Hall of Echoes

The ground shook with a pulse beneath my feet, like a heartbeat. I turned to find the Right Hand already gone. No farewell, no flash. Just absence, heavy and immediate.

The two figures flanking me now were unlike any angels I'd seen. Not the flame-winged kind, nor chisel-faced warriors. These two looked kind, as though the quality itself radiated from them. Their eyes held neither judgement nor pity, only a patience so deep it felt like the entire weight of earth itself.

"We walk," the taller one said. His voice was low and resonant.

I followed.

The landscape bent as we moved. There was no road, not really, but the space unfolded one silent step at a time. My car vanished behind us, as if it never existed.

"Don't worry. It's parked somewhere and won't get a ticket, though I doubt you'll need it when we return."

We stopped at a doorway woven like a tapestry of light and sound. It shimmered, holding back a strange silence which felt full rather than empty.

"The Hall of Echoes is a solitary journey," said the shorter one, placing a hand gently at my shoulder. "This is where your true name still rings."

"My name's Lydia," I offered. Thinking how often I defied the Mistress to speak it.

They exchanged a look, then a slight smile. "That's the name you carry. In there is the name you are."

The light parted, and I stepped through.

Inside, the world changed.

It wasn't a room.

It was an octagon.

A memory, a wound and womb.

A vast chamber made of animal skins, glass, and starlight, but it felt like I'd stepped into the hollow of my chest. Every breath echoed, and every heartbeat struck the walls like a soft drum.

I was invited to peer at myself in a mirror.

Instead of my going to them, though, they rose around me. Not reflections but moments of my life. One showed me as a child, running away from a mother who chased her with laughter. Another inching my way alongside my mother, clutching the blanket I'd brought for comfort, trying to pray her death away. Another, more recent. Blood slick and ripped open, screaming through clenched teeth as someone wanted to silence me.

I staggered.

"I can't," I whispered. " I am past this. I don't wish to see this again."

Instead of barrenness and silence, threads of light descended from above, reminding me very much of the veins of light I'd seen in myself before. They were thin and golden, like silken strands of sunlight threaded through the air. They hovered around me, gentle and warm. I watched, heart pounding, as one thread grazed my chest.

Where it touched, something cracked.

A line, delicate and bright, split across my skin. Not pain. Just pressure. I had been opened this time to breathe, and not to bleed.

More threads followed, each touching a fracture. Trauma. Shame. Rage. All the shattered places that lay hidden under sarcasm and grit.

And then, the light ordered them to mend.

Gold filled the cracks, not erasing them but honoring them, tracing the story of my survival with light.

A memory of a bowl I'd seen in a museum flitted into mind. Kintsugi, it had been called, is the art of repairing broken pottery with gold. Like a precious jade artifact, my spirit was being pieced back together. Not how it had been formerly but truly transformed. It was stronger. It was sacred because of the breaking, not despite it.

Tears blurred my vision. I couldn't move. I didn't want to.

Every pain I carried. Acknowledged. Revered. Reconciled.

A voice filled the space. Not from outside, but from within.

"I endured. I did not turn to stone. I wept and rose anyway. I am whole."

The threads retracted.

I opened my eyes.

When I investigated the mirrored fragments again, I saw not versions of myself but reflections unified, a mosaic stitched with gold.

Invisible to the naked eye, I wasn't just Lydia anymore.

I was every piece I had ever been. But this time, I had been consecrated. I knew the origin of the gold and what it cost to give it.

I felt whole. Reborn.

The angels reappeared, one standing before me, the other behind.

"You are ready," the taller one said, his gaze remaining on my forehead longer than necessary.

I reached up instinctively. "Is there something wrong?"

Their answer came not as words, but sensation. Like a weight settling into my bones. Power that wasn't external, but remembered. Returned.

"Your name is inscribed," the shorter one said softly. "Written in gold."

I traced my skin and felt it there. In the middle of my forehead. Raised dots, not unlike braille but meant for eternity. "Tell me what it says."

"It isn't for us to utter," the taller angel said. "Only the groom may call his bride."

That stopped me cold. "Bride?" My voice pitched higher than I liked.

Before I could press, a breeze coiled through the hall. The doors opened.

The angels parted.

And there, waiting just beyond the threshold, was a man.

Not radiant.

Not monstrous.

Not what I expected.

His boots were caked with ash, and his clothes were too old for fashion. His posture suggested exhaustion, not laziness but a long endurance. His eyes were not gold, flame, or storm.

They were gray.

Another whose eyes saw me.

Not as beautiful. Not as broken.

But something more. Just as I was.

The taller angel bowed his head slightly. "The name you bear directs that you train with him."

"Okay? Guys, give me a little to go on here," I said.

They exchanged a look as if they debated telling me something.

"She should get to know him first. He's not always that great at first impressions," the shorter one said.

I blinked and looked again. "That's my groom?" I couldn't even bring myself to be happy.

The shorter one's smile was sad. "You don't even know the weight of what that means."

I stepped toward the man, wary. My gaze razor sharp across his shoulders.

He stepped forward too, matching me. Appraising me.

When we passed within a breath of each other, I felt it. Not desire. Not danger.

Recognition.

He tilted his head slightly. "Took you long enough."

"Or it took as long as it needed to." I countered.