The road from the capital's smoldering outskirts was littered with the remnants of panic—overturned carts, scorched prayer scrolls, and the stench of seared flesh.
Zara barely felt her legs.
They had walked through the night. Noel insisted they couldn't stay after the Witness's visit. She hadn't argued. Something deeper than fear had pushed her forward—something ancient and vengeful that pulsed through her veins like a second heartbeat.
The dagger at her hip had stopped whispering. But it didn't feel silent.
It felt watchful.
"Where are we headed?" she asked, eyes narrowed against the dim predawn haze.
Noel pulled his hood up. "A sanctuary beneath Ashveil Ridge. One of the old Echo Vaults. Forgotten by most. But not by the Circle."
Zara glanced sideways. "You want to walk us into a trap?"
"No," he said calmly. "I want us to get there first and trigger the failsafe before they do. Besides…" His lips twisted into a grim smile. "There's someone down there who remembers your father. Someone who knows why the Circle wants your voice dead."
Zara flinched.
The word father still sat like iron in her chest.
Her earliest memories of him were fragments: lullabies sung out of tune, long black gloves, a shadowy smile after every bedtime story. Then silence. Then blood.
She shook her head. "You think the man who killed my mother has the answers?"
"I think," Noel said, "you've only been told one side of the story. And in this world, half a truth is more dangerous than a lie."
They passed under a crumbling stone archway—once a grand monument to the Empire's strength. Now it was defaced with runes in a twisted tongue that made Zara's head ache just looking at them.
She rubbed her temples. "Why does the writing burn?"
"It's not written for your eyes," Noel murmured. "That's Painscript. Each rune records the last breath of a dying Archanist. Read too many and your mind begins to fracture under the weight of their memories."
Zara looked at the countless runes engraved along the path. "How many died here?"
"Too many," he said. "And not enough, if the Circle is still standing."
The descent into the ridge was slow.
The sun never rose.
Ashveil had long lost its skies to a curtain of eternal dusk—ash clouds birthed from some long-dead cataclysm no one remembered. Shadows didn't fall right here. They curled the wrong way. Sounds echoed too late. It was a place that hated time.
Zara gripped her dagger tightly as they reached the old gate: an iron maw covered in rust, teeth shaped like screaming faces. She could feel the air shift—cold, electric, thick with unsung memory.
"Wait," she said.
Noel paused mid-step.
"Someone's watching."
He didn't argue. He just nodded once—and vanished.
He didn't turn invisible.
He turned absent—like a line erased from reality.
Zara held her breath. Focused. Then whispered into the wind.
"Come out."
A figure stepped from the fog.
Not from the ridge path.
From behind her.
Zara spun, dagger out.
And froze.
The man before her was tall, cloaked in white and gray. His hood cast a long shadow over his face. But she saw his mouth.
And the way it curled into a smile that used to tuck her into bed.
"Hello, little Echo," the man said. "You've grown."
Her stomach dropped.
"No," she whispered. "You're dead. I saw you—"
"Bleeding on the altar?" he interrupted, stepping forward. "Yes, yes. Very dramatic. But the Circle doesn't let their favorite weapons die so easily."
Her grip faltered. "You're not him."
He reached up and peeled off the skin of his own face.
It stretched like parchment, revealing a chiseled face beneath with glowing blue eyes and stitches running across the jawline.
Zara stumbled back, bile rising in her throat.
"Don't look so horrified," the man said, tossing the skin aside like an old glove. "The real face was useful. Familiar. But the lies it wore were always more beautiful than the truth."
Noel reappeared beside her, blades already drawn. "Skin-Painter," he growled. "Class Four Horror-Mancer. Feeds off facial memory and grief response. Don't let him speak too long."
The Skin-Painter laughed, voice layered—Zara heard dozens of voices behind it. Her mother's. Her old headmaster's. Even her own voice whispered beneath the rest.
"You're afraid," it cooed. "Of the girl you were. Of the power you carry. Afraid that the Circle was right to silence you."
Zara's dagger howled.
A screech like tearing flesh and breaking glass exploded in her skull.
The Echo was screaming again—but this time not in hunger.
In recognition.
She pointed the blade forward, tears hot on her face.
"You killed her. You wore his face. I'll end you."
The Skin-Painter spread his arms. "Then sing, little Echo. Let's see if your soul remembers how."
She lunged.
And the ridge screamed with her.
***
Zara moved without thought—guided by rage, by grief, by something older than either.
