Chapter 9 - The Song of the Heart
Aria looked at her dying sister, then looked at the shattered remains of the altar. The obsidian shell had been cracked open by the falling bell, and the brilliant, glowing orb of pure blue light—Lyra's voice—was floating freely in the water, drifting aimlessly toward the ceiling.
"I can't save you alone, Lyra," Aria wept, her tears mixing with the brine. "But I won't let you fade."
Aria opened her mouth and began to sing. She did not sing the grand, complex hymns of the Arch-Weaver, nor did she sing the defensive anthems of the guard. She sang the simple, sweet lullaby their mother had taught them when they were tiny fry, sleeping in the warm cradle of the nursery reef. It was a song of love, of shared blood, and of a bond that extended deeper than the deepest trench.
As Aria’s voice filled the dark cathedral, the floating blue orb stopped its ascent. The frequency of the love in Aria's song caught the magic of the voice. The blue light began to hum, vibrating in perfect harmony with Aria's notes.
Slowly, like a moth drawn to a flame, the glowing orb drifted down, sinking into Lyra’s chest.
A brilliant, blinding flash of aquamarine light erupted from Lyra’s throat. The grey, stone-like rot that covered her body began to crack, peeling away like old bark to reveal a new, radiant layer of shimmering silver and seafoam scales. Her iridescent hair floated behind her, glowing with a fierce, powerful bioluminescence that shattered the darkness of the ink.
Lyra gasped, her eyes snapping open, now burning with a brilliant, golden magic.
She stood up, her tail powerful and whole once more. She looked at Vespera, who was still trapped beneath the bronze bell, snarling and trying to cast a dark spell with her trident.
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Lyra opened her mouth, and for the first time in three days, she sang.
It was the Song of the Ocean's Wrath. A sound so pure, so resonant, and so powerful that it created a massive, spinning vortex of water inside the cathedral. The current tore the trident from Vespera's hand, shattering her dark magic and sealing the witch inside the deep vault of the cathedral forever.
