Morning mist clung to Velhar's rooftops as Aelys made her way toward the northern training grounds, a sector of the city rarely visited and long abandoned after a series of temporal events destabilized it decades ago. Today, they weren't facing just one Echo. Kael had warned her: "The fractures there are dense. Expect multiple manifestations. They may react to one another. Stay alert."
Aelys felt the tension coil within her as she walked with Kael, Seris, and Thorn through the quiet streets. Every step toward the northern sector made the warmth in her chest pulse more sharply, as if her power sensed the instability ahead.
They reached a collapsed archway marking the entrance to the training area. Beyond it, the world blurred in and out of focus. Buildings stretched unnaturally, portions of walls flickered like broken reflections, and the cobblestones hummed with a resonant vibration that set Aelys's teeth on edge.
Thorn nodded to the shifting environment. "This area is a nexus. Don't let it confuse you. The Echoes here sometimes chain their appearances."
"Chain?" Aelys asked.
Seris answered, her voice calm but firm. "When multiple Forsaken Echoes manifest close together, their instability can cause them to feed on one another. Their forms can multiply or distort in unpredictable ways. You'll see soon enough."
The ground trembled beneath their feet. Aelys instinctively reached for the fractures, feeling their discordant rhythm. Then, from three separate shimmering cracks in the air, Echoes emerged.
The first resembled a stranger—tall, jagged, its hollow eyes wide with confusion.
The second flickered like a broken image, appearing in pieces before snapping into a humanoid form.
The third… looked disturbingly like Thorn.
Aelys's breath caught. The Thorn-Echo mirrored his posture almost perfectly, but its movements were subtly misaligned, its limbs slightly too elongated, its expression twisted in an imitation of purpose.
Thorn tensed, gripping his blade. "It's not me, Aelys," he said sharply. "Don't hesitate."
Kael stepped forward. "Aelys, this is your challenge. Use what you've learned. Do not let them form a Chorus."
"The what?" she asked, though her instincts already feared the answer.
"The moment Echoes synchronize," Seris whispered, "they amplify each other. Their resonance grows exponentially. If they reach harmony… we won't be able to contain them."
Aelys inhaled sharply, grounding herself as the three Echoes approached. Their movements were disjointed, each one vibrating at a different frequency—discordant, chaotic. But slowly, their steps began to align, their flickers syncing like mismatched instruments finding the same rhythm.
Panic clawed at her, but she pushed it aside. Focus. Don't let fear feed them.
She extended her senses into the fractures, feeling their jagged edges scrape against her consciousness. She reached for the first Echo— the stranger—and attempted to disrupt its resonance. It resisted, thrashing violently as cracks spiderwebbed under their feet.
The second Echo lunged toward Seris, distorted limbs slicing through the air. Seris countered with a crystalline barrier that shimmered like fractured glass, holding the Echo back with visible strain.
The Thorn-Echo circled, moving with silent precision. Thorn intercepted, clashing with the Echo in a blur of mirrored movements. Every strike looked like a duel between reflections, each blow creating bursts of static light.
Aelys's pulse thundered in her ears. The three Echoes' resonances were fluctuating wildly. If they synchronized, the consequences could ripple far beyond Velhar.
She focused harder, pushing deeper into the rift's energy. The warmth in her chest flared, turning almost painfully hot. She directed her power toward the first Echo, bending its resonance violently off-rhythm. It shrieked—an eerie, broken sound—and collapsed into shards of dissipating light.
The loss of one threw the remaining two Echoes temporarily off-balance. Seris seized the moment, crystallizing the air around the second Echo, freezing it mid-lunge. Aelys ran toward it, manipulating the fracture around its form, twisting the shimmering energy. With a forceful mental command, she shattered the Echo completely.
Only the Thorn-Echo remained.
It stood absolutely still, staring at Aelys with hollow eyes that reflected her own fears. Thorn stepped back, lowering his blade. "This one's for you alone," he said quietly.
Aelys approached, the warmth in her chest pulsing fiercely. She reached toward the Echo with her consciousness, feeling it dig into her memories, searching for threads to latch onto. It began to tremble—an Identity Shift attempt. It wanted Thorn's existence… but perhaps also hers.
The environment warped, cobblestones stretching like taffy, buildings bending inward toward the confrontation. Aelys felt her breath catch as the Echo mirrored her exact stance, its distorted Thorn-like shape shifting into something closer to her own.
"No," she whispered. "You are not me. You are not him. You are an Echo… and I won't let you take our place."
She focused every ounce of her will into her power. Her hands glowed brilliantly as the fracture responded, forming a lattice of shimmering energy around the Echo. It struggled, its form flickering violently, fragments of Thorn's posture and Aelys's features intermixing.
Then, with a burst of luminous force, she collapsed the Echo inward, folding it into a single point of light before it evaporated.
The plaza stabilized. The fractures quieted.
Aelys fell to her knees, chest heaving. She had done it. Three Echoes. A near Chorus. A near Identity Shift.
Kael approached with a solemn nod. "You grew today. This is the first step into true mastery."
Seris smiled faintly. "And the first time we saw you fully command multiple fractures at once."
Thorn placed a steady hand on her shoulder. "Whatever comes next, you're ready. More than you know."
Aelys gazed at the fading shimmer of the last dissipated Echo. She felt fear, yes—but also strength. Control. Purpose.
And something new: the faint sense that the Echoes were not acting alone.
Somewhere beyond the fractures, a deeper presence was stirring.