The Taxidermist's Chant

In the year 1150, the temple city of Angkor hums with the chisel's bite and the prayer's drone. You are Pich, a musician whose soul was saved by a song—a song you now owe to a shadowy architect who demands its return in blood. He wants you to play a melody that will bring down a wall during the king's ritual, crushing him beneath the stones. Fail, and your tongue will be preserved in a jar, a relic of your betrayal. But when you lift your flute to your lips, the notes emerge as the cries of beasts you have never heard—as if your instrument is stuffed with their voices, each one a plea, a warning, a truth you cannot name. As the ritual draws near, you must decide: play the song and doom a king, or refuse and lose your voice forever. But the song is not what it seems, and neither are you.