The First Seal did not attack.
It did not roar, burn, or strike the way Aerin had half-expected. Instead, it waited—rotating in its slow, wounded orbit, shedding fragments of light that vanished before touching the ground. The basin around it felt like the eye of a storm, unnaturally calm, every sound swallowed the moment it was born.
Aerin stepped forward.
With each step, the pressure intensified—not on his body, but on his sense of self. Memories flickered at the edges of his vision: his childhood village, the night the stars fell too close, the first time the mark burned into his chest. None of it felt distant. The Seal was not showing him the past.
It was weighing it.
Behind him, Lyra tried to follow—and slammed into an invisible barrier.
"Aerin!" she shouted, palm pressed against empty air. "I can't—there's something blocking me."
Kael tested the barrier with the flat of his blade. The metal vibrated violently, forcing him back. "This thing doesn't want witnesses."
Veyrin's expression darkened. "No," he said quietly. "It wants honesty."
The basin floor shifted.
Stone flowed like liquid, rising into tall, smooth pillars that formed a wide circle around Aerin. The world beyond blurred, muted, until the Seal and the pillars were all that remained. Then the pillars began to change.
They became people.
Not illusions—reflections.
Aerin staggered as familiar faces emerged from the stone: villagers he had known, strangers he had passed without helping, soldiers whose deaths he had indirectly caused during his flight from the capital. Each one bore eyes filled with accusation—or worse, disappointment.
"I didn't know," Aerin whispered.
One of the figures stepped forward. A young boy, no older than ten. His face was pale, his chest marked faintly with a star-shaped scar.
"You could have," the boy said.
The words struck harder than any blade.
The Seal pulsed.
The Echo inside Aerin surged in response, flooding his senses with power—raw, vast, intoxicating. For a brief, terrifying moment, he understood how the First Age had fallen. How easy it would be to decide that the world simply needed correcting.
He clenched his fists.
"No," he said. "That's not choice. That's escape."
The reflections reacted instantly. Some faded. Others hardened, becoming sharper, more solid.
A voice emerged—not singular, but layered, as if countless wills were speaking in careful unison.
State your intent, Bearer of the Echo.
Aerin swallowed. His throat felt raw.
"I don't want dominion," he said. "I don't want to rule, or reset the world, or decide who deserves to exist."
The pillars trembled.
Then why are you here?
Aerin closed his eyes.
"Because doing nothing is also a choice," he said. "And I refuse to let fear decide for me."
Silence followed—heavy, measuring.
The Seal brightened, cracks glowing like veins filled with molten starlight. The basin floor split open, revealing a vast expanse beneath—an endless field of frozen moments, countless figures suspended in time just like the failed Starborn outside.
Aerin gasped.
"So many…"
Each one stood where you stand, the Seal intoned. Each one believed their reason sufficient.
A vision surged into him.
He saw a woman reinforce the Seal centuries ago, sacrificing an entire coastal realm to eternal stillness. He saw a warlord shatter part of it, unleashing a celestial predator that devoured nations before being sealed again at unimaginable cost. No choice was free. No choice was clean.
Pain blossomed behind Aerin's eyes. Blood trickled from his nose, splattering onto the stone.
Outside the barrier, Lyra screamed his name.
"Aerin, something's wrong—your mark—!"
The Seal ignored her.
Your Echo is incomplete, it said. You are not meant to decide alone.
Aerin's heart skipped.
"What does that mean?"
The pillars shifted again, reshaping into new figures—Lyra, Kael, Veyrin.
But wrong.
Lyra stood crowned in silver flame, eyes cold, detached. Kael wore armor forged of starlight, his blade dripping with blood that evaporated before touching the ground. Veyrin loomed taller than mountains, his staff piercing the sky itself.
These are the paths they may walk because of you, the Seal said. Or because of your failure.
Aerin fell to his knees.
"I don't want this," he whispered. "I never asked for it."
For the first time, the Seal hesitated.
None of us were asked.
The Echo flared violently, reacting not to command, but to emotion. Power spilled outward, cracking the pillars, destabilizing the basin. The barrier around them shuddered.
Outside, Kael felt it—a sudden pressure release. "The field's weakening!"
Lyra slammed both hands against it, pouring raw will into the contact. "Aerin, listen to me! You don't have to be perfect—just be here!"
Her voice cut through the storm inside him.
Aerin looked up.
For the first time since entering the basin, he reached back instead of forward. He stopped resisting the Echo—and stopped surrendering to it. He held it, the way one might hold fire cupped between trembling hands.
"I choose restraint," he said aloud. "Not reinforcement. Not destruction."
The Seal reacted violently.
Light exploded outward, forcing Lyra and Kael back as the barrier shattered. The sky above the basin fractured, stars warping into unfamiliar alignments.
This choice is unstable, the Seal warned. It will demand correction.
"Then let it," Aerin said, voice steady despite the pain tearing through him. "I'll bear it."
The ring slowed.
Its cracks sealed—not fully, but enough. The frozen figures beneath the basin shifted slightly, time creeping back into their limbs like breath returning to drowned lungs.
A scream echoed—from somewhere far beyond the hills.
Something had felt the change.
Aerin collapsed as the Echo burned itself deeper into his being, carving channels that would never heal the same way again.
Lyra caught him before he hit the ground.
Kael stared at the sky, dread written across his face. "Tell me that didn't just wake something up."
Veyrin closed his eyes.
"It did," he said. "And worse…"
He looked at Aerin.
"The Seal has marked him in return."
Above them, one star dimmed.
Another—new and unfamiliar—ignited in its place.