The night was a black cloak over Riverwatch. The river flowed past the silent docks, a ribbon of ink under a starless sky.
Kael stood on the bank, the locket a cold weight in his pocket. His resolve was a blade, honed by memory and anger. He knew what he had to do.
From his belt, he removed two vials. The first was a Draught of Water-Breathing. The liquid was viscous, the color of deep ocean. He uncorked it and drank. It tasted of salt and iron, and it burned a path of cold fire down his throat. His veins lit up with a sharp, aching chill, as if ice water were being pumped through them. His lungs constricted, then relaxed with an unnatural, hollow feeling. The potion would let him draw oxygen from water for a few minutes. It would also make his limbs feel heavy and slow.
The second was a Phosphor Potion. It glowed a sickly green in the vial. He poured it over his Warden medallion. The metal absorbed the liquid and began to emit a faint, eerie radiance, just enough to see a few feet in the absolute dark. It was a beacon, but a necessary risk.
He took a deep breath of night air—the last for a while—and waded into the river.
The black water swallowed him.
The world became silent, cold, and heavy. His medallion's green glow pushed back the darkness in a small, wavering sphere. The water-breathing draught worked; he didn't need to hold his breath, but each "breath" of water was a cold, unpleasant trickle in his lungs. He pushed downward, kicking towards the dense knot of sorrow his Pulse had identified on the riverbed.
Weeds brushed against him like grasping fingers. The pressure built. The glow of his medallion illuminated swirling silt and the pale, blind faces of river fish darting away.
Then, he saw it.
A pale, shimmering form, curled on the bottom. It was vaguely human, made of water and trapped light. The Wailing Echo. It was wrapped around a darker, lumpy shape—a bundle wrapped in rotted cloth and weighted down.
The Echo sensed him. It uncurled.
Its face turned towards his light. It was Anya's face, but blurred, as if seen through a waterfall of tears. Her features were etched with an eternity of sadness. Her eyes were hollow pools.
It did not snarl. It did not charge.
It opened its arms. A gesture of welcome.
A voice, not a sound but a thought, pressed directly into Kael's mind. It was a whisper of countless drowned voices, with Anya's at the forefront.
It's so quiet here. No more pain. Join us.
The offer was a psychic wave, carrying with it the promise of oblivion, of an end to struggle. It was seductive. For a man whose life was pain and cold purpose, the promise of quiet was a terrifying temptation.
Kael raised his hand, fingers forming the sign for Ember. He channeled Taint into the gesture and thrust his palm forward.
A stream of crimson sparks shot out, but the water dampened it instantly. It became a hissing cloud of steam that dissipated harmlessly. Useless.
The Echo drifted closer. It reached out a shimmering hand. It touched his chest, over his heart.
The touch was cold. It did not hurt.
Then, the river disappeared.
He was Anya.
The memory seized him, violent and complete. His Soul-Link, strained by proximity, trauma, and the Echo's direct touch, shattered the barrier between observer and victim.
He/she stood on the docks, the locket warm in her hand. The moon was out. Karl Vorlan, the Magistrate's son, was there. He was handsome, smiling, but his eyes were frantic.
"You have to understand, Anya. My father… he'll disinherit me. You have to go away. Tonight."
"I love you, Karl," she heard herself whisper, the words tearing her heart.
"This isn't about love!" he snapped, his smile vanishing. He grabbed her arm, his fingers digging in. The pain was sharp, familiar. The fear bloomed, cold in her stomach.
"You're hurting me!"
"It has to look like you ran away," he muttered, dragging her toward the edge. "But we can't have you talking, can we? Father said… he said to make it clean. The old way."
She saw the heavy chain then, coiled at his feet. Vaelyr runes glinted dully in the moonlight. She fought, then. She scratched, kicked. He swore and backhanded her across the face. Stars exploded in her vision.
The world tilted. The cold, hard planks of the dock hit her back. The weight of him, the clinking of the chain as he wrapped it around her ankles. His panicked, tearful muttering. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's the only way."
Then, the shove.
The shocking, icy embrace of the river. The water rushed in, a black shock. She tried to scream, inhaled liquid. The burning in her lungs was agony. She kicked, but the chain was an iron anchor. She sank like a stone, the greenish moonlight above getting smaller, fading.
