The Drowned City swallowed them whole. The mournful Lament wasn't just heard; it was *breathed*. It hung in the thick, wet air, vibrated through the slick black stone beneath their feet, and resonated in the hollows of Nian's bones. The Starfall fragment pulsed steadily against her chest, its emerald light casting long, wavering shadows on leaning towers draped in luminous moss and vines thicker than pythons. The flaw's rhythmic chime had synced perfectly with the dirge's deepest notes – a heartbeat within the city's sorrow.
They moved through a canyon of drowned grandeur. Streets, once broad avenues, were now narrow channels choked with glowing algae and colossal roots that had burst through cobblestones like the fists of buried giants. Arched bridges spanned overhead, skeletal and draped in curtains of dripping moss. Dark, empty windows watched their passage from tilted towers, their glass long gone, replaced by the watchful gloom. The silence beneath the Lament was profound, broken only by the constant *drip… drip… drip* of condensation and the soft squelch of their footsteps on algae-slick stone.
Mei Lin led, her senses stretched wire-tight, her knife drawn. Every shadow felt sentient, every ripple in the stagnant water pooling in low spots seemed deliberate. Grandma Xiu leaned heavily on Nian, her breath labored, but her eyes scanned the impossible architecture with a scholar's intensity. "This stone… it drinks the light… remembers the sky…" she murmured.
Nian's Whisper was overwhelmed. The city's whispers were not like the forest's life-songs or the mountain's tectonic sighs. They were echoes – fragments of laughter caught in a sudden downpour, the clang of a distant, long-silent bell, the murmur of conversations in a language lost to time, all woven into the fabric of the Lament. It was a tapestry of memory and grief, thick with the weight of millennia submerged.
The Starfall fragment pulled them like a lodestone. Its light flared brighter as they navigated a series of descending terraces, each more overgrown than the last. The Lament intensified, the reed pipes taking on a sharper, more poignant edge, the deep strings thrumming with palpable tension. They rounded the colossal base of a tower that leaned so precariously it seemed to defy gravity, draped entirely in a shroud of glowing blue moss.
The plaza opened before them, vast and breathtakingly desolate. It lay at the lowest point they had yet seen, a great bowl partially flooded by dark, still water that reflected the eerie phosphorescence like a shattered mirror. At its center, rising from the water, was the source of the Lament, and the object of their desperate hope.
It wasn't a building. It was a **Loom**.
Constructed from the same slick black stone as the city, it rose in tiered, concentric circles, like a colossal, petrified spiderweb. Massive, ancient spindles, carved from luminous white jade veined with gold, stood at irregular intervals, some intact, others shattered. Between them, stretched taut despite the drowning centuries, were threads. But these were no ordinary fibers. They shimmered with captured light – strands of moonlight silver, starlight gold, dawn's rose, twilight's indigo, and the deep, sorrowful turquoise of the Heartspring itself. They hummed faintly, each vibrating with a distinct, pure note that contributed to the overarching Lament. Tangled amidst these luminous threads were others: dark, frayed filaments like burnt silk, knotted cords of murky green, and gossamer strands that wept faint droplets of dark water – threads of sorrow, decay, and loss.
Seated at the heart of this impossible loom, partially submerged in the dark water, was the Weaver.
It was difficult to perceive clearly. Its form seemed woven from the same ephemeral materials as the Water Sentinel, but infinitely more complex. Shifting veils of mist and shadow coalesced into a vaguely humanoid shape, taller than two men. Where a face might be, constellations of captured starlight shimmered and reformed. Its limbs were indistinct, constantly unraveling and re-knitting from the luminous and shadowed threads surrounding it. One moment it seemed to have multiple arms deftly plucking at the strings; the next, it was a vortex of pure, focused energy. It radiated an aura of immense age, profound sadness, and terrifying, patient power. The Lament emanated directly from it, a song woven from the threads it tended.
