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CHAPTER 82 — “THE ECHO DOES NOT KNEEL”
The chamber was wrong. Not broken. Not ruined. Waiting. Elias felt it the moment he stepped across the threshold his bones vibrating, not with warning, but recognition.Seren whispered, “Why does it feel like the room is breathing?”Caedia halted instantly. “Because it is.”The chamber was circular, vast, its walls layered with ancient bone inscriptions spiraling inward like a living spine. At the center stood a raised dais smooth, pale, untouched by dust.And above it. A suspended ring of fractured bone, slowly rotating, humming with restrained power. Elias swallowed. “That’s not a weapon.”“No,” Caedia said quietly. “That is a Binding Circle.”Seren’s grip tightened around his arm. “Binding… for what?”Caedia didn’t answer. Because Elias already knew. The Echo inside him surged violently. You have arrived. Elias staggered, clutching his chest.Seren panicked. “Elias talk to me!”“I” He gasped. “It’s… speaking.”Caedia’s expression hardened. “The deeper sanctums were never meant for
CHAPTER 81 — “THE PRICE OF BEING HEARD”
The palace undercorridor smelled wrong. Elias noticed it immediately the air was sharp, metallic, layered with something sour beneath the stone.His bones hummed uneasily, not warning him of danger so much as recognizing it. Seren wrinkled her nose. “Tell me I’m imagining that smell.”“You’re not,” Caedia said quietly. “This corridor hasn’t been used in decades.”“Then why does it smell like blood?” Seren whispered.Elias stopped walking. Everyone froze. Sylare nearly stumbled into him. “What is it?”Elias didn’t answer right away. His eyes were unfocused, listening to something deeper than sound. “The walls,” he said slowly. “They’re talking.”Seren swallowed. “That’s… not comforting.”“They’re screaming,” Elias corrected.Caedia’s fingers tightened around her bone staff. “About what?”“Pain,” Elias said. “Recent pain.”They moved forward more carefully now, footsteps soft against the old stone. The corridor sloped upward, its ceiling supported by rib-like arches etched with half-era
CHAPTER 80 — “THE BONE THAT REMEMBERS”
The prison chamber breathed. That was the first thing Elias noticed. The walls expanded and contracted like ribs around a living chest, each pulse timed to the slow, labored breathing of someone or something deep beneath the floor.Seren stopped walking. “…Tell me I’m imagining that.”“You’re not,” Caedia said quietly. “This place is awake.”Elias clenched his jaw. His bones were humming again low, uneasy, like they recognized the rhythm. Sylare swallowed hard. “This chamber wasn’t here before. I swear it wasn’t.”“That’s because it only manifests when the Echo approaches,” Caedia replied. “It’s a memory-prison.”Elias frowned. “A what?”Caedia turned her blind eyes toward him. “A construct designed to trap not bodies but truths.”Seren shot Elias a look. “That sounds… deeply unpleasant.” A voice drifted through the chamber then soft, familiar, and devastating.“Elias?”He froze. His heart slammed so hard it hurt. Seren’s breath caught. “No… that’s not.”“Elias,” the voice called agai
CHAPTER 79 — “THE PRICE OF BLOOD”
The underground river thundered beside them, black water smashing against bone-carved banks as Elias led the group forward. The tunnel ceiling dipped low, forcing them to crouch, the air thick with rot and old magic.Seren broke the silence first. “We’re not supposed to be this close already.”Caedia’s staff scraped the stone as she walked. “We’re not supposed to be alive, either.”Sylare hugged herself, voice barely audible over the water. “They’ll feel him soon.”Elias didn’t slow. “Let them.”Seren shot him a look. “That confidence scares me.”“It should,” Caedia said calmly. “Because it is no longer confidence. It is certainty.”Elias exhaled through his nose. “I’m not walking away this time.”Seren grabbed his arm and forced him to stop. “Elias look at me.”He did. Her eyes were wet. Angry. Afraid. “You’re not just a weapon. You’re not just the Echo. You’re still you.” He swallowed. “I know.”“Then promise me something.”“What?”“That when this is over… you’re still here.” Elias
CHAPTER 78— “THE PALACE BENEATH THE PALACE”
The tunnel sloped upward now. Elias felt it immediately not just the incline, but the shift in resonance. The bones around them were newer, reinforced, threaded with dampening sigils meant to suppress magic.“The palace,” Seren whispered. “We’re under it.”Caedia nodded. “The Undercorridors. Built after the Bonekeeper purge. Designed to imprison what the nobles fear.”Elias clenched his jaw. “They should’ve torn it down.”“They tried,” Caedia replied quietly. “The bones refused.”Seren glanced around nervously. “That’s… comforting. I think.”They moved slower now, careful. Every step echoed faintly, swallowed by thick stone walls veined with pale bone. Sylare whispered, “They patrol this level.”Elias looked back. “How do you know?”She swallowed. “Because I hid here. For three days.”Seren’s eyes widened. “Alone?”Sylare nodded. “I listened. Learned their steps. Learned when they dragged prisoners past.”Elias’s chest tightened. “Lyra?”Sylare hesitated. Then nodded. “She’s still ali
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN — “THE CITY THAT BLEEDS”
The city loomed above them like a wounded giant. From the ridge overlooking the capital’s underlevels, Elias could see the damage clearly now collapsed spires, cracked walls veined with glowing corruption, smoke rising in thin, constant columns.The once-proud bone-buttresses that supported the upper districts were fractured, some stitched together with crude Alchemist reinforcements that pulsed an unhealthy blue.Seren swallowed hard. “It’s worse than the rumors.” Caedia stood beside her, head tilted, listening to vibrations no one else could hear. “The city is screaming.”Elias didn’t answer immediately. His bones were already singing in response low, furious, restrained only by discipline earned through pain, loss, and relentless training.“They’re bleeding it dry,” he said finally. “Harvesting marrow straight from the foundations.”Seren looked at him sharply. “They’re using the city itself?”“Yes,” Elias replied. “That’s how they’re powering the ritual lattice.”Sylare hugged her
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