18 Chapter 18 – Resonant Revolution
He placed the music box on her grave.
Cyr charged.
1
Above, the storm clouds parted. Moonlight bled through.
A machine forged to twist Silverblood into poison.
He burst into the Grand Forum with rebels at his back, braces sparking with every step.
Swords clashed. Flame crackled. Flags fell.
Eileen appeared behind Cyr, voice hoarse. “Then I’ll take it with me.”
But the machine howled, wild and unstable.
“I can’t hear,” she whispered.
Dead.
Even in silence.
Cyr screamed.
It rippled across the rooftops, slipping into barracks, down corridors, through helmets
and steel.
“Then let them hear me.”
Then Cyr pivoted, stabbing low.
He threw the lever.
Was gone.
Cyr’s cloak tore as he vaulted onto the palace steps.
“Once it begins,” he murmured, “they’ll either rise… or we’ll both fall.”
The machine cracked.
Wolves across the empire dropped their weapons-eyes wide, bodies trembling as dormant alpha cores flared awake.
Cyr led the charge.
He left it in the ruins of the palace, where it belonged.
Blood spilled from her lips.
“You don’t need to,” he choked.
She turned to him, eyes fierce.
“Stop,” Cyr begged, catching her.
Eileen stepped forward.
But the poison never reached the sky.
Banners rippled.
He caught her before she hit the stone.
Cyr stood on the rooftop of a rebel tower, eyes fixed on the smoky skyline of the capital.
And split her resonance into mirror harmonics-each wave colliding with the poison field, containing it in a sphere of trembling sound.
She pressed a palm against the crystal transmitter-one of the last Starshade artifacts, now reactivated with her blood.
Rebel teams seized the broadcasting towers at dawn.
The governor gasped. Dropped.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” he asked.
And beside him-the Omega Nullifier.
The last Ulmir.
“You think you’ve won?” the governor spat. “Your song will kill you.”
Beside him, Eileen adjusted the amplifier band across her throat.
It played a broken melody.
Her heartbeat-fragile.
Soldiers howled-no longer bound to crowns or bloodlines, but to *instinct*.
The rebellion had won.
The sound cracked through the city.
–
She collapsed.
But a *command.*
The rebel wolves knelt around them. The city had stopped moving.
The one she once hummed to soothe him.
Her knees buckled.
Chains snapped.
And how to stay.
He did not take the crown.
But the girl who gave it life-
Her eyes fluttered open. “Did we win?”
Her voice was raw but steady. “We don’t get a second chance.”
But to the girl who taught him how to stand.
–
A red banner unfurled from the Grand Forum below.
Not a ballad.
The governor drew his sword-but Cyr was faster.
He held her. “They’re free.”
“You did.”
“They’re coming.”
Their blades met. Once. Twice.
And the voice that haunted his halls-
By midday, the city’s air rang with a strange vibration-felt in bones, not ears.
Tubes twisted. Silver blood within the core began to vaporize.
He ruled from the north, quiet, firm, just.
The guards-once loyal to the governor-turned on their masters mid-battle.
Not a melody.
He pressed her to his chest.
Raised both hands.
Control spells shattered.
She shook her head. “It’s too late.”
The machine surged.
Belonged to no ghost.
To *truth*.
She smiled faintly. “I wanted to end it with a song”
Cyr stood in full armor, cloak torn, hair unbound.
Only her.
They buried her beneath the Starshade tree in Frostfall, where the snow never quite
reached the roots.
Then… silent.
And then, she sang.
There stood the governor.
The one he could never forget.
The imperial crest-ripped and stitched with a wolf’s fang across it.
Exploded within her sphere.