Nian stopped, rooted to the spot. Awe warred with primal fear. The Starfall fragment blazed against her chest, its light illuminating the Weaver's shifting form, casting stark shadows across the drowned plaza. The flaw's chime became a frantic, high-pitched buzz, resonating violently with the dark, knotted threads on the loom.
The Weaver's starlit gaze shifted. Not with eyes, but with a reorientation of its entire presence. It focused on Nian, or rather, on the blazing point of celestial light at her chest. The Lament faltered for a single, jarring moment. The reed pipes sighed into silence; the deep strings held a single, dissonant note.
*"Fallen Star."* The voice wasn't sound. It was the vibration of the threads, the sigh of the water, the groan of the leaning towers – all coalescing into meaning that resonated directly in Nian's mind. It was the voice of the Drowned City itself, ancient and layered with countless echoes. *"Fractured Light. You bear the wound of Heaven's descent."*
Nian found her voice, thin and trembling. "We… we seek the Weaver. We were told… you could mend it?" She gestured helplessly towards the glowing fragment.
The Weaver's form rippled. A constellation near its "head" flared brightly. *"Mend? The Weaver tends the Tapestry. The pattern is frayed. The sky-shard bleeds discord into the weave."* A nebulous limb gestured towards the flaw's frantic buzz, which seemed to make nearby dark threads writhe and knot tighter. *"Its pain is a tear in the Veil's song."*
Grandma Xiu stepped forward, bowing deeply despite her fatigue. "Wise Weaver," she spoke, her voice gaining strength through reverence. "The fracture was born of violence. It resonates with chaos. We seek not to command the star's power, but to heal its wound. To restore harmony. The Listeners of old… they understood the song."
*"The Listeners…"* The Weaver's voice softened, the dissonant note easing back into the dirge. The starlight constellations shifted, forming patterns that might have been faces, then dissolving. *"Echoes in the stone. Their song faded. The Lament grew louder."* Its focus returned to Nian, intense and probing. *"You carry their Whisper, child. And the Sky's sorrow. You wish to weave the fracture closed?"*
Nian swallowed hard, clutching the fragment. Its light felt hot against her palm. "Yes. Please. It… it hurts. And others… they want to break it worse. Or cage it."
*"Cage the Sky? Folly."* The Weaver's tone carried the weight of mountains crumbling. *"The mend is possible. But the thread is fragile. The needle… is *you*."*
"Me?" Nian whispered.
*"The Whisper is the thread. Your will, the needle. The Sky-shard's core song, the fabric."* The Weaver gestured, and a single, brilliant strand of pure moonlight silver separated itself from the loom, drifting towards Nian. It hummed with pure, harmonic potential. *"You must sing its true song, child. Not the song of its fall, nor the scream of its flaw. Sing the song it carried *before* the descent. The Weaver will guide. The Loom will amplify. But the hand… must be yours."*
The weight of the task crushed Nian. Sing the song of a star? How? She was a village girl, an orphan, a listener of leaves and stones, not celestial spheres! The flaw buzzed angrily, as if sensing her doubt. Images flashed – Captain Zhao's cold eyes, the Rockbreaker Drum, the enraged Heartspring guardian, the sorrowful Water Sentinel. Failure meant more than her death; it meant the fragment shattered, its power unleashed in chaos, claimed by tyrants, or worse, consumed by the flaw.
She looked at Grandma's weary, trusting face, at Mei Lin's watchful, supportive stance. She thought of Whispering Willow, of the mountain's deep pulse, of the river's journey. She *had* listened. She *had* sung to stones, calmed beasts, harmonized with the Heartspring. This was just… bigger.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Nian stepped towards the water's edge where the Weaver waited amidst its luminous tapestry. She raised the Starfall fragment in both hands. Its light bathed her face, warm and insistent. She closed her eyes, shutting out the drowned city, the looming towers, the oppressive sorrow. She delved deep into the fragment itself.
