Chapter Summary:
Echo finally comes face-to-face with Alara Vayne in the heart of enemy territory. But what begins as a reunion quickly turns into a terrifying revelation about the origin of the Frostbound—and the dark truth about Echo's own bloodline that could either save or doom the entire world.
Chapter 97: The Face of the Frostbound
The glacial hollow was silent.
Even the wind refused to enter this place.
Echo stepped cautiously down the ice-carved slope, Kael just behind her, his blade hidden beneath his cloak. The torchlight they carried flickered and dimmed the farther they walked—as if the very air around them devoured flame.
Then she saw her.
Standing at the center of the hollow.
Alara Vayne.
Alive.
Wrapped in frost-darkened robes, her once-fiery hair now streaked with silver, her face pale but calm. The scar across her temple looked deeper now, almost burned in. Her one gloved hand clutched a staff of broken emberwood.
"Echo," she said softly. "You came."
Echo's voice cracked. "You're alive…"
Alara nodded, but her eyes were different. Sadder. Older.
"Barely."
Kael stepped forward. "How are you here? We saw your body. We buried you."
"You buried a shell," Alara said, looking at him. "Not a corpse. They took me before the flame inside me died."
Echo's breath hitched. "They turned you?"
Alara smiled sadly. "No. They tried. But some fires don't freeze easily."
They sat beneath a low arch of ice, in a hollow that Alara called The Still Place—a region between the Frostbound's inner sanctum and the outer wilds. A no-man's-land, watched only by the cold.
"I couldn't send more messages," Alara said. "They would have traced them. I only risked the one because I saw Cairn in their ranks again."
"He's a defector now," Echo said. "He's… trying."
"I hope he remembers who he was."
Echo looked at her directly. "Why now, Alara? Why reach out after three years?"
Alara turned her eyes to the walls of ice around them. Frozen in the surface were faces—dozens of them. Men, women, children.
"They're not dead," she said. "Not exactly. The Frostbound doesn't kill like we do."
Kael's hand twitched on his dagger. "Explain."
"They feed on life essence," Alara whispered. "But not all at once. They preserve the soul, draining it slowly. Memory, flame, will… it all goes piece by piece. Until what's left is just a vessel. A husk."
"Like the masked ones," Echo muttered. "That's what they are."
Alara nodded. "Some were once Emberguard. Even nobles. Turned into things that serve frost without ever knowing they've been hollowed out."
Kael's face had gone pale. "That's why the fire dims in their presence…"
"Because they've inverted the essence of life," Alara said. "They've created a mimicry of flame—cold flame—that starves the real thing."
Echo looked into the ice again. One of the frozen faces looked familiar.
Her breath caught.
"Is that… my uncle?"
Alara didn't answer.
"Is that my uncle, Alara?!"
"Yes," she said, barely above a whisper. "He was captured during the summit. They didn't kill him. They bound him."
Echo staggered back. "Why would they keep him alive?"
Alara met her eyes, and in that moment, the air seemed to crackle with a darker energy.
"Because of you."
Echo stared, ice pressing against her lungs.
"Me?"
Alara nodded. "Your bloodline carries something older than flame. Your mother's side—yes, they were embers. But your father was something else. Something ancient."
"My father was a traitor."
"No," Alara said firmly. "Your father was a guardian. Of a secret even the Ember Kings feared."
Kael stepped forward. "Enough riddles. Tell us the truth."
Alara sighed.
"There was a time, long before Ember and Frost, when the world was governed by what we now call Primal Forces—Flame, Ice, Stone, and Sky. Each one bound to bloodlines. You, Echo, are the last living heir of both Flame and something colder."
Echo's pulse throbbed in her ears. "So I'm… what? A hybrid?"
"You're the Key."
"The key to what?"
"To unlocking the Frostbound's original form—or sealing it away forever."
Kael turned to Echo. "We're leaving. Now."
But Alara stood.
"They'll come for her now, Kael. They'll smell her in the wind. If you take her back unprepared, they'll follow."
"Then what do we do?" Echo asked. "Let them take me?"
"No," Alara said, her eyes glowing faintly with inner flame. "You train. You remember who you are. Who your parents really were. You let me show you the truth about your fire."
Outside, the wind shifted.
Kael cursed, drawing his blade.
"They've found us."
From the shadows of the glacial ridge, figures began to emerge.
Not men. Not entirely.
Hollow-eyed. Masked. Walking without sound.
Frostbound Sentinels.
Alara turned to Echo. "Your flame won't work on them."
Echo looked down at her hands, suddenly unsure.
"But your blood will."
Alara thrust her staff into the ice.
It shattered like glass.
"Follow me!"
They plunged downward, into the hidden tunnels of the ancient frost beneath the Hollow.
Behind them, the Sentinels howled, and the walls sealed with a burst of smoke and flame.
In the darkness, Alara lit a single ember.
It hovered between her hands, pulsing not red… but silver.
Echo stared. "That's not normal flame."
"No," Alara said. "It's memory. Fire tied to blood. Only those of royal lineage can use it."
She handed it to Echo.
It hovered in her palm.
And for the first time since her mother died…
Echo felt warm.