Transmigrated as the Villainess Princess - Chapter 274

Chapter 274: Seal (14)
The moon of Aselari hung low that night, casting a bluish sheen over the ruins of the ancient fortress of Elmerion, where time had grown tired and ivy clung to broken stone like forgotten promises. Beneath its crumbling towers, Kelen and Lys stood in silence, watching as the creature of resonance—formed from their duet—circled high above them, trailing stardust with every beat of its translucent wings. It was not bound by gravity, nor shape, shifting between the form of a phoenix, a serpent, and a child cloaked in light.

They had named it Solmere, after the first chord ever sung by Mira at the dawn of time.

Now, Solmere acted as both guide and witness, for it alone could feel the pull of the other shards scattered across realms unseen.

“North,” Lys whispered, her eyes glimmering. “There’s a voice crying in a forgotten key. And it’s breaking.”

Kelen nodded, gripping the hilt of his blade—not forged, but grown, its edges humming with dissonant vibration. “Then we follow it. But we must be swift. The Obscured are moving faster than we thought.”

Indeed, Serra Vane’s forces had grown bolder. Towns once filled with song now echoed with nothingness. The Obscured did not kill with violence—they stole sound. They drained laughter, quieted breath, and silenced memories. Survivors called it the Quiet Plague. And unlike fire or blade, there was no wound to treat—only absence.

•

Far from Elmerion, hidden deep within the obsidian labyrinth of Cavareth, a boy named Kael awoke. He had been asleep for centuries—suspended not by magic, but by a single unending note, sustained in his chest since Mira’s final chord. That note had kept him timeless, untouched by death or decay.

But now, that note trembled.

It cracked like a fault line.

And Kael opened his eyes to find the world still and strange. He touched his chest—and where once the note had rung true, now it pulsed erratically, like a broken rhythm desperately seeking a beat.

He stood, barefoot against the cold stone, and sang.

Just once.

A simple scale.

Do… Re… Mi…

But the labyrinth responded.

Walls shifted.

Doors opened.

And ancient guardians stirred—creatures made of marble and sound, their bodies shaped like instruments, their limbs strung with silver sinew. They bowed to him.

“Welcome back, Keeper of Rhythm,” one intoned, voice like a bass drum in an echo chamber. “The song fractures.”

Kael didn’t speak.

He simply walked forward.

He didn’t know it yet, but he was Mira’s Heartline—the beat to which all her songs had once followed. Without him, harmony was impossible.

And he was bleeding time.

•

Back in the eastern marshlands of Virella, Serra Vane knelt before a pool of black water that reflected no sky. Her face, sharp and angular, was more mask than flesh now, smoothed by the silence that flowed through her. Her voice had long since turned into something monstrous—neither scream nor whisper, but the stillness between.

Behind her stood dozens of followers, hooded and expressionless. Some once were kings. Others, street children. All had heard the call of the Voidsong.

A new figure stepped forward from the shadows—a tall woman in obsidian armor, her mouth sewn shut with threads of silence.

“She awakens,” Serra said without turning. “The healer. Lys.”

The soldier nodded.

“And the fire-bringer walks beside her. The last shard.”

Another nod.

Serra smiled coldly.

“Good. Let them come. We do not stop music with might. We stop it by unraveling memory. And Mira’s song… was always rooted in love.”

She raised her arms, and from the pool rose a tower of silence. Not a structure of stone or steel—but one made of negated sound, layered with every unsung lullaby, every lost melody, every word choked in grief.

Its name was the Tower of Absence.

And once it stood fully formed, it would erase the first song forever.

•

Back with Kelen and Lys, their path led them into the ruins of Oryn—once a great conservatory of sound where Mira herself had composed her final verses. Now, it was a ghost city, its streets littered with broken instruments and decayed sheet music. Every step echoed as if the earth itself were trying to remember its rhythm.

They found her there.

Not a girl.

Not a woman.

But something in between—dressed in tattered concert robes, hair made of wind, eyes closed and singing in a voice only birds could hear.

She stood atop a cracked harp the size of a cathedral.

Solmere landed beside her and chirped once—a gentle harmony.

And her eyes opened.

“I remember you,” she said softly.

Lys stepped forward. “Who are you?”

The woman bowed. “My name is Veil. I am Mira’s Breath. I gave her life through my lungs, carried her melody when she could no longer sing.”

Kelen stiffened. “Are you a shard?”

Veil smiled sadly. “I am what remains of Mira’s final breath. The moment before silence. I have waited for you. And now I must give you what I carry.”

She stepped forward and placed her hands on Lys’s cheeks. A rush of air, like wind chimes in a hurricane, exploded around them. Lys gasped, eyes widening as images flooded her—of Mira composing her last verse while crying in a field of stars, of a child with a shattered voice singing it back to her, of death and rebirth, again and again.

When the storm settled, Veil was gone.

Only a silver feather remained in her place.

Lys held it to her heart.

And her voice—when she next spoke—was layered, not with harmony, but with legacy.

“I remember.”

Kelen touched her shoulder. “Then we move. The Heartline has awakened. The Breath is passed. We are close.”

And far above, Solmere screamed—a note so piercing it shattered the clouds.

A warning.

The Tower of Absence had begun to rise.

And it was already stealing notes from the world.

In the shadowed realm of Pharos, a once-forgotten kingdom where music had been outlawed for generations, a young girl named Eyla danced alone atop a mirror lake. Every step she took sent ripples of color through the glassy surface, and though no one watched, she danced as though the stars themselves were her audience.

She did not know her name.

She did not know her past.

But with every spin, every graceful pirouette, the lake responded in harmony. Notes bloomed under her feet.

She was Rhythm’s twin.

And she was Mira’s Echo.

When the Resonants came for her, she would be read