Transmigrated as the Villainess Princess - Chapter 276

Chapter 276: Seal (16)
The winds around the Tower of Absence shifted as dawn approached, carrying with them the scattered notes of awakening. Though the sky remained darkened above the looming structure, the horizon began to pulse with a pale light—not from the sun, but from memory. Resonance was returning. The very air began to hum softly, like the hush before a cathedral choir lifted its voice. All across the fractured world, those attuned to the old harmonies looked up and breathed more deeply, their senses sharpening, their hearts beating in rhythm again. It had begun.

Kael, Lys, and Eyla stood atop the cliff facing the Tower. The fields below were gathering with the faithful and the forgotten alike—people who had felt the shift, had followed the call, had dared to remember what once was. Some arrived with broken instruments slung over their backs. Others carried fragments of lyrics their grandparents had once whispered to them at night. Children, elders, warriors, weavers—every voice mattered now. No one had been excluded from the song.

“This is more than we expected,” Kelen murmured as he rejoined them, his eyes wide with awe. “It’s like the world itself refused to be silenced.”

Kael nodded. “Because it remembers. Mira’s Song wasn’t just melody—it was memory. We don’t just recall it; we live through it. And now… they do too.”

Eyla’s hand tightened around Crescendo’s. The living construct had become her companion, her protector, and now her guide. His expressionless features flickered with luminescence as he scanned the horizon.

“The Refrain must begin before Serra’s silence takes root permanently,” he said. “There is no more time.”

“And no room for error,” Lys added. “She’ll fight. Maybe not with weapons, but with what she knows best—emptiness.”

Crescendo nodded. “Then we must answer not with defiance, but with completion.”

Together, the five of them began the descent toward the Tower. Solmere soared above, circling once before landing beside the crowd. The mighty creature—part spirit, part symphony—lowered its wings to allow Eyla to climb once more onto its back.

“She must go first,” Crescendo said, stepping aside. “The Echo leads the first verse.”

And so she did.

As Solmere lifted into the sky, Eyla’s voice rang out—fragile at first, like the first drop of rain before a downpour. But each note was deliberate, pure, and aching. It wasn’t a song of joy or of sorrow. It was a song of remembering. Of everything that had been lost. Her melody wrapped around the Tower like ivy, gently coiling around its jagged base and climbing upward. The dark structure trembled. Its pitch wavered. The silence inside recoiled.

Serra Vane stood at its summit, eyes closed, listening.

For the first time in centuries, she did not hear silence.

She heard herself—young, vulnerable, laughing beside Mira on a hill of golden leaves, making up silly harmonies and pretending to be gods. That memory pierced her like a dissonant chord. But she did not stop it. She let it flow through her like cold water.

“What are they trying to do?” she whispered aloud. “They cannot undo me.”

“No,” a voice replied from the shadows. “But they can embrace you.”

The shade of Mira stepped from behind the mirror.

Serra’s breath caught. “You’re not real.”

Mira’s image smiled gently. “I’m the part of you that still remembers.”

Serra turned away, but her fingers trembled on the stone railing.

Below, the crowd began to sing.

It started with one old man. A single line. Then a child joined. Then three more. Then ten. Then a thousand. Their voices didn’t blend at first. It was a chaotic collection of memories and half-remembered stanzas. But then Kael raised his hands, and Lys guided their breath. Kelen laid the rhythm. Crescendo stitched them together. And suddenly, the chaos turned to cadence.

Eyla’s voice soared above it all, forming the spine of the piece.

The Refrain had begun.

From across the world, others answered. The woman in Nirr lifted her arms and sang in a tone that fractured ice. The boy in Ankaran hummed deeply, shaking the dunes until they danced. Even the sea roared as the Temple of Lost Measures sang its first note in a millennium.

And the Tower?

It cracked.

Not violently, but with grace—like a frozen lake yielding to spring.

Serra fell to her knees, gripping her ears.

“No… I ended it. I saved them from grief. From hope. From longing…”

“You tried to protect them from pain,” Mira’s shade whispered. “But life is not absence. It is sound. Even sorrow has a melody.”

“I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

“And yet, I’m still with you.”

Serra’s silence shattered.

A cry escaped her lips—not a song, but the prelude to one. And in that moment, the mirror behind her burst into light. It did not reflect absence, but presence. Mira stood there, no longer a memory, but a form rebuilt by resonance and memory itself.

Serra reached out a trembling hand.

Mira took it.

And together, they sang.

The final verse unfolded not in triumph, but in union. Serra’s low, still voice blended with Mira’s radiant tones. Kael joined them, his rhythm anchoring the dance. Lys’s harmony wrapped around them like a breeze. Eyla, Solmere, Crescendo, and the countless voices below filled in the spaces between with life, laughter, sorrow, and truth.

It was not a song of victory.

It was a song of wholeness.

And the world answered.

Mountains trembled—not in fear, but in recognition. Rivers reversed course and carried lullabies upstream. The stars aligned in perfect constellation, forming the original symbol of resonance—a circle surrounding a single note.

Serra Vane opened her eyes.

They were no longer empty.

She descended from the tower, not as a tyrant, not as a goddess, but as a sister reborn. The people parted for her, not out of fear, but respect. And when she reached Kael and Eyla, she knelt and pressed her palm to the ground.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For remembering what I forgot.”

Kael placed his hand over hers. “The world will always remember.”

As the final note of the Refrain faded, there was no silence.

Only stillness.

And within that stillness—a promise.

That music would always return.

No matter how deep the silence.