in the glass pressed closer, its form stretching until the outline of its face became visible — hollow eyes, a mouth full of echo. Then the surface cracked.
Serah grabbed Nakala's wrist, pulling her back. The hum became a roar. The spire burst, shards spinning outward, and the chamber flooded with the whispering black mist of the N'gai. Dozens — no, hundreds — spilling out like spilled ink across water.
Nakala drew her sword, but her flame sputtered. The air here drank sound; even her heartbeat was fading. She felt her Histinak flicker, as if suffocating.
The goddess's voice cut through the chaos like thunder:
Let me breathe through you, child.
Nakala hesitated — and in that moment, Serah stepped forward, her body glowing faintly with residual Histinak. She raised her hands, mouthing something Nakala couldn't hear.
Her flames ignited.
For a moment, she looked like her old self again — the Keeper of Fire. But this flame was different, burning white-blue, steady and soundless. It cast no heat, no crackle — only light. The N'gai shrieked, folding away from it, their forms unraveling under its glow.
Serah's silent fire pushed them back long enough for Nakala to recover her breath — and her will.
> "You burn without sound," Nakala whispered, awed. "You're using their own hunger against them."
Serah smiled, faint and weary, sweat streaking down her temple. Her flame dimmed, her strength failing.
Nakala caught her before she fell. "Rest. I'll handle the rest."
The violet fire returned, slow and deep, wrapping Nakala in its pulse. She could hear the rhythm of the world again — broken, wounded, but still there. She stepped forward into the darkness, sword ready.
And for the first time, she spoke the goddess's name aloud.
> "Esh'ra — sing."
The air trembled.
The silence screamed.
And the N'gai began to burn.