The ruins whispered.
Not the kind of whisper carried on the wind—no, this was deeper, older. The city had learned to speak through silence, through the fractures in its bones.
And Zara felt every breath of it.
She moved carefully through the tunnel, the weight of lost history pressing against her ribs. Noel kept pace behind her, his footsteps almost soundless, but his presence was unmistakable—an anchor against the unraveling tide surrounding them.
The sigils on the walls had stopped flickering. Now, they pulsed. A slow, deliberate rhythm, like a heartbeat buried beneath stone.
Noel inhaled sharply. "Something's shifted."
Zara didn't look back. She knew what he meant.
Aeroth was no longer resisting her presence.
It was inviting her deeper.
Her dagger hummed at her side. Not violently. Not warning. Just waiting.
Zara pressed forward, fingers brushing against the nearest marking, her skin tingling as unseen energy threaded through her veins. The whispers did not recede. They grew louder.
A figure took shape in the darkness ahead.
Not Noel.
Not Hollowed.
Something worse.
Zara tightened her grip on the blade. "Show yourself."
The silence thickened. Then—
A single note pierced the air.
Not a scream.
A song.
Low. Dissonant.
Familiar.
Her pulse stammered against her ribs. She knew that melody. Had heard it in her dreams. Had whispered it in the quiet moments between sleep and waking, never understanding why the tune felt more like a memory than a thought.
The figure stepped forward.
And the past shattered.
It was her mother.
No—an Echo of her. Not real. Not truly present. But tangible enough that the air bent around her like reality was making room for something that should no longer exist.
Zara couldn't breathe.
Noel cursed under his breath. "Zara—"
She didn't respond.
The Echo tilted its head, dark hair cascading over hollow eyes that shimmered with fractured light. The spectral presence wasn't solid. It flickered at the edges, but it wasn't fading.
Not yet.
Not until Zara acknowledged it.
The voice that spilled from her mother's lips was laced with something sharp, like glass dragged over bone.
"You remember now."
Zara's grip tightened on the dagger. "Not enough."
The Echo smiled, something knowing bleeding through the distortion of its form.
"You will."
Then—
The tunnel collapsed.
Not physically.
In memory.
The sigils ignited, the walls shifting, the ground folding inward as Zara was dragged backward into a vision not her own.
And she screamed.
***
The screams within the walls did not fade. They twisted.
Zara's mind cracked open, fractured against the weight of stolen memories pouring into her skull.
She was five again—no, fourteen—no, standing here, in this cursed corridor beneath Aeroth. Her body felt real, but her thoughts did not belong to her. They belonged to something older, something watching from beneath the surface.
The sigils on the wall pulsed.
Noel was speaking—his voice urgent—but she couldn't understand the words.
The Echo drowned him out.
It whispered in her bones, threading through her lungs like smoke.
"You were here before," it murmured.
She staggered.
No—no, this wasn't right. She had never entered this vault, never stepped beyond the Arcanum's ruins before today.
Except…
The markings on the wall—had she seen them before?
Had she traced them with tiny fingers, lips parted in silent fascination?
Had her mother—her mother—told her what they meant before the Circle tore her from history?
No. No.
She clutched her dagger, grounding herself in steel. "Get out of my head," she growled.
The Echo chuckled.
"You can't force me away. You never could."
The words dug into her ribs, curling beneath her pulse, merging with her breath.
Noel's hand gripped her shoulder, firm but careful. "Zara. Stay with me."
She forced herself to meet his gaze. His expression was tense, but his grip was steady. He wasn't afraid—not for himself. For her.
"Tell me what you see," he said.
Zara swallowed, steadying herself. "The sigils. They… recognize me."
Noel stiffened. "That's not possible. The Echo Vault was locked before you were born."
The marks pulsed again.
Zara stepped forward.
The vault door trembled—responding to her movement.
It knew her.
And it wanted to open.
Noel cursed under his breath. "Zara—"
Too late.
The vault cracked, spilling darkness into the corridor like ink spilling from a shattered bottle. The sound was deafening—like bones grinding against glass.
Zara gasped as something surged through her veins—something molten, something unnatural. Her mark burned, the crescent twisting, the serpent coiling tighter.
Then—
She saw her reflection.
Not in a mirror.
Not in polished steel.
In the eyes of the figure stepping through the opened vault.
Her.
But not her.
Her twin. Her Shadow Echo.
The other version of her.
The Zara that never ran.
The Zara that had stayed in the cult.
The Zara that had embraced the void.
She stood tall, cloaked in dark flame, eyes blackened voids, lips curling into something between a smirk and a warning.
"You should not have come here," the Echo whispered.
Zara's pulse pounded. "This isn't real."
The Echo tilted her head. "Oh, but it is. You unlocked the vault. You invited me back."
Noel reacted first. He lunged, blades flashing.
The Echo didn't move.
She didn't need to.
Noel's attack passed through empty air.
"She's not flesh," he cursed. "She's—"
"A memory," the Echo finished. "A memory that never died."
Zara clenched her jaw.
The weight of her past pressed against her lungs, thick as ash.
The Echo had been waiting for her.
And now, she was done waiting.
The dagger in Zara's grip pulsed, responding to the confrontation, reacting to the impossible presence before her.
No more hesitation.
No more running.
She lunged.
The dagger struck true.
And this time—
The Echo laughed.
Zara's body convulsed. Her pulse inverted, her breath fractured, her vision collapsed inward.
She wasn't fighting the Echo.
She was becoming her.
Noel shouted something—distant, desperate.
But his voice barely reached her ears.
Because the vault whispered now.
"You were never meant to escape."
The flames swallowed her whole.