The sky split on the thirteenth day.
It wasn't thunder.
Not wind.
Not fire.
It was chanting.
Low. Rhythmic. Structured like prayer, but hollow like hunger. A dirge carved from memory — not to honor the past, but to restore it.
Joe heard it first as a hum behind his ribs.
Nara tasted it in the roots beneath her feet.
Aelren, who had once ruled a Spiral that never cracked, recognized it instantly.
"The Binders are coming," he said.
No one asked how he knew.
They all felt it.
The Spiral in the sky slowed for the first time since it bloomed.
And that night, the Tree of Threads did not open any new doors.
At sunrise, the plains near the Tree darkened with distant movement — not of beasts or storms, but of marchers.
Figures wrapped in old sigils and funeral-white armor lined with mirrors, reflecting nothing. Their eyes were closed, their mouths moving in silent unison. On their backs, iron-bound scrolls. Some carried banners that bore the sealed Spiral — the symbol of the world before choice.
The Binders.
Those who believed names were meant to be given, not chosen.
Those who feared the world becoming too many things to control.
They did not ride beasts.
They did not shout.
They sang.
A chant without melody. A song designed not to create.
But to unmake.
Joe stood at the base of the Tree, watching as the field filled with Vein-born, Spiral-walkers, Nullborne redeemed, and hundreds of others who had once lived in silence but now wore chosen names across their shoulders like suns.
No army.
Just a gathering.
He could see the fear in some of their eyes.
He didn't blame them.
They had only just begun to live.
And now those who clung to death were coming to take it back.
Aelren returned from the stone path he had carved days earlier.
He carried no sword this time.
Just a stone tablet.
On it, a single word etched in mirrored glass:
Unbind.
"It's their anthem," he said.
"It's not a word," Joe replied. "It's a command."
Aelren nodded grimly.
"They believe choice unravels the world. They want to seal it again. Bind the names. Lock the doors. Fold the Tree inward until no voice can echo."
Joe turned to the Spiral above.
"Then we sing louder."
The Bindings arrived at noon.
They didn't speak.
Their leader stepped forward — tall, wrapped in a shroud of polished bark and steel. Their face was hidden, their steps silent. But when they spoke, the earth listened.
"You have broken the design."
"You have let the world fracture."
"You will not do it again."
Joe stepped forward.
"I'm not here to fight."
"Lies," the Binder said. "You fought the Spiral. You cracked its teeth. You built a Tree that poisons with false freedom."
Nara approached. "False freedom? People are choosing their names for the first time. Choosing their lives."
"And in doing so," the Binder snapped, "they forget their purpose."
"They find it," Joe said.
"They drown in it."
The Binder raised a hand.
And the others sang.
It wasn't sound.
It was memory forced backward.
A tide of reversal.
The Tree shivered. The Spiral dimmed. Doors flickered.
People cried out.
Some forgot their names for a heartbeat.
One child collapsed — her chosen name torn from her lips before she could speak it.
The sky trembled.
Joe dropped to his knees, clutching his head.
He heard echoes being undone.
Aelren did not scream.
He stepped forward and placed the stone tablet on the ground.
The word Unbind shone.
Then cracked.
And from that crack, a song rose.
Not one voice.
Not many.
All.
From the Tree of Threads, the scribes lifted their hands.
From the roots, the Nullborne sang with the voices they'd once begged to forget.
The Vein-born raised drums made from the skin of the old name-scrolls and played the rhythm of rebirth.
And at the center, Joe stood.
He did not shout.
He whispered.
"We remember."
The Spiral above flared.
The chant of the Binders faltered.
Then cracked.
The Binder leader staggered.
Their scrolls unraveled — not destroyed, just set free. The words inside flew into the air, forming new shapes.
Some found new names.
Some vanished.
One returned to its speaker.
A voice broke through the leader's mask.
A young voice.
Soft.
Afraid.
"…I don't remember my first name."
Joe stepped forward, hand extended.
"You don't have to. You can choose a new one."
The mask fell.
The leader wasn't ancient.
He was a boy.
Barely older than Tenri had been.
Eyes wide with terror and awe.
He dropped the last scroll.
It didn't burn.
It bloomed.
The other Binders froze.
Without their chant, they were just people in mirrored cloth.
Some ran.
Some knelt.
Some wept and carved new names into the dirt with shaking fingers.
The air grew still.
Then… soft.
The Tree opened a new door.
The thirteenth.
It shimmered like ice.
And from within, a single bell rang.
Not in mourning.
In celebration.
Joe watched as the child who'd forgotten her name stood again.
She smiled.
And walked through the new door.
No one followed her.
That door was hers.
Later, the scribes etched a symbol at its base.
Not a word.
A sound.
The first true note of the Song of Unbinding.
In the days that followed, the world calmed.
Not into silence.
But into song.
Every city rewrote its banners.
Not to erase the past — but to allow the future to decide its shape.
The Spiral above never stopped spinning.
But now it pulsed with rhythm.
With music.
With memory.
With choice.
And beneath the Tree, Joe sat.
He wrote nothing.
Said little.
But he listened.
As the world around him began to hum.
And for the first time, the tune wasn't made of sorrow.
It was made of voices.
All rising together.
Each different.
Each chosen.
And it was beautiful.
End of Chapter 27: The Song of Unbinding