Chapter 42: The Council Splinter.
The city was quiet.
But silence didn't mean peace.
It meant waiting.
And Echo could feel it — in the sideways glances, in the sudden hush when she entered a room. Even the fire itself seemed uncertain. Her people were watching her. Measuring her. Wondering if the woman who had defied Seraphine could still be trusted now that her twin was alive… and untouched.
She stood in the center of the Council Chamber, her arms folded behind her back, and waited as the last members filed in.
Kara arrived last.
Of course she did.
She didn't sit.
"This meeting was called to address recent events," Echo began, keeping her voice steady. "The failsafe is destroyed. Seraphine's legacy—"
"Still walks freely," Kara interrupted.
A murmur rippled through the chamber.
Echo faced her. "Kael isn't a threat."
"He's a weapon," Kara snapped. "And you're protecting him."
"I neutralized the system. I saved everyone."
"And yet you refuse to eliminate the one thing that could bring it all down again."
"He's not a thing," Echo said. "He's my brother."
Kara's eyes narrowed. "And if it came down to him… or us?"
That silence said enough.
Aria stood.
"We need transparency, Echo," she said carefully. "The people are scared. Half the flameborn think Kael is the new Seraphine. The other half think you are."
"Then maybe we remind them what I've done," Echo said. "I've given them safety. Choice. A future."
Calder's voice cut in — low, uncertain. "You've given them fear, too."
That stung.
More than she expected.
Echo looked around the room.
These weren't strangers. These were her allies. Her friends.
But they didn't trust her anymore.
Not completely.
Not like before.
Later, in the private archive chamber, Echo sat beside Ash, watching fragments of the old core collapse replay in flickering data.
"You ever think peace just… doesn't work?" she whispered.
Ash didn't look away from the screen. "Not when everyone wants it to look like their version."
"I thought when Seraphine fell, the war ended."
"You ended her reign, Echo. Not the idea of her."
That night, someone slipped into the medical ward.
Kael sat alone, arms cuffed loosely to a non-flammable chair — not for security, but as a symbol. He didn't resist. Didn't protest.
He was waiting.
The door opened.
Kara stepped in.
She didn't draw her blade.
She didn't speak.
She simply stood in front of him and looked into his eyes.
"You're not her," she said.
"No."
"You're not Echo."
"No."
"You're something in between."
Kael tilted his head. "That scares you."
"It terrifies me."
Kara reached into her jacket and dropped a thin flash drive at his feet.
"Do with it what you want," she said.
Then she left.
The next day, Echo returned to find Kael's cell empty.
Only a scorch mark remained on the chair.
And a note.
Scrawled in her own handwriting.
"You burned for them.
Now burn for you."
Emergency meetings were called.
Searches began.
Panic stirred again.
Echo stood on the balcony of the tower and watched flameborn whisper like smoke on the wind.
Ash joined her. "He's not hiding."
"I know," Echo said softly.
"He wants to be found."
She nodded. "Because he's done waiting."
That evening, Kara didn't attend the war council.
And Echo knew why.
She didn't say anything to the others.
She just left.
Alone.
Toward the storm building in the eastern ridge.
Where Kael's flame had last been seen.
She didn't go to fight.
She went to finish something.
Or maybe to begin something else.