The House of Echoes slept beneath a sky thick with colors that should never coexist—violets that bled into silver, gold chasing shadows like liquid fire. Reality still pulsed like a healing wound, aching to stabilize.
Kael sat alone on the highest balcony, watching threads of starlight drift like embers. The Loom was gone, but its remnants sometimes shimmered faintly when dreams collided with will. Every ripple in the sky was a reminder: the new world was still writing itself.
Lyra approached quietly, her presence a soft warmth against the night's strangeness.
"You can feel it too, can't you?" she asked, leaning on the rail beside him.
Kael didn't answer immediately. His gaze stayed fixed on the horizon, where a shadow moved like ink across glass.
"The Abyss," Kael murmured. "It's closer than before. But… it's different now. Curious. Watching."
Lyra's jaw tightened. "And what do you think it wants?"
Kael finally looked at her, his eyes burning with quiet certainty.
"A voice."
Before Lyra could respond, the air fractured with a whisper that wasn't sound. Every wall of the House trembled—not from force, but from recognition.
Kael was already moving when the great doors swung open on their own.
A figure stood in the threshold.
Not monstrous. Not void-born chaos like the horrors they once fought.
But a girl.
Barefoot. Pale as frost. Her hair spilled like black silk across her shoulders, and her eyes—two pools of liquid shadow—held galaxies imploding silently.
When she spoke, her voice was soft, almost childlike:
> "You tore the threads. You opened the way. Now… I've come home."
The students gathered in the hall, whispering in fear. But Kael felt no terror. He felt something far more dangerous—familiarity.
The entity inside him stirred, its voice vibrating through his bones:
> "She is the First Reflection. The Abyss's answer to freedom."
Lyra's bow shimmered into existence, her hand steady. "Kael. Tell me why I shouldn't shoot."
Kael raised a hand.
"Because if we kill her," he said, eyes locked on the girl's unreadable gaze, "we destroy the only chance we have to understand what the Abyss truly wants."
The girl tilted her head, a smile ghosting her lips.
"I am not your enemy," she whispered. "Not yet."
Kael stepped closer, ignoring the ripple of fear through the room. "Then tell me your name."
Her answer was a whisper that made the walls bend:
> "Nyra."
And with that name, the House of Echoes shook, as if the world itself understood that something far greater than gods had just entered the game.