Echo plunged into the memory, gripping the final marble tight as the world cracked apart like a shattering mirror. This time, the fall was different. It wasn't the chaos of unraveling time nor the violent storm of forgotten faces. It was a slow, deliberate descent—like sinking into the depths of a black ocean where sound did not exist.
Then—impact.
His feet slammed onto cold stone.
Echo staggered forward, gasping for breath, heart hammering like a war drum. The weight of the marble in his palm vanished—absorbed into his skin. A faint heat remained, buried beneath his ribs, pulsing like something trying to break free.
Ahead of him stretched a corridor—no end in sight, only a whispering void at its edges. The walls hummed, lined with symbols that shifted each time he blinked. He wasn't alone.
A silhouette stood at the far end.
She was waiting.
Thalia.
Her silver hair curled around her face like smoke. She didn't speak. She only watched. Judging. She knew what this memory was, even before Echo did.
He stepped forward.
Each movement pushed against invisible resistance, as though the world itself was warning him to turn back. But he couldn't. Not anymore.
Not with the truth so close.
The Beginning. The Betrayal. The End.
Echo's past unfolded before him.
It was him, but not the fractured boy he had been. Not the Echo that wandered the city in search of himself. This version stood at the heart of Nu'Ravin, robed in midnight blue, his crown of silver thorns casting shadows against the flickering lamplight.
The Mind-Eater King.
His throne was not made of gold or stone—but of thoughts. A twisting, living entity that pulsed with stolen minds. Figures knelt before him—empty-eyed, their wills broken, bent, rewritten.
And beside him stood her.
Not Thalia.
Lani.
She was younger than Echo remembered. Her raven-dark hair was messy, tangled with crimson ribbons. She still carried the same fierce gaze—the fire of someone who refused to be swallowed by fate.
Yet Echo saw something else in her eyes.
Pain.
Betrayal.
And fear.
The Night the World Changed.
"You promised me," Lani whispered, voice raw with betrayal.
Echo—the King—tilted his head, expression unreadable. "I kept my promise. You're still here, aren't you?"
Lani's hands clenched into fists. "You said we'd burn the Empire together. That you'd free the Asylum children. That you weren't like them."
Echo's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"But I am like them, Lani." His voice was calm, eerily soothing. "I simply learned how to win."
She took a step back. "You rewrote their minds." Her breath hitched. "Echo—these people—these lives—they're not yours to control!"
A beat of silence.
Echo leaned forward, his silver crown glinting in the candlelight. "They gave themselves to me."
Lani's eyes burned. "No. You took them. You hollowed them out."
Echo didn't deny it.
He simply stood.
And reached for her.
"You're afraid," he murmured. "You should be."
For the first time, she looked truly terrified.
That was when she ran.
The Breaking of the Mind-Eater.
Thalia stood beside Echo now, watching as he relived the truth.
She spoke softly, almost gently. "You thought you were protecting her. But you were controlling her."
Echo's breath hitched.
"No…" He stumbled back, gripping his skull as images flooded his mind. "No, I didn't want to hurt her. I wanted her to understand."
"You wanted control," Thalia corrected. "But she refused to be rewritten. And when you realized you couldn't force her to stay…"
The memory played out.
Echo—the King—had reached for Lani.
But Lani had reached for something else.
A blade.
Not the dagger Thalia would later use against him.
A different one.
A simple, jagged knife she had stolen from the Red Court's banquet table—the only weapon she could find.
She had thrust it into Echo's side.
Not deep. Not lethal.
But enough.
Enough to break the illusion.
Enough to shatter the rewritten version of her mind he had tried to craft.
Enough to make Echo stumble backward, eyes wide—not in pain but shock.
The moment she had severed his hold, the throne screamed.
The stolen minds woke.
They convulsed. Twisted. Fought back.
And in that chaos, the Mind-Eater fell.
Echo had not been betrayed by Thalia that night.
Not yet.
He had been betrayed by the one person he had once sworn to protect.
Lani.
The first girl he had rewritten.
The first girl who had escaped.
And the first girl who had learned that once someone entered the Mind-Eater's game, their only choices were win—
—or die insane.
Present Day.
Echo gasped awake.
He wasn't in the memory anymore.
He was back—in the ruins of Nu'Ravin, the cracked sky groaning above him, the city trembling as forgotten forces stirred.
He collapsed to his knees.
His pulse thundered in his ears.
The final marble was gone.
All three had shattered.
And now—
He remembered.
Every piece.
Every mistake.
Every life.
Every rule.
Thalia stood above him, silent. Waiting. She didn't offer him comfort. She didn't offer him a lie.
Because she had known the truth all along.
He had built the Mind-Eater's throne.
He had rewritten the lives of those who followed him.
He had lost Lani—and turned her into the first victim instead of the first player.
And now?
Now the game would begin again.
A cold wind stirred the ruins, sending dust swirling across the abandoned streets. Echo could feel the city watching him—shifting, adjusting, waiting to see what he would do next.
Then, from the shadows, a voice echoed.
Soft.
Familiar.
"You were supposed to save me."
Echo's breath hitched.
He turned.
But no one was there.
Just footprints.
Leading away into the fog.
Leading toward the place where the past refused to die.
And where, if Echo followed, the game would finally reach its next stage.
His hands trembled.
Thalia exhaled, stepping closer, but she didn't stop him.
She never did.
"You always follow," she murmured.
And as the first raindrops began to fall, Echo took his first step forward.
Straight into the abyss.