A jagged flash of lightning illuminated Avalyn Estate’s silhouette on the horizon. Once a symbol of prestige, the manor now felt hollow, with dusty corridors echoing the

footsteps of the four siblings who dwelled there in uneasy solitude. Six months had

passed since Eleanor and Jack Avalyn disappeared, leaving their children—Dove, Lark, Wren, and Jay—adrift in that expansive, creaking home. A roaring thunderclap rattled the windowpanes just as Jay burst into the old reading room, eyes shining with excitement. “There’s a sound coming from the attic,” he announced breathlessly, “like… a melody. I swear I heard it!” Lark, the second eldest, raised a skeptical eyebrow. She tried to hide the concern that furrowed her brow. “You mean the wind, or something else?” “I know the difference,” Jay insisted. His cheeks glowed with that intensity he often had when defending his hunches. Dove, the eldest at seventeen, set aside the fraying ledger she had been reviewing and surveyed her siblings. Since their parents vanished, Dove felt the weight of the estate—and her siblings’ well-being—on her shoulders. The tension in Jay’s voice made her chest tighten. “We’ll check it out together,” she decided. With the storm raging outside, the four siblings made their way to the dimly lit corridor leading to the attic stairs. Each step seemed to creak beneath their feet, and the old wood smelled of dust and secrets. The melodic sound Jay had heard remained faint. Thunder bellowed, and lightning flickered through cracks in the roof, illuminating heaps of old trunks, broken furniture, and swirling dust motes. As they crept around stacks of boxes, Dove’s flashlight beam revealed an ancient wooden chest half-buried under a threadbare tapestry. Wren, usually the most reserved, gasped softly. The chest featured intricate carvings of birds, each avian figure so detailed it seemed poised for flight. Four birds stood apart from the rest—a dove, a

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lark, a wren, and a jay. The siblings traded uneasy looks. “It has our names,” Lark whispered. Dove knelt and brushed away the dust, her heart hammering like a drumbeat. She lifted the lid, wincing at the squeak of rusted hinges, and peered inside. An hourglass with golden sand, gemstone bird figurines, and a bundle of brittle

parchments greeted them. The hourglass pulsed with a faint glow, as though it were

somehow alive. Jay reached for one of the figurines carved from obsidian. The instant his fingertips touched its surface, the attic air erupted in a resonant hum. Golden sand

inside the hourglass spun wildly, and a deep, ancient voice reverberated through their minds: “The Avian Alliance awakens.”

A blinding burst of energy surged from the chest, slamming each sibling backward in a swirl of dizziness and echoing thunder. Time itself seemed to buckle. Dove’s gasp stilled in her throat, her surroundings frozen for a split second, while Lark clutched her head, assaulted by kaleidoscopic visions of events that felt both real and potential. Wren stumbled as the air tore at her clothes, tugging her backward through a phantom wind. Jay felt his very consciousness crack open—brief glimpses of impossibilities flared behind his eyelids. Then, as quickly as it began, the uproar died, leaving them panting in disoriented silence. At that moment, the siblings locked eyes. An unspoken truth wove among them: they had awakened a force older than their house, older perhaps than any of them could fathom. The chest and its relics were no ordinary curiosities. Lightning crashed again outside, and the melody Jay had heard went silent. Within the hush that followed, they realized that the disappearance of their parents was more significant than a simple family tragedy. Something momentous was stirring, and it had just recognized them.