Echoes of the Erased

The ruins groaned with ancient memory, the echoes of the Forgotten still lingering in the air. Orion clenched his fists, his silver fire dimming as the last remnants of the wraiths dissolved into the void. The cold they left behind seeped into his bones, more than just a physical chill—a fracture in time itself.

Lyra sheathed her blade, her gaze shifting to the cracked obelisks rising around them. Their surfaces shimmered with dying runes, messages scrawled by hands long since devoured by oblivion.

"Whatever they are," she murmured, running a gloved hand over the symbols, "they don't just erase people. They erase entire histories."

Orion's jaw tightened. "And they almost erased us."

Something about the wraiths had felt deliberate. They had not simply attacked; they had recognized them. Orion could still hear the layered voices in his head. You do not belong.

But then why had they whispered that name—Rhaziel?

Lyra took a step back, glancing at him. "Your power was fading during the fight. The Threshold is interfering with it."

"I noticed," he said dryly.

But that wasn't all. When the wraiths had touched him, they had forced something into his mind. Images of a city before ruin. A name that felt more like a wound.

Rhaziel.

Not his memory. Not his past.

And yet, it had found him.

He turned to the obelisks, the silver fire in his veins pulsing weakly. If the wraiths had stolen history from this place, there had to be something left—a crack in their silence.

Lyra frowned as she watched him place a hand against the cold stone. "Orion—"

The moment his fingers touched the runes, the ruins shifted.

A sharp pull—like gravity twisting sideways—dragged his mind through the veil of time.

Dark corridors.

Shattered stars.

A throne carved from obsidian and bone.

A figure stood at its base—cloaked in the light of dying galaxies. Their face blurred between infinite possibilities, but their eyes… burned with something deeper than time itself.

The whisper of a forgotten voice:

"Rhaziel was the first to fall. And the last to remember."

The vision shattered.

Orion stumbled back, gasping.

Lyra caught his arm. "Orion!"

His pulse thundered in his ears. He looked down at his palm, at the faint imprint of runes now etched against his skin.

What the hell was that?

His breath was unsteady as he met Lyra's worried gaze. "They're showing me something. The Forgotten—whoever they were before they became this—they want me to remember what they lost."

She studied the markings on his skin, her expression unreadable. "Or they're trying to turn you into one of them."

Orion didn't answer.

Because deep down, he wasn't sure if she was wrong.

The ruins stood silent once more, but the air was different now—heavy with something that had just awakened.

And somewhere in the distance, the shadows moved again.

They weren't alone.

They never had been.