Weeks passed. The city was quiet, truly quiet, for the first time in history. The pack, leaderless and grieving, looked to Anya. She had become the de facto protector of a small, sovereign territory around The Static.
Kaelen was a ghost of his former self. Without his audio-sense, he was unmoored, lost in a world of terrifying silence. He could no longer compose, no longer listen, no longer lead.
Mama Zero tried to fix his implants, but the damage was neural. "The song is still in you, boy," she grumbled. "You just have to learn to hear it a different way."
But hope was a distant frequency. They had won, but at a cost that felt like a defeat. They had saved the pack, but lost its heart and its soul. The city was free, but it was a broken, silent world.