Echoes of the Past

Chapter 3: Echoes of the Past

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The Dream

Lucian was falling.

Not the kind of fall that came with weight and velocity, where wind screamed past your ears and gravity yanked you toward an inevitable crash.

This was different.

He was weightless, directionless, pulled by an unseen force deeper into an abyss that had no bottom, no walls, no sky. The darkness was alive, shifting like something breathing, something watching.

Then—a flicker of light.

It was small at first, a sliver of silver piercing the void. But as he fell, it grew, stretching, twisting into something solid.

A mirror.

Lucian's descent slowed until he was standing before it. He hesitated, staring at his reflection.

But something was wrong.

The Lucian from Earth—his past self—had been ordinary. Dark hair, brown eyes, a face forgettable in a crowd. But the man in the mirror…

His eyes were silver.

The same silver that had burned through his veins when he awoke in Nocturnal.

The whisper came again, rippling through the abyss.

"You are not supposed to be here."

Lucian's chest tightened.

His reflection moved on its own.

It raised a hand, and silver cracks spread across the glass. The voice returned, deeper now, like something speaking from beneath the surface of a frozen lake.

"You are not him."

Lucian took a step back. The cracks spread faster.

Then the mirror shattered.

And in the shards of falling glass, memories that weren't his own flooded his mind.

A battlefield drenched in silver and blood. A towering figure wrapped in shadows.

A woman whispering, "The god is gone. The god is gone."

A silver heart, still beating, torn from a chest that was no longer human.

Lucian gasped, and suddenly—

He was awake.

---

Awakening in the Safehouse

Lucian sat up too fast, his heart hammering against his ribs.

For a moment, he wasn't sure where he was. The safehouse walls blurred with the afterimages of the dream, and for a terrifying second, he thought he could still see his reflection staring back at him.

Then reality settled in. The damp stone ceiling loomed above him, the air thick with the scent of dust, damp earth, and faint traces of burning silver incense. The fire near the center of the room had burned down to dying embers, casting flickering shadows against the cracked walls.

Across from him, Eris sat against the far wall, sharpening a dagger with slow, deliberate strokes. She hadn't acknowledged him yet, but Lucian could feel her gaze on him—watching, assessing.

Ronan was near the fire, stirring something in a small iron pot, his face unreadable.

Lucian exhaled, rubbing his temples. His skin was cold, but his chest burned—not with pain, but with something else.

That dream had felt too real.

And those memories…

They weren't his.

Eris finally broke the silence. "You were twitching in your sleep."

Lucian ran a hand down his face. "Nightmare."

Eris didn't react. "Good. Means you're still sane."

Lucian frowned. "What?"

She sheathed her dagger. "Most people don't wake up after seeing a Shade. If you're having nightmares, it means it didn't get inside your head."

Lucian wasn't so sure about that.

Ronan approached, handing him a wooden cup. "Drink. It'll keep your silver from acting up until we reach Sanctorum."

Lucian took the cup hesitantly, sniffing it. The liquid inside was thick, metallic, with a faint shimmer of silver dust floating along the surface.

He downed it in one gulp. The taste was bitter, sharp, tingling against his tongue like static. Immediately, a cool sensation spread through his body, easing the tension in his limbs.

Lucian stretched, testing his muscles. "How far is Sanctorum?"

Eris pulled her cloak over her shoulders. "five more days if we move fast."

Lucian nodded. "Then let's move."

---

Through the Ruins

The world outside was no less dead than before.

They moved through the remnants of a lost civilization, the stone ruins stretching endlessly beneath an eternal night sky.

Lucian had thought silence was just a lack of noise. But here, it felt alive, pressing against his ears, wrapping around his thoughts.

There were no birds, no insects, no distant wind howling through the ruins.

Only the empty hush of a world that had long since died.

Eris led them forward, her movements soundless, precise. She wasn't walking—she was hunting. Every step she took was calculated, her spear always within reach, her golden eyes flickering toward every broken shadow.

Lucian glanced at Ronan. The older man's expression was relaxed, but his hands were never far from his weapons.

They knew something he didn't.

Lucian's breath misted in the cold air as they passed through the remains of an old marketplace. The buildings were shattered, their rooftops collapsed inward, their windows gaping like empty sockets of a skull.

Lucian slowed, his fingers brushing against the rotting wooden remains of a fruit stall. The wood had splintered under something heavy, deep claw marks scoring the surface.

Not recent. Old.

Lucian turned to Ronan. "This place—what happened?"

Ronan sighed. "A massacre."

Lucian expected that answer. But what Ronan said next made his stomach drop.

"But there were no bodies."

Lucian froze.

Eris kept walking.

"They don't leave bodies," she said. "They take them."

Lucian felt the chill creep deeper into his bones.

"Then where do they go?"

He didn't ask.

The further they traveled, the more the ruins changed. The structures became larger, grander— remnants of a city that had once been alive.

Lucian slowed as they passed under a massive stone archway. His eyes caught something carved into the pillars—symbols, worn and faded, but unmistakable.

They were silver runes.

"What is this place?" Lucian asked, tracing his fingers along the stone. The moment he touched it, a cold energy prickled against his skin.

Eris glanced at him. "One of the last human strongholds. Before the war."

Lucian frowned. "What happened?"

Ronan's expression darkened. "The vampires."

Lucian turned toward him, waiting.

Ronan sighed. "When the war started, the clans didn't just kill people. They… absorbed and turned them into beasts."

Lucian stiffened. "what?"

Eris's voice was colder now. "The Clan of Flesh doesn't just consume blood. They take bodies. They shape them into something else, Something you are very much familiar."

Lucian's stomach twisted.

