Daughter of Songs

The Birth of the Daughter of Songs
  A myth whispered from the looms of the Threadbinders.   Within the ancient walls of Canterberry—a city peculiar simply by its very existence—the wheels of fate turned. Hermes, the Lich Lord, bound to guard the fragile seal between the upper and lower sanctuaries, wandered the moonlit halls of his castle. A stirring passed through him on the wind—not chill, but warm, subtle, and unmistakably alive.   It was life magic. Rare. Impossible.   Something had been planted in the hollow space—something blooming where no bloom should ever rise.   Within days, word spread like fire through frost: Nova Celeste,The Mother of Stars , was with child. The founder of Celeste House, teacher of the stage, and one long marked by the Hollowing —an affliction that robbed women of life’s potential—was impossibly bearing new life.   Hermes had long known her sorrow. She had once confessed the Hollowing to him in confidence, weeping over the children she’d never carry. Instead, she had made a constellation of her own: twenty lost children raised beneath her roof, each a star in the sky of her heart.   But this… this was different.   Hermes returned to his study. There, upon a wall of ageless stone, hung the tapestry woven by the Threadbinders of Fate—an ever-shifting chronicle of destiny. Tonight, it moved.   New threads sparkled into being. From Nova Celeste and Leo Sterling bloomed a golden flower of fate—delicate, brilliant, radiant.   But one thread stood apart: a red line of destiny that trickled downward, following a strange path that tightened around Hermes’s soul. He followed it with his gaze—down, down—until it reached her.   Ellanora Darksong. His beloved. His long-lost wife.   The thread touched her name and turned gold.   And in that moment, her voice—gone for centuries—rose like dawn in his ears.   “She is coming,” Ellanora whispered. “The Daughter of Songs. She will write the world’s history in myths and legends.” Hermes stood still, unmoving, as the memory of his wife’s voice washed over him—a tender cruelty only fate could grant. For just a moment, a sliver of her spirit hovered near, and he allowed himself to cling to the warmth that no longer belonged to him.   So it is told: that on that night, the threads of fate rearranged, and the seed of a new age was planted in silence.   The girl born of stars and sorrow. The girl born of magic where none should be. The girl born to sing the world into story.   The Daughter of Songs.   “She is coming. The Daughter of Songs. She will write this world’s history in myths and legends,” Ellanora said in tones both tender and certain.   Hermes stood silent, clutching the memory of his wife’s voice—a cruel and precious gift granted by fate. For a fleeting moment, he stole solace from her presence, holding on to the limited warmth of a form half-glimpsed, a whisper of what once was.