Chapter Four: Shattered Echoes

The explosion wasn't fire or stone—it was force, raw and invisible, ripping through the ruins like a wave of thunder. Elara barely had time to throw herself back before the ground cracked beneath her feet. The cultists were flung like ragdolls, their screams lost in the roar of energy surging outward from the altar.

She hit the ground hard, rolling over shattered stone, her ears ringing. Dust filled the air, choking the ruins in a swirling haze. Through it, she saw the shadowed figure at the altar—the Echo—its form unraveling, shifting between existence and nothingness, like a reflection rippling on water.

And across from it, the man with the green eyes stood firm, blade drawn, his cloak whipping in the unnatural wind.

Elara's vision blurred, another memory slamming into her—

A different life. A different battlefield.

Him, standing over her as she lay dying. A promise whispered. A hand reaching—

No. Not now. She shook it off, pushing herself up.

The Echo's burning gaze flickered between her and the man. Its voice, layered and hollow, slithered into the air.

"Two pieces of the same cycle… Bound by fate, bound by failure."

Elara's pulse pounded. The words felt too deliberate, too personal. It knew something about her past. About them.

The man didn't hesitate. He lunged.

His blade met nothing—the Echo shifted, its form twisting like smoke, avoiding the strike with unnatural ease. Then, with a mere flick of its wrist, the air around him collapsed inward.

He barely had time to curse before he was hurled back, slamming into a broken pillar.

Elara reacted on instinct. She sprinted forward, dagger drawn, aiming for the Echo's center. If steel wouldn't work, maybe magic—

The Echo turned too fast.

Before she could react, its hand lashed out—and everything went cold.

An unseen force wrapped around her, tightening like iron chains. The breath fled from her lungs. She gasped, but no air came.

Her vision darkened at the edges.

No—

Pain ignited in her skull, and then the memories flooded back—a hundred lives at once.

She saw them all.

A queen, betrayed at her own coronation.

A knight, dying on a bloodstained field.

A scholar, choking on poison in a candlelit library.

A beggar, whispering final words in the darkness.

Each death. Each rebirth.

And in every life, this presence. Watching. Waiting.

The Echo had always been there. Always.

Her body convulsed. The weight of countless souls pressed down on her.

She was slipping.

Drowning in herself.

A voice—his voice—broke through the storm.

"Elara!** Stay with me!**"

Something snapped.

A rush of fire shot through her veins. The invisible grip around her shattered, and she dropped to the ground, gasping.

The man was there, dragging her up, his face a mix of frustration and relief. "You're not dying on me again."

The Echo tilted its head, watching them. Then, almost amused, it whispered:

"Not yet."

And in the next breath, it was gone.

The ruins fell into silence.

Elara collapsed to her knees, her pulse roaring in her ears.

Her hands were shaking.

The cultists were dead. The Echo had vanished. But something was different.

She could still feel it.

Inside her.

Like a fragment of it had stayed behind.

The man exhaled sharply, sheathing his blade. "Well. That could've gone worse."

Elara looked up at him, still catching her breath. "You knew this would happen."

He met her gaze, unflinching. "I knew we'd end up here eventually." A pause. Then, softer—"I told you I'd find you again."

The weight of a hundred past lives hung between them.

Elara swallowed hard. "Who… are you?"

A ghost of a smile touched his lips.

"Call me Kael."

The name struck something deep inside her.

Familiar. And dangerous.

Because she knew, without question—

She had loved him before.

And she had killed him, too.