The chamber of the next trial was unlike any Sorin had entered before. It was vast and hollow, its walls curving high into darkness, as though carved from the ribs of a forgotten titan.
Every sound here lingered—footsteps stretched too long, a single breath multiplied into many. Even silence itself seemed heavy, as though waiting to fracture under its own weight.
Sorin stepped forward, his own tread echoing behind him like the footsteps of another. He froze, and the sound froze with him, suspended in the air like glass about to shatter.
For a moment, he felt the Ember Walk still clinging to him, fire woven deep into his marrow, now met by this chamber where sound itself bent and twisted. Ash and silence, flame and echo—the trials were no longer separate, but threads of the same weave tightening around him.
From the shadows emerged a figure draped in robes of woven silver threads, the patterns shifting like ripples in water. His face was lean, sharp, eyes gleaming with knowledge both cruel and kind. He did not raise his voice, yet every word rolled through the chamber as though spoken by a thousand mouths.
"I am Vessryn," the man intoned, "keeper of the Trial of Echoes. Here, silence is not enough. You must answer what returns to you. You must face yourself as sound made flesh."
Sorin's lips parted, instinctively, though words felt foreign. He had only begun to wield his voice again after years of silence, and now that fragile gift was being summoned, tested, demanded.
The chamber trembled. His own breath rebounded from the walls, but it did not return as he expected. Instead, a voice rose to meet him—his own voice, but sharpened, accusing.
"You endured the Ember Walk, but did you burn away your weakness, or only bury it deeper?"
Sorin's chest tightened. He took a step back, but the echo advanced, stepping forward from the dark as though peeled from his body.
It was him—his face, his stance—but the eyes burned brighter, crueler, alive with every doubt he had swallowed in silence.
Vessryn's gaze did not waver. "Every path leaves residue. Fire leaves ash. Silence leaves weight. Here, both return. Face them, or be devoured by your own unspoken truth."
Sorin clenched his fists. His silence had always been shield and prison alike, but here, it was no longer his alone. His unspoken fears had voice, his hidden grief had form. The Trial of Echoes was not a test of power—it was a reckoning.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, as his echo stepped closer, Sorin thought of Zira. The faint warmth of her touch the night before lingered, steadying him.
The silence they shared had been a bridge. Now, he would need to decide if it could also become an answer.