They moved through the canyon in silence. No mist now—just the jagged cliffs rising on either side, cracked like dry bones. A thin path wound between the stone walls, littered with debris from a time long gone. Glyphs—faded and broken—glimmered faintly under layers of dust.
The quiet had weight.
Kael felt it in his lungs, thick and heavy. Every breath echoed. Every step sounded wrong. Too sharp. Too alone.
Elira walked just ahead, blade in hand but down. Tovan watched their backs, turning every few steps. He didn't speak, but his twitching fingers near his sidearm said enough.
The Echoheart was restless.
Kael kept his hand against it under his cloak. Its rhythm stuttered like a broken song. Warm. Cold. Then pulsing too fast, like it was reacting to something just out of sight.
"Keep walking," a whisper said.
He turned. No one had spoken.
"Elira." His voice came hoarse. "Did you say something?"
She didn't turn. "No."
"They're close."
The voice again. Not loud. Not clear. Not alone.
As they rounded a corner, the canyon widened. A spire of stone rose at the center, carved through with unnatural lines. Like claw marks—or veins.
Tovan stopped short. "Something moved."
Elira crouched low, eyes scanning the higher cliffs. "Where?"
"Left ridge. Just a flicker."
Kael narrowed his eyes. The sun had dipped behind the canyon walls, casting long, sharp shadows across the path.
The air felt thinner now. Not colder—emptier.
The Echoheart flared suddenly. Kael staggered, grabbing the rock wall for balance.
His vision fractured.
For a split second, the canyon vanished—and he saw it whole, clean, untouched. People walked its floor, cloaked in gold. Children played near glowing trees. A temple spire reached upward, pristine and glimmering.
Then flame.
Screams.
A sundering crack—and silence.
Kael blinked, gasping.
Tovan was shouting. "Kael! Down!"
A pulse ripped through the ground. Elira's wardstone flared red—then shattered.
And from the cliff above, something leapt.
It wasn't human. Not fully. Cloaked in rags and metal, limbs wrapped in relic bands glowing like veins. Its face was hidden behind a mirrored mask that bent the light wrong—like looking at yourself through water.
Kael barely rolled aside as a blast of force struck where he'd stood.
The agent moved fast. Too fast. Every footstep echoed like thunder. Tovan fired—three shots. The air shimmered around the agent, and the bullets curved, missing wide.
Kael reached for the Echoheart—and time stuttered again.
He saw Elira attacking. Saw it fail. Saw her dodge again. Then saw it happen differently a moment later.
Reality was breaking.
The relic screamed.
Kael felt it—not in his ears, but in his bones. A resonance. A demand.
He unleashed it.
Light burst from his chest in a violent wave—scattering the distortion, ripping apart the false echoes. The agent staggered, mask cracking down the middle.
Elira lunged, blade finding flesh beneath cloth. The agent snarled, a voice both male and female, high and low.
"You awaken what was sealed."
The world blinked—and the agent was gone.
Silence returned.
Kael collapsed to one knee, chest heaving. The Echoheart dimmed in his hand, flickering like a dying ember.
Tovan limped over, blood running down his arm.
"That thing nearly took your head off," he muttered.
Kael looked at him. "It wasn't just attacking. It was testing us."
Elira kneeled beside the broken ground where the agent had vanished. A single symbol had been carved into the stone.
"Vareth will not save you."
She looked up, voice quiet. "Then what will?"
Kael didn't answer.
Because deep inside, the Echoheart whispered a truth he couldn't say out loud.
"Nothing will."