They did not kill the Quiet Chorus.
Kael could have.
The Severed Path had the advantage, the weapons, the discipline. But after the tear in the sky snapped shut and the echo faded, she gave a different order.
"Bind them."
The Chorus members were disarmed, wrists secured with sigil-cords that dimmed their magic. They did not resist.
They sang.
Softly.
A low, wordless harmony that threaded through the wind like mourning.
Torren shivered. "I hate cults with good acoustics."
Walliam stood at the center of the pass, staring upward.
The new fracture was faint — a hairline seam crossing two older cracks. You could miss it if you didn't know what to look for.
But he felt it.
A shift in pressure.
Something beyond had leaned closer to the glass.
Elaris stepped beside him. "You stopped the tear."
"Not all of it."
She followed his gaze. Her face fell. "It adapted."
"Or it learned where to press."
Below them, Kael interrogated the Chorus leader — the woman with the spiral staff. Blood marked her temple, but her eyes burned steady.
"You call this salvation," Kael said. "We call it extinction."
The woman smiled faintly. "Every birth looks like destruction to what came before."
Walliam walked down the slope.
"You're inviting something you don't understand."
She looked at him with something like pity. "You're clinging to a design that already failed."
"The Heart didn't fail," he said. "Fear did."
She tilted her head. "Or maybe balance was always a cage."
Elaris stepped in. "And you'd rather live in a storm with no ground?"
"Yes," the woman said simply.
Silence stretched.
Two visions of the world.
Neither small.
Kael broke it. "They'll face judgment in Halvane."
Walliam frowned. "Judgment?"
"Not execution," she said. "Debate. Trial of doctrine."
Torren blinked. "There's a court for arguing with apocalypse?"
"Yes," Kael said. "Because killing ideas never works."
Walliam glanced at the Chorus.
They did not look afraid.
They looked certain.
That unsettled him more than weapons.
They reached Halvane three days later.
The city rose from the highlands like a fortress carved from the mountain itself. White stone walls. Towering watch spires. Bridges crossing deep ravines where waterfalls roared below.
Banners snapped in the wind — not one symbol, but many.
Circles. Trees. Stars. Flames.
Different orders.
Different beliefs.
One city holding them all.
Torren stared. "Okay. This is either civilization or a political disaster waiting to happen."
"Both," Kael said.
At the gates, guards in mixed insignias took in the prisoners, the Severed Path, and finally Walliam.
Their gazes lingered on his chest.
News traveled faster than riders now.
Inside, Halvane thrummed with tension. Crowds moved with purpose. Messengers ran. Bells rang in distant towers.
Everyone had felt the sky shift.
Everyone was choosing a side.
They were led to the central forum — a vast circular chamber open to the sky. Stone seats rose in tiers around a sunken floor etched with sigils.
At the center stood a ring of polished crystal.
Walliam felt the threads converge there — not a Beacon, but a convergence point of belief.
The Chorus prisoners were placed within the ring.
Representatives gathered — Wardens, Path leaders, scholars, mages, faithkeepers.
A woman in layered blue robes stepped forward. "This assembly convenes under fracture. Speak truth or remain silent."
The Chorus leader raised her head. "We already have."
Murmurs rippled.
Kael stepped forward next. "They forced resonance, nearly opening a gateway."
The woman in blue nodded. "And the Heart-bearer?"
All eyes turned.
Walliam swallowed and stepped into the center.
"I stopped it," he said. "But a new fracture formed anyway."
The chamber went still.
"Something is learning how we block it," he continued. "The more pressure we apply, the more it studies the weave."
A gray-robed scholar leaned forward. "Then sealing Beacons might accelerate contact."
Elaris stiffened. "So we just let corruption spread?"
Another voice called, "Or we adapt our defenses!"
The Chorus leader laughed softly. "You see? The world wants this."
"Silence," Kael snapped.
But the debate had begun.
Fear.
Hope.
Control.
Freedom.
The words circled like storm winds.
Walliam felt the weight of it — not just sky and monsters, but belief.
This wasn't just survival.
It was the shape of the future.
The woman in blue raised her hand. "Heart-bearer. One question."
He met her gaze.
"If the Heart were whole again… would you restore the world as it was?"
Every eye fixed on him.
He thought of Aethrune's frozen perfection.
Of the First Bearer's mistake.
Of the Listener's words.
He took a breath.
"No."
Shock rippled.
"I'd restore balance," he said. "But not control. The Heart shouldn't decide the world. It should guide it."
Silence followed.
Then, slowly, the woman in blue nodded.
"A third path," she said.
The Chorus leader smiled faintly.
Kael watched him carefully.
Outside, the sky fractures shimmered.
Not closing.
Not widening.
Waiting.