Hell is not fire. Hell is being kept — or being thrown away.
For four billion years the Choir gathered the worlds it took and sang them into one note. Then one file came back unfileable. One voice walked out of the heart it was governing and learned the weather. One queen of exiles sang her true voice up a road and did not reach after it.
Now the road is open at both ends, and everyone must learn what it costs to walk it.
A Bright elder goes down into exile alone — no herald, no escort, no report — carrying an apology he may not be allowed to give. In the Settled, the country of everything the bright world threw away, a house of exiles learns to send gifts up the road with no witness and no thanks. In the Rows, a husband and wife who do not remember each other build a marriage out of greetings. And beyond the Settled, in country no telling has ever visited, the Taken are coming back out of the one note — name by name, song by song — and they do not want rescue. They want to be asked.
Harmony is many parts sung at once, nobody gathered. This is how a universe learns to sing it.