The silence was wrong. Not peace. Not calm. It was the kind of quiet that came before something decided to kill you.Elias stood with his arms outstretched, palms open, as if holding back the sky itself. The air around him felt thin, stretched tight like glass about to shatter.Seren whispered, barely audible, “Elias… say something.”He couldn’t. The hollow inside his chest burned not with pain, but absence. Where the Echo had once roared, there was now a vast, aching space pulling at everything near it.Especially Lyra. She gasped, clutching her chest, knees buckling. “Lyra!” Seren cried, grabbing her before she hit the stone.Lyra’s voice shook. “It’s… listening.”Caedia’s staff trembled violently in her grip. “No. This shouldn’t be possible.”The Reliquary loomed over the ruined palace, ribs grinding as it shifted, ancient bone scraping against collapsed towers. The column of light from its core flickered unstable now, searching.Searching for purchase. Elias forced his voice out.

The silence was wrong. Not peace. Not calm. It was the kind of quiet that came before something decided to kill you.Elias stood with his arms outstretched, palms open, as if holding back the sky itself. The air around him felt thin, stretched tight like glass about to shatter.Seren whispered, barely audible, “Elias… say something.”He couldn’t. The hollow inside his chest burned not with pain, but absence. Where the Echo had once roared, there was now a vast, aching space pulling at everything near it.Especially Lyra. She gasped, clutching her chest, knees buckling. “Lyra!” Seren cried, grabbing her before she hit the stone.Lyra’s voice shook. “It’s… listening.”Caedia’s staff trembled violently in her grip. “No. This shouldn’t be possible.”The Reliquary loomed over the ruined palace, ribs grinding as it shifted, ancient bone scraping against collapsed towers. The column of light from its core flickered unstable now, searching.Searching for purchase. Elias forced his voice out.

Lyra woke screaming. The sound didn’t echo. It was swallowed. She clutched at her chest, sucking in air that burned like frost and ash.Light pulsed around her golden, dim, endless stretching in all directions like a living vein. “No,” she whispered hoarsely. “No this isn’t.”The prison answered. Not with words. With weight. The space tightened, pressure settling against her bones, her thoughts, her heartbeat. She felt herself being measured catalogued folded into something vast and patient.“You chose,” a voice murmured.Lyra froze. The voice wasn’t loud. It wasn’t cruel. It was ancient. “I chose to live,” she snapped, forcing herself upright. “I chose to save them.”A pause. Then: “Those are rarely separate.” She turned slowly. The Reliquary’s core loomed before her not a shape, but a convergence of bone, fire, and memory.Faces surfaced within the light hundreds, thousands frozen mid-scream, mid-prayer, mid-command. “They’re inside you,” Lyra whispered, horror creeping into her voi

The city beneath the palace wasn’t dead. It breathed. Elias felt it the moment his boots touched the ancient underway stone veins humming beneath his soles, walls vibrating with a slow, rhythmic pulse like a massive heart buried under centuries of marble.Seren stiffened beside him. “Elias… tell me you feel that too.”“I do,” he replied quietly. “The city is awake.”Caedia stopped walking. Her blind eyes clouded brighter than usual. “This is older than the Bonekeepers,” she said. “Older than the crown.”Sylare swallowed. “That’s… not comforting.” They stood in a vast underground avenue carved from pale stone, columns arching overhead like ribs.Faint light seeped through cracks far above, carrying the muffled echo of palace life footsteps, laughter, ignorance. Seren whispered, “They’re dancing up there.”Elias’s jaw tightened. “While Lyra is chained below.” Caedia raised her hand. “Quiet.” They froze. Footsteps echoed ahead. Not guards. Too slow. Too deliberate.Elias’s bones vibrated

The world did not shatter all at once. It fractured. Slowly. Painfully. Elias felt it before he understood it his bones screaming in a language even the Echo struggled to translate.The air around him warped, bending inward as if reality itself were trying to flee. Seren shouted his name. “Elias! Elias look at me!”He tried. Gods, he tried. But his vision blurred, white light bleeding into darkness. The palace undercroft trembled, ancient pillars cracking as resonance spiraled out of control.Caedia slammed her staff into the stone. “Everyone back! Now!”Too late. The Echo surged. Not responding to Elias. Responding to fear. “No, no stop,” Elias gasped, clutching his chest. “I didn’t this isn’t.”Seren grabbed his face with both hands. “Listen to me! You’re here. You’re not alone. You’re not breaking.” Her voice cut through the noise sharp, desperate, real.Elias locked onto it. “I can’t hold it,” he whispered. “It’s too much.”Caedia’s blind eyes snapped toward him. “Elias if you los