The Soul’s Chorus

Chapter 5

Kaelen’s boots were heavy on the stone stairs leading to his sister’s tower. The smell of the rain still clung to his clothes, a cold, damp scent mixed with the fading trace of garden soil and wet roses. Under it all, a fainter smell lingered. The clean, sharp scent of her. Chloe. It was on his hand where the spark had jumped.

He shook his head, as if to clear the memory from his mind. It was just a static shock. Nothing more.

Lyra’s space was at the top of the western tower, far from the main halls. The air here smelled different. It smelled of dust, dried herbs, and old paper. It smelled of quiet thought, not loud power. It was the only place in Silvathorne where he felt he could breathe.

He pushed open the wooden door without knocking.

The room was a beautiful mess. Scrolls were piled on every surface like fallen leaves. Books lay open, their pages covered in Lyra’s tight, neat handwriting. Maps were pinned to the stone walls, showing old pack territories and forgotten forest paths. A single, round window let in the grey afternoon light.

Lyra was bent over a huge, leather-bound book. Her brown hair, the same shade as his, was coming loose from its clip. She had a smudge of ink on her cheek. She didn’t look up.

“You’re stomping,” she said, her voice calm. “Bad day with the Sunderling?”

Kaelen let out a long breath. He sank into the worn armchair by the cold fireplace. He ran a hand over his face. “It’s not her. It’s the… situation. It’s a farce, Lyra. I’m a border keeper. Not a nursemaid.”

“Ah, but you’re a glorified nursemaid,” Lyra said, finally looking up. Her eyes, a warmer brown than his green, were clever and kind. “The Alpha’s own. It’s a great honor.” She said the last part with a flat tone that meant it was the opposite.

“He’s punishing us,” Kaelen said, his voice low. “He’s putting us in a glass box for the whole pack to stare at. Me for being a Lunarth who might think too much. Her for existing.”

Lyra closed her book carefully. She picked up a cloth and wiped the ink from her fingers. “Tell me about her.”

“What’s to tell? She’s quiet. She does what she’s told. She loses her jewelry in the rain.” He didn’t mention the spark. That was his secret.

“That’s what she shows you,” Lyra said, getting up to fetch a teapot from a small hearth. “What does she do? Where does her gaze go when she thinks no one is looking?”

Kaelen thought about it. He saw Chloe in the garden, looking at the spiderweb. Not with fear or disgust, but with… interest. He saw her at the Convergence, holding her glass so tight. He saw the intelligence in her eyes, hidden under layers of obedience.

“She watches,” he said slowly. “She sees things. And today she tested me. She dropped a bracelet on purpose. To see if I’d notice. To see what I’d do.”

Lyra poured hot water into two clay cups. “And what did you do?”

“I found it. I gave it back.” He shrugged, like it was nothing.

His sister handed him a cup. She gave him a small, knowing smile. “And?”

“And nothing.” He took a sip. The tea was bitter and strong. It cleared his head.

“Your ‘nothing’ has a weight to it, brother.” Lyra sat across from him, curling her feet under her. “You know the history of guardians for Sunderlings, don’t you? The real history, not the clean version they teach the young ones.”

Kaelen frowned. “They’re assigned to keep the peace. To prevent incidents. To guide them toward proper behavior.”

Lyra snorted. “That’s the pamphlet. Once, a long, long time ago, it was different. A guardian wasn’t a warden. It was a shield. A protector. Sunderlings weren’t always seen as just stains. They were considered vulnerable. To magic. To the moods of the forest. To the hatred of others. The strongest wolves, often Lunarths, were bound to them. Not to imprison them, but to anchor them.”

“Anchor them?” Kaelen put his cup down. This was new.

“To stop them from being swept away,” Lyra said, her eyes serious now. “Old scrolls hint that their mixed blood could make them sensitive. Like a door that isn’t fully closed. Things could get in. Or out. The guardian was the lock. The steady hand on the door.”

Kaelen thought of the shimmering fungus on the border stone. An anomaly. A wrongness. He thought of Chloe, a Sunderling, a door not fully closed. A strange chill touched his neck.

“Why doesn’t anyone speak of this?” he asked.

“Because the story changed,” Lyra said softly. “When the Alpha line, centuries back, decided purity was everything. That mixed blood was a corruption, not a vulnerability. The guardians became jailers. The purpose was twisted. It was easier to hate a stain than to protect a fragile thing.”

She stood and walked to a shelf crammed with scroll cases. She ran her fingers over them, searching. “I found a fragment last winter. A piece of a song-story. It was damaged. Part of it was redacted scratched out with dark ink by some later hand.”

She pulled a slender tube from the shelf. She brought it back and carefully slid out a piece of old, yellowed parchment. She laid it on the table between them. Kaelen could see the beautiful, faded script. And in the middle of it, a blot of thick, black ink, covering several lines.

“What does it say?” he asked, leaning forward.

“Around the blot, it tells of a Sunderling, a female, born under a crescent moon,” Lyra whispered, her finger tracing the visible words. “It says her voice was strange. That she could hear the ‘whisper of roots’ and the ‘sigh of stones.’ It says her guardian was a Lunarth with eyes of forest green.” She glanced up at Kaelen’s green eyes, then back down. “And here, just before the redaction, it says, ‘And on the night of the weeping moon, the Sunderling…’ and then the ink blot. The next words you can read are, ‘…sang the moon to tears.’”

Kaelen stared at the black blot. “Sang the moon to tears? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Lyra admitted, her face full of fascination. “The scroll is ripped after that. But think about it, Kaelen. ‘Sang.’ The Souls’ Chorus is a song. What if some Sunderlings, long ago, could do more than just join a chorus? What if they could affect things? With their song? With their voice?”

“That’s just an old poem,” Kaelen said, but his voice lacked conviction. He remembered the feeling in the garden. The charge in the air. The way the silence had changed after their fingers touched.

“Is it?” Lyra challenged gently. “Why redact it? Why scratch out a simple poem? You only hide truths.” She rolled the scroll back up, her touch reverent. “Maybe Corbin’s cruel joke isn’t a joke at all. Maybe, without even knowing it, he has put you in an old, old role. Not a jailer. A shield. For something he doesn’t understand.”

Kaelen sat back, his mind whirling. An anchor. A shield. A door that wasn’t closed. A Sunderling who could sing the moon to tears. It was too much. It felt like the solid ground of his world was turning to mist.

“What do I do with this?” he asked, looking at his sister.

Lyra put the scroll away. “You watch. As you were ordered. But you watch with different eyes. Don’t just see the Sunderling he wants you to see. See the one the old scrolls whisper about. And be careful, brother. If there is truth in this, then her guardian isn’t just a punishment. It’s the most important duty in Silvathorne. And you are standing between a forgotten power and a world that wants to bury it.”

Kaelen left the tower later, the bitter tea and his sister’s words churning inside him. The grey rain had stopped. A sickly, pale moon was trying to break through the clouds.

As he walked back to the main manor, his path took him past the walled garden. He stopped. He looked at the gate.

He wasn’t just a frustrated warrior anymore. He was a keeper of a different border. The border around a mystery. And the mystery had quiet blue eyes, a silver streak in her hair, and a touch that had sparked in the rain.