She cried again as she opened her mouth, desperate for every drop, opening her jaw as wide as she could. In relief, in gratitude for the impossibility. The water rained down onto her body and made the stone floor wet.

She lived. The droplets ceased after only a minute. But she called them again, within the hour. It was only a bit of water. And it vanished if she didn’t drink it. It wasn’t even real water—it only half-quenched her thirst, leaving her still dry and unsated—but it gave her strength. Hope. It was…

Magic.

No—a Skill. Her Skill.

With every bone aching, the [Singer] stood. She coughed. But then she straightened, and her second song illuminated the darkness. It cast the shadows away. A radiance surged from her skin.

[Song of Light]. She walked through the mausoleum of the dead, rejoicing in her life.

It stretched before her, and at last she looked up into the heavens and saw a vaulted ceiling high overhead. Flat walls of ancient stone.

Coffins of marble and plain slate. Rock, written with names. Stretching down this long corridor into infinity.

High overhead, the young woman saw something rising into the darkness.

Vast arches. Bridges in the sky. Crisscrossing, leading down to stairs set against each wall.

Floors of graves. And, amidst it all, a silence so pervasive that it pressed in on her. She sang, and her voice echoed without end. Sang among the smell of dust and stale air. As darkness swirled around the light. Ahead of her lay only blackness, absolute. Behind her, the same. Like the world began and ended only where the light lay.

A terrifying, beautiful, heartstopping sight. She walked ahead slowly, singing. Filling this long grave with light.

——

She was not alone.

The guardian of this place listened to the second song. It wavered. It came from a dry throat, interrupted three times by coughs. But it was music.

The watcher had been resting. Waiting for forever—or this very moment. This place had been secure, troubled only by rodents.

Then had come a flash, visible in the perfect night of this sealed chamber. A bright daylight that had not intruded in centuries.

The protector had only seen it for a moment. Yet then had come noise—unmistakable. Louder than all the eons of scratching vermin, squeaks, the shifting of dirt. It had seen the light and hurried towards it.

Discovered the opened grave and feared the worst.

The sentinel had been content to let the intruder die. It had debated killing her outright, but the tears and pleas had gone against everything it…he…had stood for.

He? Yes. He. A sword in his hands, a mercy, he had thought. But he had stopped when he heard the song.