Chapter 24: Shards of the Hymn

Silence isn’t real. Not down here. Not in the skull’s throat.

The Choir’s hymn had cracked apart, but the echo didn’t die it clung. Thin as smoke. Heavy as tar. My lungs caught on it like barbed wire, every inhale snagging. My ribs ached as though strings had been tied to each bone and yanked in rhythm. Someone else’s rhythm.

Evelyn’s arm held me upright. Not gentle. Firm. Like she’d decided I didn’t get to fall yet. Her eyes tracked the dark with that soldier’s precision—measured, ruthless, cold enough to freeze the blood still running hot in me. My sister clung to her side, trembling. The bracelet she wore had snapped, but the charms dangled stubborn, clinking together with each step. That fragile sound cut sharper than screams.

The cavern moaned under itself. Rock shifted like an animal’s jaw grinding.

“Move,” Evelyn said. Quiet. Final. The kind of voice you didn’t answer, only obeyed.

So I moved. My boots slid across bone-slick ground, every step dragging my chest louder than my thoughts. The hymn wasn’t gone—it was just pacing inside me, waiting for me to open the cage.

We climbed ribs bent into a staircase. Black, curved, sharp at the edges. I felt every angle scrape under my palms. Below, water churned with broken whirlpools where the Choir’s bodies had collapsed. Not all of them sank. Some floated, mouths slack, eyes blind, but still too alive. Others drifted downward, voices trapped like bubbles waiting to burst.

My sister slipped. Evelyn snatched her by the collar, hauling her back before she slid into the water. The motion echoed too loud. We froze. Listened.

No new song.

Relief cracked through me in a bitter laugh. “Guess I hit the wrong note.”

Evelyn’s glare was a blade pressed flat against my throat. “Don’t.”

“You think I can leash this?” My voice rasped, raw, a mess of blood and smoke.

“Then learn.”

Her words cut deeper because they were true.

The ledge funneled us toward a tunnel too smooth to be natural. The skull had made it for us. Or for something waiting further in.

“Trap,” Evelyn muttered.

“Everything down here’s a trap.”

Her mouth twitched. Almost a smile. Almost. “Then walk in knowing.”

We did.

The tunnel spat us into a chamber tighter, hungrier. The walls weren’t rock. They were teeth. Tilted inward, edges grinding faint, ready to close.

The floor shimmered with shards. Bone, glass, something sharper than both. Thousands of pieces, humming faint.

The Choir wasn’t gone. It had splintered.

I crouched. Picked up one. Cold. It bit into my palm, split skin, drank fast. The shard sang. High. Too pure.

My ribs sang back.

Evelyn’s hand clamped mine. Strong. “Drop it.”

I held it tighter. The shard pulsed, the pitch clearer now. My sister’s whimper clawed at me, her hands pressing uselessly over her ears. Evelyn’s knife hovered close, flashing.

I dropped it.

The shard struck bone floor with a clink. That sound didn’t stop. It rippled. Spread.

The floor stirred.

Shards rose. Hundreds. Spinning weightless. Each fragment carried a note. Alone, dissonant. Together, building.

Evelyn’s voice was low, tight. “Grace. Stop it.”

“I can’t.”

“Then twist it.”

Her words buried deep.

The shards weren’t knives. They were instruments. Notes begging for a throat. And mine was wide open.

I stood. Blood streaked my palm, already drying into cracks. The shards spun faster, slicing air. Wind screamed in a cage of sound. They nicked skin, each cut feeding the hum.

I closed my eyes. Let the hymn inside crawl free. Not theirs. Mine. Crooked. Wrong.

The shards screamed. A thousand blades of light. Evelyn dragged my sister against the wall, her knife slashing arcs, batting shards away before they carved flesh.

The Choir pressed harder, their hunger gnawing through my chest.

I answered with noise.

A howl. Broken. Human. Mine.

The shards convulsed. A rain of fractured light tore the chamber open. Teeth above cracked, raining dust like bone meal. Evelyn shielded my sister with her body. My throat ripped open with sound I didn’t own, ribs shaking with something older than me.

The hymn cracked again.

Shards collapsed. Not shards anymore. Dust. Soft, glowing faint.

I staggered, knees buckling. Evelyn’s arm caught me before I hit stone. Her eyes seared into mine.

“You’ll die like this,” she said.

“Better me than her.” My throat rasped fire. I looked at my sister. She was crying, silent tears down her pale face, but breathing. Alive.

Evelyn pressed her forehead to mine for a second, her skin damp, cold. Then she pulled back, jaw iron. “It’s not over. This place never ends.”

She was right. The chamber groaned. Cracks tore across the teeth. Water spilled in. The skull wasn’t dead. It was waking.

“Run.” Evelyn’s voice cut clean.

We ran.

The tunnel yawned forward, ribs grinding above. Behind, the chamber folded in on itself, teeth crushing into dust. The glowing ash of shards chased us, whispering their hymn.

The hymn wasn’t gone.

It had found a new throat.

Mine.

And I didn’t know how long I had before it sang again.

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