The Dissonance of the Stolen Songs

What greeted Sayane was worse than she’d feared. The last Great Harmony Shard was there. It was the smallest yet. Barely larger than a vehicle, it was azure and spiked. Uneven barbs of blue and green jutted in every direction. But that was not terrified Sayane. No, that was the Dissonance.

It all made sense now: The Silencers. The Song Stealing rituals. The slaughter and disappearance of all songstresses before her. They were all here. They were the Dissonance. Mechanical tubes ran from thousands of glass containers. Writhing each container was a spectral mouth. The floating mouths glitched and screamed in rage and suffering, casting waves of red at the Shard, while imperial machina whirred and shifted the Shard to make sure every inch of it was coated in Dissonance.

Sayane’s scream caused every disembodied mouth to turn towards her. Before she could react, thousands of mouths screamed out and sent a tidal wave of Dissonance towards her. The wave struck her like knives and she screamed out in the most pain she’d ever felt. This Dissonance was different from the rest. It was as though the other songstresses’ voices could sense one of their own, but the imperial cruelty of the machina made them despise her.

Agony tore through Sayane’s mind and her knees buckled. On the other side of the doorway, a commotion began.

Sayane tried to stand but her body wouldn’t move. Echo screamed out.

“Sayane!! Sayane RUN!!!!”

There was a blast and a thud, but Sayane was still locked in suffering.

Then the door opened once more, and Echo’s bloodied body was hoisted into the room, impaled by an intricately decorated lance. A tall, simple, yet terrifying figure stepped forward. though he was covered in armor like the dozen other figures behind him, Sayane knew who he was.

“Primarch Stol…” she whimpered as Echo’s half-dead body was slung onto the ground beside her.

The primarch smiled a calm smile as he knelt before her. Bursts of Dissonance danced across his face but he was unfazed.

“We’ve been expecting you, songstress.”

It was a trap. It was all a trap.

A blunted edge struck Sayane’s head, knocking her unconscious. As she fell limp on the ground, her voice carrier rolled away. It had been activated through the entire ordeal. Azag had heard everything.

To his great terror, he had heard Sayane fail. Now she was in the hands of The Silence. Imperial silence shells exploded in empty bursts around him as he piloted Esca across damaged scaffolding. Horror sliced his skin as he realized his plan was collapsing.

It had made so much sense. A large contingency would draw attention. He was too slow and too rare. Attis and Erosc were too known as Revolution. 

They could not assault the capital in all-out war. Too many innocents would die, and if The Silence figured out Sayane was after the Great Harmony Shard, they might move it somewhere never to be found.

No one knew the capital like Echo. It had all seemed so right, but now he was faced with a horrifying reality he had begged every god to not allow to happen.

“All units! ALL UNITS! Return to the capital now! As fast as you can!!” he roared into his voice carrier.

“The Silence has Sayane!!!”