Chapter 38

Beneath, the frozen capital city lies in eerie silence. Its people—citizens, guards, nobles—stand blank-faced in the streets, their thoughts shackled by Givre’s final command. Snow drifts in silence as Celeste Diminuendo steps onto the edge of the balcony, followed by her vice-captain Vivace and the full Arcana Sound and Support Guard.

Vivace
(watching the stillness below)
They’re bound deep. This isn’t just surface-level suggestion. This is internal rhythm manipulation. Harmonic control.

Celeste
(placing her hat firmly on her head)
He channeled sound and yin magic to embed an Echo of Subjugation into their soulflow.. We're going to rewrite it.

Alto
(from inside the room, arms crossed)
All yours, cousin. If anyone can rewrite the heartbeat of a kingdom, it’s you.

Celeste
(smirking)
You’re finally acknowledging I’m the cool one in the family?

Alto
(stern)
Don't make me bring up your chocolate milk phase again.

Celeste
(ignoring him)
Arcana Sound and Support Guard—ready formation!

A sudden shift as the guards take their places. Soprano, alto, tenor, and bass ranks align, their uniforms flowing like banners in the cold wind. Instruments shimmer into being: strings of light, percussion platforms, brass horns glowing with arcana, and soundcasters conducting air itself.

Celeste
Vivace—Key of Liberation. Give me a tempo in 7/4. Let’s make them feel again.

Vivace
(lifting their baton)
Aye, Captain.

With a single movement, the air trembles. Then—

A blast of sound echoes across Raureif. It is not loud, nor violent—but resonant. Deep. Golden. It flows like heat over ice.

Across the city:

A child gasps as the fog lifts from his mind.

A woman drops her spear, tears brimming.

A knight collapses, clutching his heart as breath returns to him.

Celeste’s hands conduct the waves of mana with impossible precision, notes turning into fractal runes mid-air.

Celeste
(shouting above the crescendo)
Sound isn't just vibration—it's memory! Emotion! Identity!

She slams her baton into the icy balcony, and from it, a brilliant aurora of music and light spirals across the skyline.

Arcana Guard
(in unison)
“Release!”

A final crash of symphonic magic erupts outward, and in its wake—freedom.

Inside the palace, the others watch through the glass.

Eris
Her control… it’s surgical.

Berwick
She could start a war with a lullaby.

Asche
Or end one with a whisper.

Lily
(pressing her face to the window)
SHE NEEDS A FOOD NAMED AFTER HER!

Astera
(softly)
She just brought an entire city back from enslavement.

Shizuku
(smiling faintly)
Yeah… she’s one of us alright.

As the last echoes die out, Raureif breathes again. People collapse in the streets, weeping, laughing, calling out to one another. The sun pierces the clouds.

Celeste
(lowering her baton)
 And that… is the power of sound.