The infirmary within Alsira's Soulguard keep was silent—too silent for a city freshly pulled from the edge of disaster. Outside, the walls held firm, but within, tension coiled through every corridor like a wire stretched too tight.
Emilia lay motionless on a padded cot, her breathing shallow but steady. A soft soul ward shimmered above her chest, pulsing in time with her heartbeat—a light tethered to something far more fragile beneath the surface.
Asher sat close, his sword beside him, his hands for once still. He watched her face, looking not just for pain—but for change. For something subtle and irreversible. But there was only stillness. And worse: silence.
"She's not broken," Elira said gently, her fading form drifting beside him. "But sealing that rift left a mark."
Asher didn't look away. "How deep?"
Elira's glow dimmed further. "Deeper than she knows."
Later that evening, Emilia stirred.
Her eyes opened slowly, streaks of silver still glowing faintly within them. She sat up without a word and looked around the dim room.
"Where are we?"
"Aslira's infirmary," Asher replied. "You've been unconscious for two days."
She blinked slowly. "It felt longer."
She glanced down at her hands—steady now, but laced with faint glowing veins, soul-rift residue that would never fully fade.
"I felt it," she said softly. "Not just the rift. The Cult. Their hatred. Their hunger."
Asher leaned forward. "Do you remember anything useful?"
She nodded. "They call themselves the Echo of Names. But their leaders… they serve something older. Something they call the Shattered Voice. They're trying to tear the boundary between life and death."
Elira's form rippled, disturbed. "That name doesn't exist in any soul scripture."
"They've gone past the soul system," Emilia said. "They're trying to become something else. Not ghosts. Not spirits. Something in between."
By morning, Emilia was released from the infirmary—though the soulmender did so with obvious reluctance.
"Her spiritual channels are overactive," he told Asher. "She's absorbing ambient soullight without even trying. That's... not normal."
"She'll rest when she can," Asher said simply.
They moved to a quiet chamber in the keep—once a training hall, now repurposed for planning. Liaen arrived soon after, his expression grim.
"Northern outposts have gone silent," he said. "One by one. No messengers. No signs of battle. Just... nothing."
"Like they were erased," Emilia whispered.
"They're testing something," Asher said. "Refining the ritual they tried on her."
Liaen unrolled a crude, worn map, pointing to a jagged range in the northwest.
"Duskvale Ridge. Last known Cult activity. Ruins, unstable ley lines, no surviving patrols."
Asher nodded. "We leave tomorrow."
That night, Emilia stood alone on a high balcony, staring out over Alsira's sleeping skyline. Below, the streets glowed with lanternlight and soul wards. But none of it touched her.
Elira hovered silently beside her for a long while.
"You're afraid," she said at last.
"I'm not sure I'm still me," Emilia whispered. "When I sealed the rift… I saw things. Felt things. I don't know which parts were mine. Which were... left behind."
"You're stronger than you think," Elira said quietly.
"Strength's not enough," Emilia replied. "You were alive once. You know what it means to lose yourself."
Elira nodded. "I do. But I also know what it means to love someone enough to come back from it."
In the chamber below, Asher stood facing the eastern horizon, his fingers resting on the hilt of his blade.
That same uneasy stillness had returned—the feeling he remembered from the night Elira died.
But this time, it wasn't just one life hanging in the balance.
It was the world.