And sooner or later, we were going to have to scream back.
TWENTY-THREE
Aria
The rough leather of the journal felt startlingly warm against my palms, a stark contrast to the damp, bone-chilling cold of the cavern. It smelled of Master Theron, a rich, melancholic blend of crumbling parchment, dried gall-nut ink, and the faint, sweet ghost of the chamomile tea that had perpetually clung to his heavy robes. Holding the book felt like gripping his hand one last time across the divide of death, a phantom comfort that caused my throat to constrict with a sudden, sharp ache.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a heartbeat, wishing for a moment of stillness, just one quiet hour to process the sheer magnitude of loss and revelation that had crashed down upon us. But time was a luxury we had forfeited the moment I turned a key in a lock that should have remained shut. Grief would have to wait. Survival demanded the present.
"He always did have a fondness for metaphors," I murmured, my voice sounding thin in the oppressive quiet. I traced the scorched edges of the leather cover, soot coming away on my fingertips. "He hid the truth in poetry because history was too dangerous to write plainly."
Elias drifted closer, peering over my shoulder. His presence was a cool draft against my back, smelling of ash and ancient, burnt spices. "The universe is built on vibration, Aria," he said, his voice melodic and distant. "Light, matter, magic... everything possesses a song, even if mortal ears are too dull to catch the tune. If this 'Devourer' tracks a melody, it means it is hunting for a specific resonance."
I nodded, turning the brittle pages with care until I reached the section Elias had indicated. The handwriting here was frantic, the strokes jagged and the ink blotched, as if Theron had been writing while his hand shook with terror or exhaustion.
The Siren’s Call,the entry read, underscored heavily.The frequency of the Gate is not silent. It screams. It broadcasts the 'Distress of the Divine' on an endless loop, a beacon designed to cut through the static of the cosmos and ring the dinner bell for the void.
"Distress," I whispered, the word tasting like bile. I looked up at Kaelen. His golden eyes were hard, reflecting the dim luminescence of the cave. "That’s why the chains hurt you constantly. It wasn't just punishment or suppression to keep you weak. Pain... pure, unadulterated agony... is loud. It’s a signal."
Kaelen’s jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the soot-stained skin of his cheek. He looked away, staring into the dark. "We were screaming for help," he said, his voice low and bitter. "For millennia. And the monster heard us."
"So," Flynn said, crouching nearby. He spun his dagger in his hand, the blade a blur of motion, his amber eyes darting around the shadows as if expecting them to bite. "We just need to change the tune. Alter the vibrations of our magic so we don't sound like a wounded animal. Simple enough. I don't suppose the old bookworm left a 'how-to' guide in there?"
I scanned the dense text, my eyes snagging on a complex, hand-drawn diagram of the mountain’s cross-section. It detailedthe Citadel, the Sanctorum, and deep below that, structures I had never seen on any official map. "A voice box," I realized aloud.
I tapped the drawing. It depicted the mountain not merely as a geological formation of stone and earth, but as a structure built around bone. "The Titan," Thane rumbled, leaning in. His massive shadow fell over the pages, encompassing us in a protective darkness. "Pandora told me the old stories when we were... before. They claimed the mountain grew around the fallen body of a Titan, slain in the first war between Olympus and man."
"What if it wasn't a story?" I asked, a sick feeling uncoiling in my stomach like a cold snake. The layout made too much terrible sense. "The Citadel sits on the head. The Cradle is in the heart." I traced a jagged line down the diagram to a cavernous chamber located between the two major organs. "And this... this is the Throat. Theron wrote here:'To alter the song, one must strike the Chords of Silence located in the Throat. The sequence is the key.'"
I turned the page. There, written in bold, precise strokes that contrasted with the frantic notes before, was a sequence of musical notation. But these weren't standard notes; they were ancient runes representing pure, elemental tones.
"That's the music," I said, my finger hovering over the symbols. "Note for note. If we can reach the mechanism and play this..."
"It changes the broadcast from 'Distress' to 'Void'," Elias breathed, reading the runes faster than I could. His turquoise eyes widened. "It harmonizes the output with the background noise of the universe. It makes us sound like empty space. Like dead rock."
"Invisible," Flynn said, stopping his knife mid-spin. A slow, wolfish grin spread across his face, revealing sharp teeth. "Ifwe're invisible, the Devourer loses the scent. It drifts right on by."
"And if it can't smell the bait," Kaelen added, the strategist in him awakening, "it might turn back toward the larger source of power. The bigger meal."
"Olympus," I finished.
A strange, sharp pang of guilt struck my chest, swift and confusing. For a split second, the memory of a crumbling white city flashed in my mind's eye, pearl hued towers falling into a sea of ash.A mother saving her family.The feeling was foreign, intrusive, like an emotion that belonged to a stranger's heart, not mine. I pushed it down, focusing on the damp cave wall.
"If we change the signal, we buy ourselves time," I said firmly, burying the guilt. "We stop the immediate threat of the cosmic parasite. Then we deal with Hera."
"There is a complication," Thane said, his voice heavy with warning. He reached out with a large, calloused finger and tapped the map. "Look where the Throat is located."
I looked closer, and my heart sank. The chamber was situated directly below the main foundations of the Citadel, accessible only through a specific network of tunnels.
"The excavation site," I whispered.
Flynn let out a harsh, bark-like laugh that echoed unpleasantly. "Of course it is. Why would it be anywhere else? The one place we need to go is right in the middle of where Marissa is currently conducting her symphony of horrors."
"She’s there because of the Titan bone," I realized, the pieces finally clicking together. "Marissa and the cultists, they're tapping into the same power source. The Throat and the bone, they’re connected. Of course they are. They are both part of the Titan. She is sitting right on top of the mechanism because that's where the remaining power has condensed; that's why MasterTheron could figure it out. He was just a man who loved books who picked up on details the others missed."
"So," Kaelen said, straightening up. The Dragon Prince returned to his full, imposing height, the air around him simmering with heat. "We have to go into the excavation site, which was already crawling with cultists, traitors, and a woman who is powered by a goddess hellbent on creating a god-killer, get past the gestation circle, locate the Titan’s vocal cords, and play a magical song while under heavy fire."
"And then," I added, meeting his golden gaze, "we use the amplifier to open the door to Olympus."
