The Battle in the Chamber
The shadow moved like smoke made flesh. Every strike Kaelen launched passed through its form—yet each impact sent ripples of pain screaming through his skull, as though the thing struck at his mind, not his body.
"Kaelen!" Lyra cried, silver fire sparking from her hands.
The Seed pulsed in her chest. It was not gentle—it was hunger barely leashed, a storm clawing for release. Lyra opened herself to it. Not all the way—never all the way—but enough.
The fire gathered, lancing outward in ribbons that caught the shadow mid-lunge. For an instant, its form faltered—faces flickered within its mass, thousands of screaming mouths, fragments of memory not its own.
"Vessel." The voice filled the chamber again, thick and intoxicating. "You think you command the Seed? No. It commands you."
Lyra's knees buckled as the weight of a thousand lifetimes pressed down upon her mind. For every breath she took, the Seed whispered ten thousand possibilities—ten thousand hungers.
Kaelen staggered to her side, blade still glowing with her silver fire. His hand found hers. "Don't let it tell you who you are. You're Lyra. Not its vessel. Not its prey. Lyra."
The fire steadied.
And the shadow screamed.
Outside the Gate
The labyrinth convulsed.
On the Sovereign, alarms howled as the ship's gravity inverted for a heartbeat, decks tilting sideways before stabilizing. Across the fleet, vessels spun out of control, caught in sudden gravitic tides that tore formations apart.
"Admiral!" a comms officer shouted. "The labyrinth is destabilizing—if the Seal breaks—"
"I know," Veyric snapped. His knuckles whitened on the railing. He could see it now: the faint outline of the gate bleeding cracks into the void.
And worse—the Harbinger saw it too.
The warlord's massive ship surged forward, ignoring the fire of Azhira's fleet. His voice bellowed across the open channels:
"Let it break! Let it all burn! The power belongs to me!"
Azhira's response was calm, chilling. "You will never touch the Seed, beast."
Her fleet wheeled, cutting across the Harbinger's advance. The void became a crucible of fire as three armadas collided at once, each knowing that the true prize lay not in ships—but in the heart of the labyrinth.
The Heart's Choice
Back inside, the shadow wrapped itself around Lyra, its tendrils sinking into her skin like smoke entering her veins.
Kaelen slashed wildly, the silver fire on his blade hissing as it struck—but the shadow reformed, again and again.
Lyra gasped, her voice strangled. "It's not trying to kill me—it's trying to merge."
And in that instant, she understood. The Echo Lord wasn't bound by the spire. It was bound by her. It was using the Seed to push into her flesh, her mind, her soul.
Kaelen's grip tightened. "Then fight it. Burn it out."
Her eyes blazed silver, brighter than ever before. The Seed surged, but this time she didn't shy away. She welcomed it.
The chains on the spire shuddered. For a moment, the shadow shrieked as though it were being torn in two—half bound, half free.
Lyra screamed, the light pouring from her chest in a tidal wave that split the chamber in blinding brilliance.
When the light faded, the shadow was gone.
But the spire's chains were broken.
And the Echo Lord was awake.