The dagger in her hand vibrated violently, its wail slicing through her thoughts. It was no longer a weapon—it was a soul splinter, hungering for justice.
The Skin-Painter surged forward, his body splitting open at the seams. Faces bloomed like flowers along his chest—anguished, screaming, stitched together into a grotesque mosaic. They mouthed words without sound. Zara saw her mother's lips among them.
It broke something in her.
She screamed.
But not in terror.
It was a chord, a note born from a bloodline cursed to forget its own name. Her voice cracked the air like thunder, and the dagger translated her grief into sound—a frequency laced with death.
The echo slammed into the Skin-Painter, peeling skin from muscle, memory from illusion.
He staggered back, hands clawing at the remnants of his face.
Noel leapt from the side, his twin blades slicing low. "Don't let him recover!"
Zara didn't. She charged again, this time fueled by something purer: clarity.
Each step she took burned the ash beneath her. Her vision shifted—colors drained, replaced by pulsing outlines. She could see the fear threaded into the Skin-Painter's limbs, the hesitation beneath his many masks.
She struck.
The dagger didn't stab.
It sank, disappearing into the false flesh like water breaking around a stone. The Skin-Painter gasped—not from pain, but from recognition.
"You… you've awakened it," he croaked, blood leaking from his nostrils. "The Echo... wasn't meant to awaken this soon."
Zara twisted the blade.
"I wasn't meant to watch my mother die either. Life's full of surprises."
The Skin-Painter buckled. A sudden gust of air exploded from his chest, knocking Zara backward.
Noel caught her mid-fall.
But where the horror-mancer had stood, only a pile of skin remained—crumpled, as if he'd been sucked inside himself.
Zara panted, heart hammering. Her hands trembled.
"I didn't kill him," she said, voice hoarse.
Noel nodded grimly. "No. He fled. They always do when you speak true."
She wiped her blade on her sleeve. "What did he mean? That the Echo wasn't supposed to awaken?"
"Your gift is ancient," Noel said. "A lost branch of power. Not just inherited—bound. The Circle's fear of you isn't just superstition. It's prophecy."
She blinked at him. "What prophecy?"
He hesitated.
Then turned away, walking to the iron gate. "Come. The vault waits. If you want answers… you'll find them inside. Along with your father's real face."
That word again.
Zara followed him, slower this time. The adrenaline had faded, leaving behind only aching limbs and a brain trying to rebuild itself.
As they descended the ridge stairs, a cold began to rise—not of temperature, but memory.
Each step down felt like sinking deeper into someone else's nightmare.
The stairs ended at a door—a black circle of obsidian engraved with a single symbol.
Zara recognized it.
Her mother had drawn it once in the sand, then quickly erased it when Zara asked what it meant.
Memory is a weapon.
She stepped forward. The door pulsed in response, reacting to her presence.
"You open it," Noel said. "It's blood-locked. Soul-bound."
Zara raised her palm.
As it touched the stone, the symbol ignited, searing red.
The door dissolved—not slid, not cracked—but simply ceased to exist.
They entered.
The vault wasn't what she expected.
No stone, no bones, no dust.
Instead, it was a grand cathedral hollowed into the mountain, lit by flames that burned upward from pools in the ceiling. Rows of empty pews faced a towering altar carved from polished bone. Upon it, a throne—and upon the throne, a man.
He was draped in black robes, face veiled by golden chains.
"Zara of the Hollow Tongue," the man spoke, voice distant, as if echoing from multiple timelines. "Daughter of Calen, the Echo-Keeper. You have bled. You have heard. Now… you must remember."
Zara's legs nearly gave out.
"I don't know you."
"But I know you." He rose slowly. "And I knew your father, long before he wore the Circle's brand."
Noel stepped beside her, bowing briefly. "This is the Curator. Last of the Archive-Bearers."
Zara faced the Curator, her voice steadier than she expected. "Then tell me the truth. All of it. Why did my father kill my mother? Why does the Circle hunt me? Why do I hear screams in my dreams and feel power in my rage?"
The Curator smiled beneath his veil.
"Because your voice is not just a weapon. It is a mirror—reflecting the soul of the world. And the world has grown… monstrous."
He gestured to the altar.
Upon it, a book sat open.
Its pages bled ink.
And on the very first line, written in blood Zara recognized as her own:
"This is the truth that was buried. This is the scream they tried to silence."
Zara stepped forward.
And read.