Chapter Summary:
With Liora's influence growing and the council divided, Echo realizes she must confront the prophecy at its source. Accompanied by Kael and a small, trusted escort, she journeys to the Frostbound Sanctum — a forbidden ruin buried beneath the oldest glacier. But what she finds there is not just the origin of the prophecy… it's a memory the world was never meant to recover.
Chapter 107: Sanctum of Secrets
The Frostbound Sanctum wasn't on any map.
Carved deep beneath the Everfrost Glacier, it was said to house the oldest memories of the world — and the truths too dangerous to speak aloud.
"Are you sure about this?" Kael asked, his voice low as the wind howled through the icy canyon.
"No," Echo replied, her cloak flaring behind her. "But I'm done playing defense."
They arrived at the crevice just before dawn, when the cold air was sharp enough to cut skin and breath turned to ice in the throat.
Echo placed her hand against the frozen wall, and the stone responded — faint runes glowing beneath the surface.
"It knows me," she whispered.
Kael frowned. "That's what worries me."
The entrance split with a hiss of vapor, revealing stairs that spiraled down into darkness. Frost kissed every step, and the air grew colder the deeper they descended.
Only Echo's presence seemed to keep the Sanctum alive.
"Why would a place like this respond to me?" she murmured, touching the walls as glowing glyphs flared beneath her fingers.
"Because it remembers," Kael said, eyes wary. "And so do you."
"What?"
"You've always felt like you didn't belong in Flamehold. Maybe you never truly did."
Echo paused.
"You think I'm part Frostbound?"
Kael nodded slowly. "Or more than that. You may be the bridge this prophecy speaks of — not just symbolically."
She didn't answer. Not yet.
The Sanctum's core chamber was vast — a dome of ice and crystal with a single pulsing monolith at its center.
It pulsed with strange light, both blue and gold.
Two flames, trapped together.
Echo stepped forward. The moment she touched the monolith, her mind fractured.
A memory not her own flooded in:
A man of flame, crowned in gold, and a woman of frost, veiled in snow.
They stood on opposite ends of a great battlefield.
He extended a hand. She placed hers in his.
Around them, the world held its breath.
"We will pay the price," the woman said.
"So our child will be free," the man replied.
"And if the world forgets?"
"Then they will remember again. When the time comes."
The vision shattered.
Echo stumbled back, gasping.
Kael caught her.
"What did you see?"
"I think… I think the prophecy already happened once."
His eyes widened. "What?"
"There was a union. A child. A sacrifice. The prophecy isn't a warning — it's a cycle."
She turned back to the monolith.
"They did this before. Tried to unite fire and frost. But something went wrong."
"Or someone made sure it did."
They searched the rest of the Sanctum, finding records — etched in crystal, preserved in frost.
Echo read them aloud:
The child of the First Flame and Last Frost was hidden.
Marked by two gifts. Hunted by both bloodlines.
They sealed the memory to protect the world from what it could not accept.
Kael's expression hardened. "Liora wants to control that legacy."
"She thinks if she prevents our union, she can stop the prophecy."
"Or rewrite it in her image."
Echo stared into the frozen wall.
"She doesn't realize… this prophecy was never about destruction. It was about fear. Fear of change. Fear of balance."
Before they left the Sanctum, Echo reached again for the monolith.
It flared brightly.
A new symbol appeared in the ice — a circle of fire and frost interlocked.
Kael traced it with his finger.
"I've seen this before. On the cover of an old Frostbound spellbook."
"It's not a warning," Echo whispered. "It's a sigil. A mark of the one meant to end the cycle."
"And if that's you?"
She met his gaze.
"Then I'll finish what they started — no matter what Liora does."
When they returned to the surface, the wind had shifted.
A raven waited on a frost-covered branch — a Frostbound messenger.
Echo opened the scroll it carried.
"You have one week to surrender the Heartflame. Or we take it by force."
—Liora
Kael read over her shoulder.
"She's not waiting for the council. She's mobilizing an army."
Echo crushed the scroll in her fist.
"Then let her come. The fire in me doesn't fear the cold."