The strange song

**Kelly Thompson's POV**

The new song isn’t a song—it’s a *snare*.

The note lingers, a silver thread in the air that hums with Eden’s timbre, Eden’s pain. I follow it, the static in my veins pulsing like a compass needle. The Hunter trails behind, his breath uneven, his crow-feather coat singed and bloody.

“This is a trap,” he growls. “The Silence doesn’t *sing*.”

“Neither do ghosts,” I say, but I quicken my pace anyway.

The white sand gives way to jagged obsidian, the sky darkening to a bruised purple. The thread leads us to a cliff’s edge, where the earth shears off into a abyss filled with swirling, liquid shadow. At the precipice stands a figure, backlit by the glow of a fractured moon.

Her hair is a cascade of living ink, her skin etched with constellations. She turns, and my breath hitches—she has Eden’s eyes.

“Hello, Stormbearer,” she says. Her voice is a chorus, layers of whispers and howls. “I’ve been waiting.”

The Hunter stiffens. “*Weaver.*”