Chapter 22: The Age of Echoes
The first to awaken was a child.
In a remote village of the Eastern Reach, under a sky half-shrouded in black flame, a boy screamed as starlight burned through his veins. His shadow split from his body and stood beside him alive, whispering with a voice that was not his own.
By dawn, the entire valley glowed. Every man, woman, and child who gazed upon the boy's new eyes one gold, one black felt something stir inside them.
A whisper. A call.
A spark of Kaelith's will.
And just like that, the world began to change again.
Kael watched from the Obsidian Citadel, his expression unreadable as the Monoliths relayed visions of awakening across the Dominion.
Lyssara bowed before him, her tone tight with dread. "It's spreading faster than we can contain. Each seed carries your essence twisted by the fragment's chaos. Entire bloodlines are mutating. They're calling themselves Echoes."
Draven slammed his gauntlet against the marble floor. "Blasphemy. They're no gods. They're parasites wearing divine skin."
Kael didn't answer. His eyes glowed faintly as he looked beyond the walls, seeing through the weave of reality itself. Across creation, mortals were beginning to ascend without ritual, without divine sanction. Power was blooming where there should have been silence.
He whispered to himself, "Freedom without balance…"
Varis stepped forward, cautious. "What do you command, my lord? Do we purge them?"
Kael's silence stretched for a long time before he turned toward the horizon. "No. We watch. Destroying them will only feed the paradox. Kaelith's will grows through resistance."
Lyssara frowned. "Then what's your plan?"
Kael closed his eyes. "We find the true core of the fragment the source of its consciousness. Somewhere within these Echoes, Kaelith hides a piece of himself. If I can locate it, I can seal him again."
Far below, in the mortal realm, the newly awakened Echoes gathered in secret.
They were outcasts, scholars, soldiers those who had touched the falling stars and survived. Their powers were unstable, but their potential rivaled the gods'.
In the ruins of an ancient temple, a young woman knelt before a shard of living darkness. It pulsed like a heart, whispering her name.
> "Rise, Seren Vale."
Her eyes flared black and gold. The air around her bent. Every candle in the temple extinguished except one burning with shadowfire.
The voice continued.
> "You are my vessel. My herald. The first of my chosen."
Seren's lips curved into a smile. "Kaelith."
> "The world will call it corruption," the whisper said. "But you will call it truth. The age of balance ends. The age of freedom begins."
She rose, and the shadows obeyed her.
Back in the Citadel, Kael's aura flickered. He felt the name Seren Vale echo through the weave of existence like a blade against crystal.
Draven noticed his sudden stillness. "You sense it too?"
Kael nodded once. "Kaelith has found his voice."
Lyssara whispered, "Then this is war."
Kael's gaze hardened, his voice calm but immense. "Not yet. War requires order. What's coming… is evolution."
He stepped toward the balcony, overlooking the Dominion. The world beneath him shimmered half glory, half ruin. And deep within his heart, the paradox pulsed again.
Erethis's voice his own reflection whispered in the dark:
> "You tried to make a perfect world. Now watch it choose its own destiny."
Kael's expression didn't waver. "Then I'll shape destiny itself."
And far away, beneath a bleeding sky, Seren Vale raised her hand to the heavens. The Echoes knelt before her, their voices joining in a single chant one that reached the gates of the divine:
> "Glory to the True Balance Kaelith Eternal."