Chapter 17: Echoes of the Architect

The tavern groaned like a dying beast. Dust rained from the rafters as another explosion rocked the Eclipse Wilds, the vibrations crawling up Lira's spine. She knelt on the warped floorboards, her palms pressed to the splintered wood and tried to drown out the voice.

You're a slow learner daughter. Orion's words slithered through her mind cold and amused. But I have eternity to teach you.

"Lira."

Ryen's voice cut through the static. His hand hovered above her shoulder close enough for her to feel the heat radiating from his skin. She recoiled, her claws unsheathing with a snick.

"Don't" she hissed, the sound layered with a guttural growl that wasn't hers.

He froze, amber eyes narrowing. "You're letting him in again."

"I'm fighting him." Her reflection in the tavern's cracked mirror flickered a flash of Orion's gaunt smile superimposed over her face. The chalice's remnants lay in the corner, obsidian shards glinting like broken teeth. Their hum had quieted since the battle at the crypt but the weight of them never left.

Mira slammed a bundle of wolfsbane onto the bar, her wolf-gray braid frayed from hours of stitching wounds. "The hybrids aren't just feral anymore. They're hunting in packs setting traps."

Kael grunted, his scarred throat bobbing as he sharpened his dagger. The blade's edge caught the UV lantern light, throwing fractured beams across the room. "Orion's handiwork. He's adapting."

"He's dead" Jax snapped, fiddling with a grenade casing. The brass glinted in his grease-stained hands. "We saw Lira rip his throat out."

"No." Lira stood, her boots crunching glass. She stared at the mirror, her heterochromatic eyes blazing one crimson, one gold. "He's in here and he's

Eclipse crouched in the skeleton of a collapsed factory, her claws buried in the throat of a hybrid scout. Its eyes one gold, one silver stared back unblinking. The same eyes Orion had given her. The same eyes as her.

Pathetic.

She wrenched her hand free, black blood splattering the rusted steel. But her fingers trembled.

"Make it stop!"

Requiem's voice echoed in her skull, the child's face swimming in her memory pale, pleading, alive. Eclipse had felt her die twice, once when Lira's light seared her tiny body and again every night since in the hollow where her own soul should be.

A shadow shifted.

"Brooding doesn't suit you."

Eclipse spun. Vesper leaned against a corroded beam, her hybrid scars glowing faintly in the moonlight. The burns Lira's blood had left on her face had healed into silver rivulets like veins of ore in stone.

"Tell Orion to collect his prize himself" Eclipse snarled.

Vesper smirked, tossing a vial of black liquid. It pulsed in Eclipse's palm, alive and hungry. "He doesn't want you to fetch the girl. He wants you to break her."

Eclipse stared at the vial. Inside, shadows writhed. "What is this?"

"A gift" Vesper's smile sharpened. "A way to match her… gifts."

Nina's scream tore through the night.

Lira reached her first, chalice-fire igniting in her veins. The girl sat hunched over her sketchpad, charcoal snapped in her grip. The page showed the tavern engulfed in black flames, its roof split by a clawed hand larger than Frostspire's spires. At the center stood a creature a grotesque amalgam of Lira's auburn hair, Orion's pitch-black eyes and claws that dripped liquid shadow.

"It's coming" Nina whispered, her pupils dilated. "The Architect."

The walls shook. Glass shattered.

Hybrids poured from the tree line, their movements synchronized, precise. No snarls, no frenzy just cold, calculated intent. At their helm loomed the Architect. Ten feet tall, its body a patchwork of stolen flesh and reforged bone, it radiated malice like a fever.

"Ah daughter" Orion's voice echoed from its jagged maw. "Shall we finish this?"

Ryen fired. The silver round dissolved in the Architect's chest, swallowed by rippling shadow.

Lira stepped forward, chalice-light pooling in her palms. "You're not him."

The Architect laughed, the sound vibrating the rubble underfoot. "I'm better."

It moved.

Chaos erupted.

Kael intercepted a hybrid mid-leap, his dagger finding its heart. Jax lobbed UV grenades, their searing light driving back the horde. Mira dragged Nina behind the bar, her wolfsbane satchel spilling onto the floor.

Lira grappled the Architect, her claws screeching against its armored hide. Up close she saw it strands of her own silver-streaked hair woven into its flesh, Orion's journals grafted to its ribs like scripture.

You're magnificent his voice purred in her mind. My greatest creation.

"I'm nobody's creation" she snarled, driving her knee into its gut.

The Architect staggered then smiled with Orion's cunning. "Aren't you?"

Its claw lashed out. Lira blocked but the force hurled her into the tavern's wall. Plaster rained down as she slumped, the chalice's shards cutting into her back.

Ryen charged, his silver dagger aimed for the Architect's throat. It backhanded him casually. He crashed into the hearth, embers scattering.

"Ryen!" Lira lurched up…

The Architect's claw closed around her throat. "Yield" it hissed, Orion's voice layered with her own. "Or watch him die."

From the tree line, Eclipse watched the tavern burn. The Architect's roar shook the earth and for a heartbeat, she saw Requiem in the flames small, scared, hers.

The vial burned in her palm.

Choose Vesper's voice whispered in her memory. His weapon… or hers.

She drank.

The vial's shadows surged through Eclipse's veins, her claws elongating into obsidian scythes. As the Architect tightened its grip on Lira's throat, Eclipse lunged not at the monster, but at Ryen, her hollow eyes blazing with Orion's triumph.