Past the frantic buzz of the flaw, past the resonance with the Lament, past the echoes of its violent separation. She pushed deeper, listening not just with her Whisper, but with her spirit. She sought the core, the essence before the fracture. What was its true song?
Fragments came. Not sound, but sensation. The immense, patient cold of the void. The comforting pull of distant gravitational harmonies. The fierce, joyous fusion burning at its heart. The slow, steady spin through eons of darkness, punctuated by the fleeting warmth of distant suns. A song of solitude, yes, but also of connection – part of a vast, silent chorus. A song of *being*. Pure. Ancient. Unchained.
Nian opened her mouth. No practiced melody came. Instead, she poured the *sensation* into her Whisper. She didn't sing notes; she resonated *meaning*. She hummed the void's depth, whistled the faint pull of stellar neighbors, vibrated her throat with the imagined thrum of nuclear fire. It was raw, primal, a vibration more felt than heard. She poured her understanding of solitude, of connection, of enduring light into the soundless song projected from her core.
The Starfall fragment flared, blindingly bright. The Weaver moved. Shifting limbs of mist and light plucked the strand of moonlight silver. It flowed towards the fragment, guided by Nian's projected resonance. The Weaver didn't touch the shard; it wove the silver thread *through* Nian's Whisper, using her focused intent as the conduit.
The silver thread touched the flaw.
A sound like shattering crystal filled the plaza, echoing the dissonance that had rocked the Heartspring. The dark, knotted threads on the loom writhed violently. The flaw's buzz became a shriek. Nian gasped, feeling the fracture's chaotic pain rip through her own spirit. It fought the mending, clinging to its discordant existence.
*"Sing, child!"* The Weaver's voice was a command woven from the Loom's thrumming. *"Sing its truth! Not your fear!"*
Nian gritted her teeth, tears streaming down her face. She pushed harder, drowning out the flaw's shriek with the pure, resonant memory of the star's core song. She sang of the void's embrace, of the fiery heart, of belonging to the cosmic dance. She poured her own longing for home, for peace, for understanding into the harmony.
The silver thread pulsed. The Weaver's movements became a blur of light. The flaw's shriek faltered. The dark threads on the loom stilled. Slowly, agonizingly, the silver light began to stitch across the dark fracture within the fragment. The dissonance softened, replaced by a strengthening, pure tone that resonated perfectly with the star's core song Nian projected. The fragment's blinding light softened, deepening into a steady, warm, emerald radiance. The buzzing ceased. The chime silenced.
The Lament shifted. The sorrow remained, a fundamental part of the city's fabric, but woven through it now was a new thread – a thread of pure, celestial harmony emanating from the mended Starfall fragment. The dirge didn't become joyful, but it gained a note of profound resilience, of light enduring in darkness.
Nian lowered the fragment, gasping, her body trembling with exertion and relief. The flaw was gone. A seamless vein of moonlight silver now traced through the emerald jade where the fracture had been, humming with quiet power. The fragment felt whole. At peace.
The Weaver's starlight gaze held Nian. *"The tear is woven shut. Harmony is restored. But remember, child: The mended star shines brighter now. Its song will call louder. The hunters will hear."* Its form began to slowly unravel, threads re-joining the great Loom. *"The path from the Drowned City is perilous. The Veil stirs. The Tapestry… frays elsewhere. Go. Carry the mended light. And sing… always sing."*
As the Weaver dissolved back into the tapestry of light and shadow, the Lament resumed, subtly changed, carrying the echo of the mended star within its ancient sorrow. They had succeeded. The fractured sky was healed. But as the Weaver's warning echoed in the watery silence, Nian knew their journey was far from over. The brightest light attracts the darkest shadows. They had mended the star, but the storm of pursuit was still gathering above the drowned world. The path out of the sunken city would demand every ounce of their newfound harmony and the Whisper that had sung a star whole.