The air stank of iron and decay.
Atahsaia crouched behind a half-buried ribcage the size of a wagon, the remains of some forgotten behemoth whose name had long since vanished from living tongues. Crimson fog rolled low over the ground, hiding the gnarled roots of the skeletal forest known as Ironroot Vale. Here, the trees bled sap the color of old rust and whispered memories into the ears of those who dared to listen.
But Atahsaia listened to nothing now. Not because he couldn't, but because he refused. The voices of the Weave were loud here—too loud. Each breath stirred echoes of past lives not his own. Each footstep threatened to awaken memories of things that never happened but still cried to be remembered. Madness here was not a possibility—it was a certainty. Unless one was like him.
Unyielding.
He gripped the spine-hilted dagger he'd taken from the Hollow Echo two days ago. Its handle had fused with his skin, feeding him glimpses of the wraith's dying moments—a river of red, a scream caught between dimensions, a child he'd never known. That was the cost of wielding something shaped by lost identity. The pain taught him something valuable:
Never touch the Echoverse unguarded.
A low growl, wet and guttural, rippled through the vale. Atahsaia didn't flinch. Instead, he closed his eyes and dipped into the fractured mirror of his inner self.
Resonance Index: 28.3%. Stable.
It had risen. Slowly, almost imperceptibly. His emotional discipline, the deaths he'd caused, the choices he had forced himself to make—they had carved a deeper groove through the Weave. He could now hold the Echoform of the Drowned Scholar for almost two minutes without disassociating.
But that wasn't the form he needed now.
He reached inward—past the burned gardens of his childhood memories, past the illusions of love that once defined him. He passed the Echo of the Artist, the Selfless Soldier, the Boy Who Waited. Too gentle. Too kind. Too weak.
He opened the locked gate in his mind.
And pulled forth the Hunter of the Pale Spire.
The world cracked sideways.
Suddenly, the air tasted of ash. His bones grew taut with tension, muscles aligning in strange patterns learned through another life, another self. Eyes no longer his own opened within his vision, overlaying trails of heat and motion like threads of silk across the bleeding forest. The world became a map of prey and predator.
Behind him, the growl deepened.
The Ironroot Warden had found him.
A creature of bark, bone, and borrowed skin, the Warden rose three stories tall, its face a twisted mask of mismatched memories. Eyes blinked in unnatural places—dozens of them. Some saw truth. Some saw lies. One looked directly into Atahsaia's soul.
But the Hunter knew no fear.
Atahsaia moved—not with speed, but with inevitability. The dagger sang as it cleaved air, catching the Warden's probing tendril and severing it mid-thrust. Black ichor hissed against the fog. The Warden howled, and the trees around them shivered, bleeding faster. The ground turned slippery beneath the crimson rain.
He struck again, and again. Each blow wasn't just a cut—it was an erasure. The Hunter's Echoform didn't just wound; it unmade. Each strike stripped the Warden of a memory: a scream, a face, a purpose. The Echoverse shuddered with each unraveling.
But the form frayed.
The longer he wore it, the more the Hunter's instincts bled into his own. Kill. Track. Isolate. Kill. He felt his own thoughts thinning, reducing into single-purpose threads.
He released the form.
And staggered backward, gasping, eyes wide. The Warden collapsed—part tree, part man, part echo. It twitched once. Then lay still.
But the danger was not over.
The resonance backlash struck.
A thousand half-memories flooded his skull—visions of prey hunted under moons he'd never seen, names whispered by throats he'd never owned. He bit down on his tongue until blood pooled.
"I am Atahsaia Vire," he whispered to himself. "I am the root that does not bend."
The Weave resisted.
The trees leaned in, their branches caressing his cheeks like mourning lovers. The fog congealed into shapes—faces from the lives he'd locked away. But he stood still. He remembered the cost of forgetting. He remembered why he walked this path.
And then came the real trial.
A voice—soft, familiar. Earth-born. "Ata…hsaia?"
He turned sharply. At the edge of the ribcage clearing, half-hidden behind a stump, stood a girl. No more than thirteen. Wide eyes. Wearing a hoodie he recognized.
No. It couldn't be.
"Lina?" he breathed.
His sister.
But she was dead. Dead and buried in a world long gone. She had never come to Nehkara.
The girl ran to him. He didn't move. She wrapped her arms around him, sobbing. He felt warmth. He felt safety. And he knew it was a lie.
Still, his arms betrayed him.
He held her.
Until she bit him.
The illusion shattered as his blood spilled. The creature twisted, grew—becoming a Shadowecho, birthed from a suppressed memory turned hostile through misuse of the Echoverse. A parasite of hope.
He struck, but the wound in his neck slowed him. The creature laughed with his sister's voice.
He reached within again.
Not to an Echoform.
But to himself.
"I loved her," he said, voice cracked. "And I let her die. That is my truth."
The Weave responded. The Shadowecho faltered.
He struck true this time—not with power borrowed from a possibility, but with the certainty of who he was.
The creature dissolved. The forest sighed.
Silence.
Atahsaia fell to one knee. Not from exhaustion—but from understanding.
There are things even the Echoverse cannot give back.
And some echoes are meant to fade.
He stood.
Ironroot Vale was behind him now.
Ahead, the road wound toward the Shardspire Ranges—toward knowledge, toward power, toward Echoforms unspoken by sane minds.
But now he knew:
Not all battles are won with strength.
Some must be survived.
And some truths must be chosen.
To be continued…