He didn't ask any more questions.

---------

---

The days and nights in the ruins of the old city went by and-

The Final Night Before Sanctorum

The air felt wrong.

Lucian didn't know when he first noticed it, but as they made camp for the final night before reaching Sanctorum, the world around them had begun to change.

The silence had always been oppressive in the ruins—heavy, unnatural. But now, it was something else.

It was waiting.

They had taken shelter in the remains of an old outpost—a crumbling tower, half-sunk into the ground. The structure barely held together, vines curling around its broken pillars, its upper floors collapsed into rubble.

Eris had chosen the location carefully. "It's defensible," she had said. "One entrance, high ground, walls still intact enough to block the wind."

Lucian hadn't argued. He was too exhausted to care.

They set up a small fire in the hollowed-out chamber of the tower's base. It crackled softly, casting long, flickering shadows against the damp stone. Ronan sat by the flames, sharpening a silver knife, while Eris stood near the broken entrance, scanning the ruins beyond.

Lucian exhaled, rubbing his temples. His dreams had been getting worse. Each night, the same whispers, the same vision of the silver-eyed reflection.

"You are not him."

He shook the thought away.

"We'll reach Sanctorum tomorrow," Ronan muttered, breaking the silence. "First time you'll see it. Try not to look too impressed."

Lucian glanced at him. "What should I expect?"

Eris answered without turning around. "Cold walls. Colder people."

Lucian frowned. "Sounds welcoming."

Ronan smirked. "Oh, you'll love it. The Order doesn't trust outsiders, and you… well, you're about as unknown as they come."

Lucian didn't respond. He already knew—Sanctorum wouldn't just take him in. They would test him. Question him.

And if they didn't like what they found?

He pushed the thought away.

The fire crackled. The ruins outside stretched into endless darkness.

And then—

The silence shifted.

Lucian didn't hear anything. Not at first.

But he felt it.

Something in the air thickened, like the weight of an unseen gaze pressing against his skin.

Eris tensed. Her fingers hovered over the hilt of her spear.

Ronan frowned. "You feel that?"

Lucian swallowed. "Yeah."

For the first time since the Shade, something was watching them.

But it wasn't watching from the ruins.

It was watching from above.

Slowly, Lucian tilted his head up.

There was nothing there—just the crumbling remains of the tower's ceiling, a few wooden beams still holding the broken structure together.

But something moved.

A shadow, shifting just beyond the fire's glow.

Then—a sound.

A faint, wet clicking.

Lucian's pulse spiked.

Ronan was already moving. He grabbed a handful of silver dust from his satchel and threw it into the fire. The flames flared bright white, sending a brief flash of light through the chamber.

And for half a second, Lucian saw it.

A shape, clinging to the stone ceiling like an insect. Too many limbs. Too many joints. Its body was long, stretched unnaturally thin, its skin black and slick, glistening as if it had been peeled raw.

Its head was upside down, twisted backward, its face—**or what was left of it—**a ruined mockery of something once human.

Its mouth was open, but it had no lips.

Only teeth.

Rows and rows of jagged, glass-like fangs, stretching down its throat like a tunnel of knives.

It saw them.

And then it crawled.

---

Lucian barely had time to react before it dropped from the ceiling.

Eris moved first.

Her spear formed in her hand in an instant, not the usual smooth creation of a Silverborn, but something sharp, jagged, unstable— a weapon that hummed with raw silver energy.

She lunged, faster than Lucian had ever seen her move.

The creature twisted mid-air, its too-long arms bending in unnatural directions, and landed behind them.

The firelight caught its form fully now, and Lucian felt something deep inside him recoil.

It wasn't a Shade.

It wasn't a Blood Hunter.

It was something else.

Something that should not exist.

The creature's head twitched violently, jerking from side to side as if it were trying to remember how to move. Its jaw clicked open and shut, that awful, wet sound filling the chamber.

Then, it spoke.

Not in words.

Not in a voice.

But in a whisper inside Lucian's mind.

"You... do not belong."

Lucian staggered back, gripping his skull. The words weren't loud—they were inside him, slithering through his thoughts like worms burrowing into his brain.

Eris didn't hesitate.

She thrust her spear forward, and this time, it wasn't just silver—it was pure force.

The creature screeched as the energy struck it, sending it slamming into the far wall. The entire structure shook, dust raining from above.

But the thing didn't stay down.

It convulsed, its wounds sealing, its limbs snapping back into place.

Silver wasn't working.

Ronan fired a crossbow bolt, but the moment it struck, the bolt disintegrated into nothing.

Lucian's breathing turned ragged.

Eris growled in frustration.

Then—

Lucian moved without thinking.

He threw out his hand, and the moment his fingers clenched, something inside him surged forward.

The silver in his veins flared, but it wasn't the controlled power of the Silver Order.

It was raw. Unfiltered. Something ancient.

A shockwave of white-hot silver exploded outward, the energy not shaped into a weapon, not focused—just raw destruction.

The creature screamed.

It didn't die.

It didn't dissolve.

It vanished.

Not like it had run. Not like it had escaped.

It had been erased.

Lucian collapsed to his knees, gasping.

The fire dimmed, the shadows returning to their normal shapes. The ruins were silent again.

Eris stood motionless, her spear flickering with unstable energy. She turned toward Lucian, her golden eyes unreadable.

Ronan slowly lowered his weapon.

No one spoke for a long moment.

Then, Eris whispered—her voice sharp, accusing, almost afraid.

"What the hell did you just do?"

Lucian didn't answer.

Because he didn't know.

But whatever it was…

It wasn't normal.

And Sanctorum was waiting.

---

End of Chapter 3