Nu'Ravin shifted.
Not with the subtle distortions Echo had grown used to. Not the quiet rearranging of streets or the whispers beneath its bones.
This was different.
The city remembered.
And it was angry.
Echo gasped as the silver key shattered against his chest, the fragments dissolving into the air like dust caught in firelight. His reflection stood across from him, unmoving, watching as the reality around them twisted. The empty seats in the theater melted into darkness. The execution chair groaned, ropes snapping free, splintering into ash.
Then came the hum.
Low. Ancient. Resonating from deep beneath the pavement.
Nu'Ravin was awakening.
Echo stumbled back, heart pounding as he turned toward the stage's edge. He needed to run. Needed to escape before the memories swallowed him whole.
A hand caught his wrist.
Not his reflection's.
Thalia.
She was there, stepping between him and the unraveling city, her grip firm but not cruel. Her silver eyes flickered with something unreadable—concern, calculation, maybe regret.
"You need to listen," she said.
Echo wrenched his wrist free, breathing uneven. "The city—"
"Is responding to you," Thalia interrupted, voice steady. "To what you've remembered. You broke the final lock, Echo. There's no escaping this now."
Behind her, the darkness solidified.
Figures emerged—not fully formed, not flesh, but something close. Their bodies were inked in shadows, their faces blurred as if seen through fogged glass. Some stood. Some kneeled. And in the center—
The throne.
Not the illusion of the ballroom.
The real throne.
The seat Echo had abandoned.
The structure was shifting as if breathing—stitched from threads of memory-ink, adorned with symbols he had once carved into the minds of those who had pledged themselves to him. The air trembled as Echo looked at it, and for the first time, he felt something beyond fear.
Recognition.
A piece of him that belonged there.
Thalia stepped forward, placing herself between him and the throne. "The city remembers who you are. The game is resetting. If you sit on that throne, it starts again."
Echo clenched his fists. "And if I don't?"
Thalia's jaw tightened. "Then someone else takes your place."
The words chilled him.
Echo turned to the shadowed figures—his former court, bound to his influence. They were waiting. Watching.
But they weren't alone.
One of them was different.
One of them was whole.
A single figure stood apart from the rest, untouched by the ink of the throne, untainted by the shadows curling across the theater. Their form was solid, their breathing steady.
A girl.
No older than sixteen.
Dark hair, tangled with crimson ribbons.
A scar beneath her left eye.
Echo's breath hitched.
Lani.
She was alive.
She wasn't a reflection, wasn't an echo, wasn't a shattered fragment of memory trying to claw its way back into existence.
She was here.
And her eyes burned with something Echo hadn't seen in anyone else.
Defiance.
"You made this city," Lani said, stepping forward, voice steady. "And you abandoned it. Now it's asking you to choose."
Echo couldn't breathe.
Thalia didn't move.
The city rumbled beneath them.
And the throne pulsed, waiting.
***
Echo's pulse pounded in his ears, drowning out the distant hum of Nu'Ravin's shifting streets. Lani stood before him, whole and undeniable, her defiance sharper than the blade she had once thrust into his side. The throne behind her pulsed with raw memory—aching, desperate. The city wanted resolution.
Thalia didn't move. She was watching him closely, waiting to see what choice he would make.
Echo swallowed hard. "How are you here?"
Lani's expression didn't change. "Because I was never gone. You buried me beneath this city, beneath its rules, beneath the games you thought you could control. But I fought my way back."
Echo's breath hitched. He had rewritten her. He had erased her. Yet she stood before him.
"You weren't supposed to survive," he murmured.
Lani's lips curled into something bitter. "And yet, here I am. Did you ever ask yourself why your memories kept unraveling? Why the city refused to fully obey you?"
Echo didn't respond.
Lani took a slow step forward, her dark hair shifting as a breeze whispered through the ruined theater. "Because I never truly lost. You rewrote me, but I left something behind. A thread. A memory too stubborn to die."
Echo clenched his fists. He wanted to deny it. Wanted to tell her she was wrong. But deep down, something in him knew the truth.
"You could take the throne back," Thalia interjected, voice measured but heavy. "If you sit, the city will bend to you again. The game will reset. You can erase her once more."
Echo shuddered at the thought. The temptation was there—control, certainty, the ability to lock away the pieces of himself that hurt the most.
But his memories weren't just returning. They were changing.
Echo had spent so long believing he was the master of this game. That he had shaped the rules, dictated the plays. But now—now he saw it.
The city had been fighting back.
And Lani had been its weapon.
She had done the impossible—she had rewritten *him*.
Echo looked back at the throne. The inked threads shifted, waiting, eager for him to sit.
For the first time, he hesitated.
"I can't go back," he whispered.
Thalia's jaw tightened. "Then you'll have to fight for your place in the city. If you won't take the throne, someone else will."
Echo exhaled, the weight of Nu'Ravin pressing against his lungs.
Lani tilted her head slightly. "So choose, Echo. What kind of king are you going to be?"
Echo met her gaze. And for the first time since waking in the asylum, he truly saw her. Not as an enemy, not as a pawn, but as the only person who had ever managed to break his grip on reality.
The city rumbled.
The inked figures of the Red Court stirred.
And a voice—low, ancient, patient—whispered beneath his skin.
**It's time.**
Echo stepped forward, away from the throne. Away from the choice he had spent a lifetime trying to control.
Thalia's eyes narrowed. "You're refusing it?"
Lani watched him closely. "You finally understand, don't you?"
Echo nodded, slow, measured. The game wasn't about power. It wasn't about ruling over minds. It was about *memory*. About *control*. About rewriting the past to suit the present.
And he was done playing by old rules.
The throne shuddered violently, cracks splitting across its surface. The inked figures collapsed, their forms dissolving into fragments of lost thought. The city trembled as Nu'Ravin itself shifted.
Thalia cursed under her breath.
Lani's smile was razor-sharp.
Echo stood tall. "The Mind-Eater doesn't need a throne."
Nu'Ravin roared.
The rules broke.
And the game changed forever.