They buried what remained of the Echoed with salt and pine ash, as the old rites instructed. Evelyn didn't believe in the rites anymore, not really—but it felt wrong to leave it there. Even if it had worn her voice like a cloak.
They moved on in silence, weaving deeper into the ragged belly of the forest. The trees grew twisted, the canopy low, roots pushing up like ribs from the earth.
That night, they found a hollow beneath an ancient root web, and built a low fire. Evelyn curled close, but sleep would not come. The flames whispered like old friends.
Evelyn…
She sat up, heart hammering. "Torren?"
His breathing was steady. He was asleep.
The voice came again. Softer. Familiar.
Not from without. From within.
It was her voice. But not just an echo. Not like the Echoed.
This one… knew her. Knew her as if it had always been there. Waiting.
She stood, half-dreaming, half-aware, and stepped beyond the firelight. The trees parted without wind. The silence was absolute. She pressed her palm against her chest where the shard had burned days ago.
A pulse.
Not her heartbeat. Something else. A second rhythm—quieter, deeper. Rooted.
She stumbled to her knees beside a small stream, hands pressed into the wet moss. The sound of water masked something beneath it.
Come and see.
The voice had changed. It no longer sounded like her. Nor her mother. Nor anything human.
Evelyn reached into the water without thinking.
Her fingers closed around something cold. Metallic. She pulled it free.
A shard of core crystal.
Not the one she'd swallowed. Not fractured. Not inert.
This one pulsed. Dimly. As if trying to remember itself.
She stared into it.
A field of flame.
A silver-eyed woman walking between burning stars.
You are not yet what you were. But the fire remembers.
The crystal flashed—bright and hot—and Evelyn gasped, falling backward into the moss.
Torren was beside her in an instant, sword half-drawn.
"What happened? Evelyn—!"
She clutched the shard to her chest. Her skin smoked where it touched her.
"I didn't go looking," she whispered.
Torren looked between her and the water. "Did something attack you?"
"No." Her voice trembled. "It called me."
He reached for the crystal.
"Don't." She pulled back. "It doesn't want you."
Torren stared at her like he didn't recognize the girl he'd fled Isenhold with. Then, after a moment: "We're finding the next Warden post. There's no more waiting."
She nodded. But part of her already knew—
—there wouldn't be a Warden post to find.
Not whole, anyway.