The streets of Aeroth should have been empty. Should have been still. But Zara knew better.
She could taste the change in the air—a sharp, metallic tang on her tongue, thick with unseen whispers. The Echo had settled inside her bones, coiling through her blood like a second pulse, threading into the space between each breath. Noel's footsteps fell in sync with hers, steady, calculated, but she could hear it in his breathing—he felt it too.
The city had shifted.
It was watching.
"You're holding back," Noel murmured as they cut through the narrow passage behind the ruins of the Arcanum. His blades were drawn, but not raised. His stance was ready, but not tense. He wasn't afraid—just wary.
Zara's grip tightened around the dagger. It had been humming softly ever since the Silent Conclave fell, as though sensing something coming. Something neither of them were prepared for.
"It's not the time," she said. "Not yet."
Noel exhaled sharply, but didn't argue. He trusted her instincts more than he trusted prophecy.
They moved through the lower corridors, the stones slick with the condensation of Aeroth's shifting tides. The echoes of past battles seeped into the walls—unspoken warnings from the ones who had fought before them. The ones who had lost.
And then, the silence changed.
Zara felt it before she saw it.
The world held its breath.
A single note—sharp, brittle—pierced the air.
Not a scream. Not a cry.
A song.
Low. Dissonant.
The kind of melody that did not belong to human voices.
Zara stopped cold.
Noel stiffened beside her.
The tunnels swallowed them in darkness, yet beyond it, something moved—something fluid, shifting, singing.
The Hollowed had returned.
No.
Something worse.
She felt them before she saw them—the edges of reality bending as figures slid into existence, their bodies shaped from woven shadow, their limbs indistinct but purposeful.
They weren't attacking.
They were waiting.
Noel's voice was barely a whisper. "Zara..."
She didn't speak.
She stepped forward.
The air pulsed.
And the Echo inside her began to answer.
***
A single step forward sent shockwaves through Zara's nerves. The Hollowed figures didn't flinch. They stood, waiting—watching with those shifting voids where faces should have been. The silence between them was no longer just absence of sound—it was deliberate. A force pressing against reality, warping the edges of her perception.
Noel exhaled slowly beside her, blade angled slightly in anticipation. She didn't need to look at him to know he was ready. But it wasn't fear in his stance—it was calculation. He was studying them. Waiting for the inevitable moment when stillness shattered into chaos.
Zara forced herself to breathe.
She reached for the Echo.
Not consciously—but instinctively.
It answered.
A pulse rippled through her veins, the weight of unseen voices pressing against her ribs. The mark on her forearm burned, curling ink through her bloodstream. Something was shifting. Changing.
She spoke—though the words were not entirely hers.
"Why are you waiting?"
The Hollowed twitched.
Not in response—but in acknowledgment.
Then they moved.
Not toward her.
Not toward Noel.
Toward the walls.
Their bodies stretched impossibly, unraveling like threads in a forgotten tapestry. The air thickened. Reality faltered.
And then—
The song returned.
Low. Dissonant.
An echo of something ancient, woven into the very foundation of Aeroth.
Noel muttered a curse. "Zara—"
The ground cracked beneath her feet.
Not physically.
In memory.
Fragments of forgotten visions crashed into her mind—flashes of temples drowned in red mist, voices chanting beneath a fractured sky, hands reaching from the dark.
Her pulse spiked.
No.
Not here.
Not now.
Her hands trembled. She clenched her teeth, forcing the memory back, pushing against the rush of stolen time clawing its way through her body.
Noel noticed. He always did.
"Stay with me," he muttered. "Block them out."
Zara shook her head. "They're not just memories."
The Hollowed figures reformed. Their bodies twisted into shapes that should not have been possible. Their movements—fluid yet jagged—defied everything she understood about existence.
Then—
They spoke.
Not with voices.
With her voice.
"You remember."
The words tore through her like steel.
Noel cursed. "That's not normal."
She didn't answer.
Because they were right.
She did remember.
Something buried.
Something forbidden.
Something the Circle had erased.
Her vision fractured again—her thoughts breaking against a wave of realization. She saw herself. But not herself.
A version of her.
One that had not walked away from the cult. One that had not tried to forget.
The Echo's laughter curled through her mind.
"You are not alone."
Zara inhaled sharply.
The Hollowed stepped closer.
Not attacking.
Waiting.
She tightened her grip on the dagger. The blade pulsed.
Noel shifted beside her, speaking low. "Zara, whatever you're about to do—do it now."
She locked eyes with the Hollowed.
Felt the Echo unfurl inside her.
Then she spoke—not in a whisper.
But in command.
"Leave."
The word hit the air with force.
The Hollowed convulsed.
Then—
They obeyed.
Their forms dissolved.
Not disappearing.
Returning.
To whatever fractured existence they belonged to.
Zara staggered, breath unsteady, mind teetering between reality and something far worse.
Noel caught her arm.
But it wasn't concern in his gaze.
It was understanding.
"You didn't just make them leave," he said. "You sent them back."
Zara stared at the empty corridor.
Her pulse refused to slow.
"They weren't just echoes," she murmured. "They were… pieces of something bigger."
Noel exhaled sharply. "Then we need to find out what."
The ruins stood still.
The silence felt different.
Zara tightened her grip on the dagger.
She wasn't done yet.