The valley floor stank of rot and old fire. Ash drifted like snow, clinging to their clothes, their skin, their lungs. Every breath felt poisoned.
"Keep moving," Marek muttered, his broken sword drawn. His voice was low, but it carried. "Don't listen to the echoes."
Because the echoes were there.
Whispers drifted on the wind — half-words, broken syllables, fragments of prayers. Sometimes they sounded like strangers. Sometimes they sounded like loved ones, long dead.
Jorn whimpered against Nalia's chest. She pressed her hand over his ears, whispering, "Don't listen, don't listen."
Tomas stumbled, leaning hard on his staff. His skin was gray, his breath ragged. The fire inside him flickered weak. "This place… it's close to the Citadel. The lattice… bleeds stronger here."
Elara felt it too. Her sun-eye burned hot, her veins thrumming with visions. Each step sent golden threads crawling across her sight.
She saw towers rising in firelight. Streets lined with chains. Faces blurred, mouths stitched shut, eyes glowing faintly gold.
And at the center, a throne of silence.
The ruins loomed suddenly — shattered walls, toppled columns, blackened bones half-buried in ash.
Seris raised a hand. "Wait." Her bow was drawn, arrow nocked.
The whispers grew louder.
From the shadows, shapes moved.
Hollow ones.
Dozens.
Their bodies jerked with unnatural rhythm, threads binding broken limbs together. Eyes glowed with dim embers. They turned as one toward the survivors, jaws hanging open in silent screams.
"Run," Marek said flatly.
They ran.
Through ruins, over crumbling stairways, through archways dripping with chains like cobwebs. The hollow ones followed, tireless, endless.
Seris fired arrow after arrow, her hands shaking, each shot dropping one — but more rose in their place.
Tomas lit the path behind them in fire, staggering with every burst, coughing blood into his beard.
Elara forced her sun-eye open, light blazing in desperate arcs. The hollow ones shrieked, threads unraveling, bodies crumbling to ash. But each flare tore at her body, blood running from her nose, her ears, staining her collar.
"Don't stop!" Marek roared, hauling Nalia and Jorn over a collapsed wall.
They burst into a plaza, the ruins spreading wide. For one heartbeat, there was silence.
Then the ground split.
Chains erupted from the earth like serpents, snaring broken statues, snapping stone, lashing toward them.
The hollow ones poured through the breach, their numbers endless.
And in the chaos, Elara felt it — Kael's thread surging strong.
He was near.
Far below, Kael staggered through the Citadel's shadow.
He felt Elara's presence burning against his chest, a tether pulling him upward. For a moment, he saw her — her face smeared with blood and ash, her sun-eye blazing against the night.
"Elara!" he cried.
But the reflection seized him, chains snapping tight.
"She cannot save you. She will fall, as you will rise."
Kael screamed, fighting against the bonds, but the Citadel loomed closer, vast and inevitable.
And its throne waited.
Back above, Elara collapsed to her knees in the ruined plaza, clutching her chest.
"I saw him," she gasped. "He's close. He's—"
A chain lashed toward her.
Marek caught it with his blade, sparks screaming as steel met thread. His muscles trembled, but he held, snarling.
"Move!" he bellowed. "If he's close, then so's the Citadel — and we're not ready!"
The hollow ones surged. The survivors ran.
And the whispers followed, growing louder, hungrier.
The hollow ones did not tire.
They moved with a jerking grace, bone and sinew dragged by threads that glimmered faintly in the dark. Some carried the rusted remnants of weapons; others crawled on shattered limbs, claws raking stone. They did not breathe. They did not bleed. But they hungered.
The survivors crashed through the ruins, boots kicking up ash. The sound of their footfalls blended with the whispers until Elara could no longer tell if the voices were inside her head or outside it.
"Keep left!" Seris hissed, sprinting ahead. Her braid lashed behind her as she vaulted a collapsed column. She loosed another arrow, striking one hollow square through the eye. It staggered, threads writhing, then collapsed into gray powder.
Behind her, Tomas wheezed, one hand clutching his ribs. Fire danced at his fingertips, guttering low. "I can't… hold them… much longer."
Nalia stumbled, nearly falling, Jorn clutched against her. His small hands covered his face, but his cries cut through the chaos like broken glass.
"Give him to me!" Marek barked, shoving past. He scooped the boy into one arm, dragging Nalia with the other. His scarred face twisted in grim determination, sweat streaking through the ash. "Run, woman. Don't look back."
Elara's sun-eye flared again, searing her vision with golden arcs. Chains coiled across her sight like veins. She staggered, caught herself, and forced the light outward. The hollow ones shrieked, unraveling mid-lunge — but the effort ripped through her body like knives.
Blood spilled hot down her throat. She tasted iron, choked, kept running.
The plaza yawned ahead, a circle of broken statues, their faces ground smooth. At its center stood a single obelisk, black stone cracked with golden lines that pulsed faintly.
The hollow ones poured in behind them, filling the streets like floodwater.
"We'll never outrun them," Seris gasped, notching another arrow. Her voice cracked.
Tomas staggered toward the obelisk, pressing his palm against it. Fire leapt from his hand into the stone, running down its cracks. "It's lattice-forged," he rasped. "I… I can break it. But it'll cost me."
Elara grabbed his arm, shaking her head. "No—"
"If we don't stop them here, none of us leave this valley alive." His eyes blazed with feverish light. "Let me burn, girl."
Chains lashed across the plaza, smashing a statue to dust. Marek spun, cleaving one with his sword, sparks flying as steel screeched against the glowing thread. His arms trembled, veins bulging, but he didn't falter.
"Make your choice!" he roared.
Elara's sun-eye split open wider than ever before.
And in the glare, she saw both futures:
—One where Tomas poured everything into the obelisk, exploding it into ash, sacrificing himself to buy them breath.
—One where she herself opened fully to the lattice, channeling its power to destroy the hollow ones… but letting the silence crawl deeper into her soul, binding her fate closer to Kael's.
Both paths ended in blood.
Both paths ended in loss.
But one tether burned brighter — Kael's thread, pulling, begging, waiting.
She fell to her knees, gasping, clutching her chest as visions flooded.
Below, Kael collapsed in chains before the gates of the Citadel.
The reflection stood over him, crown gleaming with cold fire. "Do you feel her choice? She sees you. She bleeds for you. And soon, she will kneel for you."
Kael lifted his head, his lips bloodied, his body broken. But his eyes burned.
"No," he whispered. "She'll never kneel. And neither will I."
Chains wrapped tighter, cutting into his flesh. The Citadel's gates creaked open.
And the silence roared.
Above, in the plaza, Elara screamed — a raw, tearing sound that shattered the whispers for one heartbeat.
The hollow ones froze.
Her sun-eye flared like a second sun.
Golden light poured across the ruins, unraveling threads, burning hollows to dust. The chains writhed, retreating into the cracks of the earth. The obelisk split with a thunderclap, fire rushing through its veins.
The survivors shielded their faces as the world went white.
When the light finally dimmed, silence remained. The plaza was empty save for drifting ash.
Elara lay collapsed at the center, her chest heaving, her sun-eye dimmed but still glowing faintly. Blood streaked her face. Her hands trembled.
Marek approached slowly, Jorn clutched against him, his jaw set. He looked down at her for a long moment.
"You're becoming something else," he said quietly.
Elara closed her eyes. She already knew.
And somewhere below, Kael felt her too — and the Citadel whispered his name.