NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 4: Chapter Four: “The Name of the First Note”
Lyric didn't sleep.
She glimmered.
Even in the dim blue light of Echo's mirror shard, her skin shimmered faintly, pulsing in rhythm with a song only she remembered.
They had carried her from the chamber through back corridors of Ossiren, avoiding the now-waking city above. Crystal led in silence, her thoughts unraveling like a fraying ribbon.
Who had locked this girl beneath the Library?
Why did she carry such resonance within her?
And why did her silence… hurt?
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They found shelter in a ruined amphitheater, buried beneath layers of concrete silence.
Here, broken instruments lay entombed in dust... violins without strings, harps with twisted frames, and a piano cracked down its spine like a fractured soul.
Lyric sat among them, her eyes darting to each, her hands trembling like she wanted to play... but couldn't remember how.
"She's trying to remember," Echo said, her voice layered with a dozen soft echoes. "But something's missing. Something important."
Crystal knelt before Lyric again.
"Your song is inside you. We don't need to rush it. Just tell us… what was your first note?"
Lyric blinked.
Then pointed to her lips.
She mouthed a word.
But it wasn't her name.
It was a sound.
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Suddenly... A crash behind them.
The shadows had moved.
From the walls, Measurebound Wraiths emerged... twisted creatures formed from corrupted sheet music and lost rhythms. Nocturne's silent servants, warped by obedience.
They moved not with steps, but with phrasing... a dance of stillness and sudden fury.
Their presence bent the air. Even Echo's mirror rippled.
"They want Lyric," Crystal said, already lifting her hand.
"They want her silence," Liora corrected, threads glowing golden.
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The battle began.
Liora's strings danced like meteors in silk, slicing through ink-like limbs with precision and grief. Echo blinked between shattered reflections, disorienting the enemy with flickers of impossible versions of themselves.
And Crystal?
She sang.
But it was not just a weapon.
It was a memory.
It was Lyric's memory.
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A single note slipped from Crystal's lips... soft, sorrowful, yearning.
And Lyric gasped.
She clutched her chest... and the chain around her throat exploded into threads of light.
Her voice returned.
But she didn't scream.
She whispered:
"Nocturne."
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The wraiths froze.
Just for a moment.
Just enough.
Crystal's final chord shattered them.
They dissolved into fragments of silence, returning to whatever prison had formed them.
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Lyric collapsed, panting.
Her eyes wide. Her fingers trembling.
She had remembered more than her voice.
She had remembered the name of the one who tried to erase her.
"He knew," she breathed. "He knew I was born of a forbidden harmony. I sang when I shouldn't have existed. He… heard me before even I did."
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Crystal touched her shoulder gently.
"You're not forbidden. You're not a mistake."
Lyric looked up. Her amber eyes fierce now.
"I'm the first note he failed to silence."
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Above them, the sky of Ossiren cracked just slightly... like a mirror flexing against truth.
And Maestro Nocturne turned from his throne of bone strings, smiling with no joy.
"She remembers…"
Next Chapter: "Whispers on the Staff"