It started with a dream.
No—not a dream. A memory that didn't belong to me.
I stood at the edge of a burning city. Not Hollowhearth. Older. Towering spires crumbling in crimson light. Above, the sky was cracked like glass, and something ancient howled through the air like wind—but deeper. Like flame given voice.
I turned. A shadow walked toward me.
No crown. No mask.
Just… a boy.
Hair dark as cinder, eyes the color of lightning through smoke. He looked barely older than I was now. He looked like—
"Vaerin?" I asked.
But the boy shook his head.
"No," he said softly. "I was the first. But I am not what returns."
He raised a hand.
"You are."
I woke choking on smoke.
Only, there wasn't any—not in the tent, not in the air around us. But the emberstone pulsed hot in my hand, and the sigils on my palm had shifted. They no longer glowed gold.
They glowed white.
Sira was already watching me when I stepped outside.
"You dreamed," she said.
I didn't answer. I didn't have to.
She nodded grimly. "The Echo is not just remembering. He's reaching."
Later that day, as we crossed the Ashfell Divide heading back toward Emberthorn, a silence settled over the group. Not tension exactly—just the kind of hush that comes when everyone knows something is changing.
Riven walked beside me.
"You've been... quiet."
"Trying not to dream while awake," I muttered.
She raised a brow. "You had the dream again."
"Not just a dream. He's inside something. Waiting. But not in some distant prison—here. Beneath us. Like Hollowhearth isn't built on ruins—it's built on a tomb."
"Or a door," Riven said.
I didn't reply.
Because she was right.
That night, back at the academy, we met again in Obsidian Hall.
The Circle sat in a full ring now. Seven seats, filled.
Asher unrolled a map—an older one, one the professors didn't show students.
"Here," he said, pointing to the chasm beneath the central tower. "This place doesn't appear on any current diagrams. But it's always been there."
Tara leaned forward. "It's not a fault line."
"It's a lock," Elina whispered.
Dorian stood. "Then we need a key."
Everyone turned to look at me.
I didn't speak. I just raised my hand and let the sigils burn white.
Journal entry – Elira of Hollowhearth
The Echo isn't sealed anymore. Not fully.He speaks through fire. Through memory. Through me.The Circle is complete, but the lock was made for a different age. A different bearer.
I fear that when the time comes to choose—It won't be between light and dark.It will be between flame... and forgetting.