The burning built. Her chest was a furnace of need. She clawed at the water, at nothing.
Then… a threshold.
Her body, screaming for air, could fight no more. She stopped struggling.
And peace came.
A profound, blissful silence. The burning faded. The fear melted. The cold became a gentle embrace. The world narrowed to the quiet, weightless dark. It was over. There was no more pain. No more fear of his hands. No more waiting for a love that was a lie. Just… quiet.
Kael/Anya surrendered to it. It was the most peaceful moment of her life.
The vision shattered.
Kael was back in the cold, black river, the Echo's hand on his chest. He convulsed, water rushing into his open mouth. The false peace was ripped away, replaced by the frantic, animal need for air he did not need to breathe. The memory of that peace was a poison in his soul.
No.
He tore his mind away from the seductive quiet. He was not Anya. He was Kael. And his pain was not over.
With a raw, soundless scream of rage—for Anya, for himself—he lashed out. Not with a Grimoire. With his hands.
He clawed at the Echo, his fingers passing through its weeping form. He found the solid, horrible reality beneath. His hands closed around a cold, water-swollen ankle, and the thick, unyielding links of a chain.
The Echo's sorrow transformed. The psychic whisper became a wail of pure, agonized anguish. It was the sound of a grave being desecrated, of sacred misery being disturbed. It flailed at him, but its blows were like gusts of cold wind.
Kael planted his feet in the silt. He focused, drawing Taint into his core. He didn't shape it for a shield. He let it build, then pushed it out in a single, violent burst.
Aegis.
The water around him thumped, a concussive sphere of force that slammed into the Echo and blasted the silt off the riverbed. It shoved Kael upward, away from the bottom, the chained corpse dragging at his grip.
He kicked madly, pulling the dead weight. The green glow of his medallion jounced wildly, illuminating the corpse's rotted shroud. The Echo's wail followed him, a fading cry of loss. He broke the surface with a gasp that was half water, half air, choking and retching.
On the muddy bank, in the grey pre-dawn light, Kael lay on his side, coughing river water onto the stones. His body shook from cold and exertion. The two potions warred in his system, leaving him nauseous and weak.
Next to him lay the thing he had pulled from the deep.
He sat up, wiping his mouth. With stiff fingers, he unwrapped the rotted canvas from the corpse's ankles. The flesh was gone, leaving bones and the stubborn remnants of leather boots. And there, wrapped tightly around the ankle bones, was the chain.
It was thick, black iron. The links were large, each one etched with tiny, precise runes. He leaned closer, his medallion's fading glow illuminating the script.
Vaelyr. He knew it. Every Warden was taught to recognize the ancient script of the people who broke the world. These runes were not decorative.
His training surfaced. He traced a finger over a sequence.
Binding. Silence. Anchor.
Another sequence.
Spirit. Contain. Corrupt.
This was not just a weight to sink a body. This was a ritual implement. A soul-binding chain. Its purpose was to trap Anya's spirit at the site of her murder, to prevent it from moving on, to let it stew in its betrayal and terror. And the Taint in the riverbed, seeped from the broken earth, had done the rest. It had fused with her trapped spirit, creating the Wailing Echo. A specific, predictable kind of monster.
They hadn't just killed her to hide a scandal.
They had used forbidden, ancient magic to turn her into a weapon. A weapon that then, in its tortured, compassionate way, killed others.
Kael looked from the chain to the sad bundle of bones, then up the hill to where the Magistrate's house stood, its windows dark. His shivering stopped. A cold deeper than the river settled into his bones.
His rage, once a formless storm, now had a shape. It was sharp, focused, and lethal.
They didn't just take her life. They used her. They profaned her death to create a monster, then paid a Warden to clean up their mess.
A sacrifice imposed. And then perverted.
He stood, his waterlogged clothes heavy. He carefully coiled the rune-etched chain. He rewrapped Anya's remains in his own cloak. The evidence was in his hands.
The contract said to destroy the monster. He had done that by removing its anchor. The Echo would fade without its tether.
But the contract was the smallest part of this now.
He had felt her die. He had felt the false peace. He knew the truth.
And the truth demanded more than a Guild fee paid in silver.