Deep within the Royal Academy of Harmonics where prodigies were shaped into polished gems and music was dissected like anatomy there existed a forbidden composition. Locked behind ten seals and guarded by spells so old no professor dared test them it was known only by title
The Song That Should Not Exist
It had no composer no date no origin. Some said it was written by a madman who could hear the music of time itself. Others believed it was gifted by the stars to a dying empire as a final mercy. Every few decades someone tried to recreate it and every time they failed. Notes vanished from parchment fingers broke strings and minds unraveled
That morning in the practice chamber reserved only for the elite Seraphina sat with a strange sheet of music spread before her. It had appeared beneath her pillow written in elegant ancient script. At first she thought it a prank until she began to hum the first three bars
And something inside her cracked
Not in pain but in clarity. As if a curtain had been lifted and she could see the threads connecting stars to oceans and sorrow to joy. She slammed the lid of the piano shut sweat trickling down her brow
He knows this song
She was certain now
Nocturne was not simply a masked boy with talent
He was tied to something older than the capital older than music itself
Across the city in a ruinous temple long forgotten by priests Nocturne stood in front of a shattered stained glass window. A harp rested on his back its strings mismatched its frame scorched and mended. He wore a golden mask shaped like a tear falling from an eye its surface etched with runes that flickered as he moved
He placed the harp before the altar where ivy had overgrown the gods. Then he began to play
But this music was not for the ears
It was for the past
The air grew thick memories bled from the stones themselves voices of lovers soldiers kings and children all long dead echoing in the vibrations
And as the melody swirled around him a faint image shimmered above the altar
A woman
Her face obscured by light her hands reaching toward the harp
She whispered his name
But he did not look up
He kept playing as tears fell behind the golden mask
In that moment miles away Seraphina looked up from her scroll and whispered the same word the woman had spoken though she did not know why
Ansel
The true name of the one behind the mask
And the name no one alive was meant to remember