Chapter 1559: Story 1559: Burden of the Choir

The battlefield lay hushed beneath the trembling lattice, every survivor feeling the echo of the child’s note burning in their marrow. It was not silence—it was waiting. The air itself seemed to lean forward, straining for the next sound.

Kael knelt, his blade fused to his hand pulsing in rhythm with the boy’s faint glow. His body begged to collapse, but he refused to let the child’s hand slip. “You’ve led us this far,” he whispered, voice cracked. “But how long can you hold?”

The boy stirred weakly in Elara’s arms. His lips parted, no words escaping—only a thread of sound, fragile and pure. The lattice trembled in answer, but so too did the survivors. They felt it directly: every note came at a cost. The boy wasn’t simply singing—he was pouring his life into the song.

Elara’s tears streaked down her blistered face as she pressed her forehead to his. “Don’t push, my son. Let us share it. Let us bear it with you.”

The glow leapt from him, spilling into them all again. Every survivor gasped as the weight settled deeper, their hearts forced into the rhythm of the child’s song. Some fell to their knees, others clutched at their chests. What once had been unity now felt like chains that cut both ways.

The scarred woman groaned, her spear clattering to the ground. “It eats us. Every note eats us. He’ll burn us all down just to keep his hymn alive.”

Her words stirred the others. Murmurs spread like cracks in stone—fear that they had traded one tyranny for another.

Kael forced himself upright, glaring at her through blistered eyes. “And would you rather silence? Would you rather his song alone?” He gestured toward the trembling fissure above, where the Unborn’s shadow writhed, waiting. “We bleed because we choose to. We endure because we must.”

But his words could not quiet the truth: every survivor felt themselves fraying. Memories bled into one another. A farmer’s grief clawed into a soldier’s rage; the widow’s forgiveness soothed a stranger’s despair. The choir was not harmony—it was collision.

The boy convulsed suddenly, a cry escaping his lips. Half the lattice flared white, half blackened, as if the two songs warred within him again. Elara screamed, clutching him tight, but her arms could not hold back the power tearing through his small frame.

Kael staggered forward, pressing his burning hand to the boy’s chest. The song seared through him, nearly splitting him in two, but he forced his voice into the binding. “Not alone. Not yours to carry. Ours.”

Others followed, ragged voices threading into the boy’s wavering note. One by one, they steadied him, not taking the burden but holding it together.

The lattice flared, brighter and jagged, a scarred light that refused to break. The fissure above shrank another inch.

The Unborn hissed, its voice sliding through their minds like ice. “You weaken yourselves. Every note steals what little life you have. Sing louder, little choir. I will wait for the silence that follows.”

Kael clenched his teeth, sweat steaming off his scorched skin. He knew the truth in the Unborn’s words. The boy’s song was their shield, their weapon—

and their slow undoing.

The choir endured. But for how long?