The trek toward the Tower of Absence was not a single road but a convergence of paths, woven together by fate and sound. Kael moved west, his steps guided by the discordant tug of broken rhythm that echoed across the fading ley lines of Mira's Song. Every city he passed was dimmer than the last—places once rich in melody reduced to grayed ruins, colorless skies, and people who had forgotten how to hum. But Kael still remembered. The note in his chest—though wounded—still beat. And with every footstep, he was starting to reclaim what had once been stolen.
He found others along the way. A blind sculptor who had carved an orchestra of wind instruments from shattered wood, each one singing in sleep. A boy who spoke only through drumming, his fingers a blur on any surface, trying to recreate the heartbeat he had never heard. And a woman with no voice at all, yet whose very presence caused flowers to bloom in perfect symphonic time.
