Page 75 - DivineSparkRising II-TheMirrorofSilenceFinal

Nicholas Boothman
“No,” she said. “I can only live it. When I speak
truth, the machines forget how to listen.”
She stopped beside a crate of discarded
microphones, picked one up, and spoke into it:
“Choice.”
The microphone fizzed, smoked, and died.
Henry’s stomach clenched. “You’re a fragment.”
Sera smiled. “A living one. And fragments
remember what the whole forgets.”
Carolina stepped closer. “The Mirror wants to
erase dissonance. But you are dissonance. Maybe
that’s why Jinji sent us.”
Sera nodded slowly. “Then you’ll need to hear
the Mirror’s song yourself.”
3. The Song of Absence
Zhara led them into a chamber beneath the
bazaar, walls lined with copper plates etched with
circles and verses. In the center sat an old reel-to-
reel recorder surrounded by candles.
“This is the oldest surviving Chorus archive,”
she said. “Before Sofia turned it into machinery, it
was poetry.”
She pressed play. The reels spun, and a voice —
Sofia’s voice — filled the chamber.
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