Zara stood beneath the fractured sky, the weight of her reclaimed past pressing against her bones like iron. The Hollowed were gone, their presence scattered into whispers lost in the wind. The void-being had retreated, leaving behind only the certainty of its final words.
This is not over.
She knew that already.
The city breathed around her, its pulse shifting, trembling beneath the seams of time and rewritten memory. Aeroth would not remain the same after tonight. The Circle would not remain silent.
And neither would she.
Noel watched her carefully, his stance steady but tense, as if waiting for something else to unravel in front of them.
"You need to tell me what just happened," he said finally.
Zara exhaled, her fingers still curled around the dagger, its blade pulsing faintly beneath her grip. The Echo mark on her arm had not faded—it had grown, twisted into something deeper, something she did not yet understand.
"I took them back," she murmured.
Noel's eyes flickered toward the empty space where the Hollowed had once stood. "And what did they take from you?"
Zara didn't answer.
She wasn't sure she could.
The voices were quieter now, but not gone. They hummed beneath her skin, threaded through her pulse, waiting.
She had stopped the fracture from swallowing her. But she had not walked away unscathed.
Something had changed.
And the Circle would know.
She turned toward the ruins ahead, the remnants of Aeroth's lower district stretching into the horizon, its broken spires piercing the night like jagged teeth.
"We can't stay here," she said.
Noel nodded. "Agreed. The Circle will send someone after what happened."
Zara didn't need to ask who. She already knew.
The Silent Conclave was fractured. The rewritten histories were unraveling. The Hollowed had been pulled from their oblivion, breaking the balance of the Circle's erasure.
And there was only one punishment for those who disrupted the order.
"Execution," she muttered.
Noel's silence confirmed it.
Zara gritted her teeth, forcing herself to move. The air was heavy with something unnatural, something lingering, something still watching.
She wasn't done.
The war had only begun.
***
Zara gritted her teeth, forcing herself forward. The ruins of Aeroth's lower district stretched into the horizon, the remnants of old battles scarred into every wall, every shattered street. The Circle's executioners wouldn't waste time tracking her. She had undone too much. She had disrupted their silence.
She had forced them to remember.
Noel kept pace beside her, his movements quick but controlled. He had always been steady, always calculating in the way he moved through the city, knowing that every shadow could be another trap. But tonight, his usual confidence had been replaced with a sharp wariness, like he wasn't sure if they were truly alone.
Neither was Zara.
The tunnel beneath the ruins yawned ahead, its entrance barely visible beneath the collapsed stone archway marking its boundary. Noel hesitated only for a moment before pulling aside the debris, revealing a narrow passage that wound deeper beneath Aeroth's broken foundations.
"This way," he murmured.
Zara followed, ducking beneath the jagged remnants of the entrance, her dagger firm in her grip. The air was different here—thicker, colder, soaked in something more than just damp earth and forgotten time.
It was heavy with memory.
She could feel it pressing against her skin, curling through the tunnels like an unseen tide.
Noel was the first to speak as they descended. "This passage was sealed years ago," he said. "After the Circle wiped the last resistance movement from the streets. We never found out exactly how they did it—just that the people fighting back disappeared overnight."
Zara's pulse tightened.
Disappeared.
Not killed. Not executed.
Erased.
She had seen the Hollowed, had witnessed their unraveling forms, their voices stripped from history itself. Was this where it had begun? Was this where the Circle had rewritten their fate?
She didn't have time to dwell on it. The passage widened, revealing an underground corridor laced with old markings—sigils carved into the walls, warnings of magic long since lost.
But magic did not forget.
Zara pressed her hand against the nearest carving. The moment her fingers touched the stone, something shifted.
The wall pulsed.
Not physically, but in memory.
A faint shimmer flickered beneath her palm, threads of forgotten history weaving through her veins like whispers clawing their way back to the surface.
Her breath hitched.
She saw faces—shrouded figures moving through the tunnel, voices low, hands raised in warning. She saw symbols, the mark of the resistance, the brand of those who had fought back against the Circle's rewriting.
And then she saw them disappear.
Not in fire.
Not in battle.
But in silence.
Erased.
Gone.
Noel's voice cut through the vision. "Zara?"
She tore her hand from the wall, gasping. The markings flickered once more before fading, retreating into the stone like a memory unwilling to reveal itself completely.
Noel's expression was tense, his gaze darting between her and the sigils. "What did you see?"
Zara clenched her fists.
"The last resistance," she murmured. "They didn't die here. They were rewritten."
Noel's breath caught. "Like the Hollowed?"
She nodded.
Noel cursed, running a hand through his hair, his frustration barely contained. "If this was their last stronghold, the Circle might still be watching it."
Zara's grip tightened around her dagger. "Then we let them watch."
The corridor ahead was waiting.
And Zara was done running.