The taste of bile and terror was sharp in Morwen's mouth. She wiped her lips with the back of a trembling hand, her knuckles white. The void inside her was gone, not filled, but violently displaced by the searing, electric reality of nearly being unmade. She had wanted oblivion, but not like that. Not by that.
She looked at Kaelan as he stumbled to a halt beside her, blood trickling from his nose, his face pale with exhaustion. He had done that. He had not fought with stolen power. He had… conducted. He had used the world itself as a weapon. The Librarian's lesson was not just theory.
And he had saved her. Not because she was useful. But because she was there.
The calculation that had defined her entire existence recalibrated in that instant. The variables had changed. Drastically.
Malachi.
The name was a cold brand in her mind. She knew of him, by reputation only. A theorist, a radical Weaver who had written treatises on "Resonance Purification" before the Collapse. He had been considered brilliant, unhinged, and ultimately irrelevant. But he had survived. And in the Echoing, his unhinged theories had found fertile ground. He wasn't just a Reaver; he was their intellectual author. Their god.
And he wanted Kaelan. Not to use as a blunt instrument, as she had. But as a "master key." To unlock the deepest foundations of this world and break them to his will.
Kaelan was leaning against a rock, breathing heavily. "We need to move. He won't be down for long."
His voice was steady, but she heard the tremor of exhaustion beneath it. The new way was powerful, but it cost him dearly in focus and strength.
Morwen pushed herself upright, forcing the last of the nausea down. The numbness was gone, burned away by adrenaline. In its place was a cold, sharp clarity. She met his gaze, and for the first time, she spoke to him as an equal. The pretense was over.
"His name is Malachi," she said, her voice regaining some of its old rasp, but none of its former condescension. "He's not a thug. He's a scientist. A revolutionary. He doesn't want to plunder the Echoing; he wants to reprogram it. Your ability… it's the missing component in his design. He will never stop looking for you."
Kaelan absorbed this, his expression grim. "Then we can't just run. We have to understand what he's doing. We have to stop him."
The "we" hung in the air between them, solid and undeniable.
"He's building something," Morwen said, her mind clicking back into its analytical gear, but now with a new, shared purpose. "That gate wasn't just a barrier. It was a… a tuning fork. He's stabilizing a region, imposing his own resonant frequency on it, making it a territory he can completely control. He's not just claiming land; he's rewriting its fundamental nature."
"He said he was 'fixing' it," Kaelan recalled.
"His definition of 'fix' likely involves removing any resonance he deems inefficient. Or rebellious." She looked back toward the pass, her eyes seeing the invisible architecture of Malachi's work. "He will have other sites. Nodes in a network. We need to find them. Map them. Understand his plan."
It was a staggering undertaking. Two people against what was clearly an organized, powerful force.
"Why?" Kaelan asked, the question simple and profound. "Why would you help me stop him? You have what you wanted. You're free of me." He gestured to the empty landscape. "You can go."
Morwen was silent for a long moment. She looked at her hands, the hands that had woven and killed and grasped for a ghost.
"I am not free," she said, her voice low. "I am empty. My purpose is gone. But that man…" She looked toward the pass, and a fierce, cold hatred ignited in her grey eyes. "That man looked at me and saw an obstacle. A loose thread to be snipped. He saw no value in my life, my loss, my pain. He only saw a problem to be solved." She clenched her fists. "I have spent too long being used by forces I didn't understand. Perhaps it is time to use my understanding against one."
It wasn't about justice. It wasn't about saving the Echoing. It was about spite. About drawing a line. It was the only purpose she had left.
Kaelan nodded. He understood. It was enough.
"Then we work together," he said. "For real this time. You're the Weaver. You understand resonance, architecture, his methods. I'm the Scribe. I can…" He struggled for the word. "I can listen to what he's doing. I can hear the flaws."
"A partnership," Morwen stated, testing the word. It felt foreign on her tongue.
"An alliance," Kaelan corrected. "Against a common enemy."
It was an unquiet pact, forged not in trust, but in mutual need and a shared, burning anger. It was enough to build on.
Morwen took a deep breath, the planner in her taking over. "First, we need to get out of his immediate reach. Then, we need to find a source of intelligence. Reavers talk. They have camps, supply lines. We need to listen."
"I can do that," Kaelan said. "The listening."
"And I can make sure we're not heard," Morwen replied, a faint, grim shadow of her old competence returning to her features. She held out her hand, not in friendship, but in contract.
Kaelan looked at it for a moment, then reached out and grasped her forearm in the way of soldiers, not friends. Her grip was strong, cold. A deal with the devil he knew.
The pact was sealed.
They moved, not deeper into the mountains, but laterally, skirting the foothills. Morwen led now, but differently. She didn't dictate; she consulted. "The resonance here is cluttered, chaotic. Good for hiding our signature. What do you hear?"
Kaelan would close his eyes, straining. "The chaos is… layered. There's a high, panicked frequency from above—a nesting cliff-dweller, scared of something below. And below… a low, patient hum. Something waiting. We should go between. Follow the neutral ground."
It was clumsy. Exhausting. But it was working. They were reading the world together, weaving a path through its dangers like a needle through thread.
After hours of travel, with the light fading once more, Morwen held up a hand. "There. A Reaver patrol."
Ahead, in a narrow gully, three of the masked figures were camped around a small, dissonance-fueled fire that gave off no heat, only a disturbing, wavering light. They were arguing, their distorted voices buzzing with discontent.
"...told us to hold this worthless scree," one grumbled. "While the Ascendants get all the glory at the Spire."
"The Spire's the key," another buzzed. "Once the Master syncs the Spire to the network, this whole sector will be under the new frequency. No more wild echoes. No more hiding."
"Yeah, and what'll we eat then?" the first one countered. "Processed resonance? Tuned energy? I like the hunt."
Kaelan and Morwen looked at each other. The Spire. A key node.
"We need to get closer," Morwen murmured. "I need to hear the specific resonant signature they're using. I can trace it back to its source, find other nodes."
It was a huge risk.
"I'll do it," Kaelan said. "You're better at tracing. I'm better at… not being heard."
He didn't wait for her agreement. He focused, drawing on the lessons of the Library. He didn't try to make himself invisible. Instead, he reached out to the resonance of the rocks around him, the dust, the air—the simple, neutral, boring frequencies of the world. He didn't Record them. He wrapped himself in them, making his own presence seem like a part of the background static of the Echoing.
It was the most difficult thing he had ever done. He became a whisper in a room full of shouts.
He crept forward, inch by inch, while Morwen watched, her expression unreadable.
He got close enough to feel the grating dissonance of the Reavers' fire. He could hear their conversation clearly now. He focused on the specific, ugly frequency of their gear, their masks, their fire—the signature of Malachi's work.
He held it in his mind, a complex, hateful chord. He imprinted every nuance of it.
Then, as silently as he came, he retreated.
Back at Morwen's side, he was shaking with effort, his vision spotted. "Did you get it?" he gasped.
Morwen's eyes were closed, her fingers moving slightly as if plucking strings in the air. "Yes," she whispered. "I have the signature. It's… complex. Brutal. But I can feel other points on the network now. Fainter. Like stars coming out at twilight." She opened her eyes. There was no triumph, only a cold, focused determination. "I can map it."
Kaelan slumped against the rock, spent.
They had a lead. They had a direction. They had an enemy.
The war had begun.