The red light shattered as the floor split wide.
From below, something rose—not fast, not violent, but with weight. A presence that dragged the air down with it.
The construct unfolded from the dark—limbs of cracked ashstone and glowing runes, ribcage hollow and thrumming with red fire. Its face was featureless but for the spiral carved across its brow.
Its movements weren't mechanical—they were rhythmic, like it was following a forgotten ritual.
Kael took a step back. "Move!"
Elira grabbed his arm, yanking him toward the corridor. Tovan fired twice—both shots vanished in midair, swallowed by the relic hum.
The thing didn't flinch.
It simply advanced.
They ran.
Down corridors lined with glyph-veined walls, through broken seal rooms and half-melted doorframes. The air tightened behind them with each pulse of the construct's slow pursuit.
Then the tremor hit.
The floor cracked beneath Kael's feet.
"Kael!" Elira shouted.
But he was already falling—stone giving way beneath him, the echo of her voice cut short by the collapse.
Darkness.
Then light—soft, blue-green and swaying.
Kael floated in a shallow basin of glowing water. His head throbbed. The Echoheart pulsed faintly, holding his body together where bones might have broken.
He coughed, alone now, and the silence felt deeper than any shadow.
He rolled to his side and gasped.
He wasn't alone.
Shapes moved through the chamber—memories, not people. Shifting shadows that whispered words not meant for the living.
Kael staggered upright.
The chamber was vast—vaulted and flooded, lined with shelves of crystal and stone half-melted by time. Floating fragments glowed above him: blades, glyphs, helms, broken hands.
Echoes.
Kael stepped forward—and one turned toward him.
It had his build. His bearing. His voice.
"You still think this relic is yours?"
Kael froze.
"You're just one breath in the storm. Not its master."
Then it was gone.
At the edge of the chamber, a door stood buried in the stone—a great arch sealed with a spiral mark.
The same sigil as the Vault.
The same sigil from his visions.
The Echoheart flared—so bright it lit the entire room in pale white-gold. It wanted in.
Kael stepped toward the door—but paused.
From somewhere beyond the flooded corridor behind him—
footsteps.
Deliberate. Slow. Dry.
He wasn't alone.