Caroline's gunfire faded into an empty echo. The bullets dissolved before they even reached the creature's shadowed form, like drops of rain vanishing on a black ocean. She cursed under her breath, her hands tightening on the rifle.
Ezra stepped to Ava's side, his breathing shallow. "It's not here in the way we are. We can't kill it with metal."
The heat from the being's jagged crown radiated outward, yet the air around them remained cold. It was an impossible sensation—sweat prickling at Ava's hairline while frost gathered on her lashes. She forced her voice steady.
"What do you want from us?"
Its head tilted, a slow and deliberate movement. "Not want. Need."
The amber glow of the chamber shifted, deepening into a bloody crimson. The roots along the walls contracted like tendons, dragging the entire space inward. Ava felt her balance shift, as though they stood on the inside of a great lung inhaling.
"You've brought enough echoes to keep the wound open for centuries," the voice rumbled. "Enough pain to carve a thousand cities like this one."
Jules stumbled backward, shaking his head. "It's feeding on us right now. On—on memories."
The realization was like ice down Ava's spine. She could feel it—moments of her past slipping through her mind, as though someone was thumbing through a photo album and tearing out pages at random. The sound of Cassandra's laughter. The warmth of her father's hands when she was small. The sharp scent of wet soil the morning she left home for training. All stolen.
Ava's knees threatened to give. She bit her tongue hard enough to taste blood. That taste was real. That meant she could still hold on.
---
The roots surged toward them in a sudden whip-crack motion. Caroline rolled aside, Ezra yanking Ava clear by her jacket. Jules wasn't fast enough—a coil snapped around his ankle, dragging him toward the column. His fingers clawed at the ice-slick floor.
Ava lunged, grabbing his arm. The root tightened like a vice, pulling both of them closer to the black glass. Through it, Cassandra's suspended face seemed to watch with strange detachment.
"Help him!" Ava snarled.
The voice laughed—Cassandra's tone twisted into something metallic. "He's already part of it."
The root jerked sharply. Jules cried out, his voice breaking into static, as if something was erasing him mid-scream. Ava's grip slipped.
Ezra fired—not at the root, but at a cluster of pulsing nodes along the wall. The impact shattered the amber sacs, releasing a hiss of black vapor. The root spasmed and recoiled, tossing Jules onto the floor.
He was still breathing, but his eyes were glazed, unfocused.
"What did it take from him?" Caroline demanded.
Ezra's face was grim. "Something he won't get back."
---
The crimson light swelled until it was almost blinding. The being stepped forward—or perhaps it simply grew, its form expanding until it filled every angle of Ava's vision. Its voice was quieter now, more intimate.
"Every scar you carry keeps me alive. You could cut me down… if you were willing to lose them."
Ava understood instantly. It wasn't talking about physical scars.
"You're asking me to forget," she said.
"To erase what shaped you," it replied. "To starve me."
Her throat tightened. The memories it wanted weren't just pain—they were Cassandra's face when she first returned from the veil, trembling but alive. The desperate promises Ava had made over graves. The moments that defined why she was still fighting.
If she let them go, she might kill this thing.
But she would also kill part of herself.
---
The floor split beneath them. Beyond the crack lay not darkness, but a searing white void that pulled at her mind like gravity. Ezra staggered toward her, shouting something she couldn't hear over the rushing roar inside her skull.
She saw two futures in that instant.
In one, she clung to her memories, fought tooth and nail, and the being grew stronger until it consumed every fracture in the world.
In the other, she let go—and never knew Cassandra's face again.
Her hands shook. The core from the veil stabilizer was still in her pack, a final weapon if she had the will to use it. It would end her too.
Her voice was almost a whisper. "If I go… you go with me."
The being didn't smile—it couldn't—but the flicker in its burning crown was almost amusement. "We'll see."
---