Chapter 16 – The Echo in Her Veins

The severance stone pulsed beneath my pillow like a second heartbeat.

I hadn't meant to bring it into the tent. I told myself I would throw it into the ravine behind the Hollow. Bury it. Burn it. But it followed me like a curse of its own, whispering through dreams I couldn't wake from.

Kaelen didn't ask where it was.

Maybe he already knew.

Maybe the curse made sure he did.

That night, neither of us slept. His rune had turned the color of ink darker than I'd ever seen it. Every time I reached for him, it flared hot beneath his skin. Like it feared me. Or feared what I was becoming.

We were unraveling.

And time was no longer on our side.

By morning, Kaelen had gone silent.

He sharpened his blade in rhythmic strokes, jaw clenched, eyes unfocused. The old Kaelen the one who cracked jokes in battle, the one who dared to kiss me mid-spell was gone.

He looked like a man preparing for execution.

When I touched his arm, he didn't flinch. He just looked at me, and said, "We need to find the First Echo."

I blinked. "The what?"

He stood, slinging his weapon over his shoulder.

"The Oracle said the hybrid child laid the curse. But she wasn't the only one. There were others souls she bound into the veil. If we can reach one of them, they might tell us how to weaken the bond. Not sever it. Just... weaken it enough to survive."

"Are you suggesting necromancy?"

"No," he said, voice tight. "Something older.

We journeyed into the Deadrun Valley by dusk.

A place witches called the Graveway. Wolves called it the Moon's Silence. Both feared it for the same reason nothing that lived belonged there.

The wind didn't blow.

The trees grew twisted, petrified in their last moment of life.

And in the center of it all stood the Hollow Throne a shattered obsidian structure half-sunken in a crater, guarded by silence and frost.

Kaelen paused at the edge of the crater, his breath misting.

"She's here," he whispered.

I felt it too. A low hum in my bones. My blood.

Something ancient.

Something mine.

We stepped into the crater, and the world changed.

Light bent wrong. Sound turned inward. Our footsteps echoed like thunder despite the soft moss underfoot.

The Hollow Throne loomed.

Carved with wolves. Marked by witches.

A union torn apart.

A promise broken.

Kaelen drew his blade as we approached the center. I stepped forward first.

And then I saw it.

The remnants of a sigil burned into stone, marked with teeth and bone. It pulsed faintly when I touched it.

Then it spoke.

"Daughter of the bound..."

I jerked my hand away.

Kaelen stepped beside me, eyes narrowed. "What did it say?"

Before I could answer, the ground cracked open.

We fell.

Not through earth, but memory.

Colors blurred. Shadows stretched. Time bent.

When it stopped, we stood in a battlefield made of stars.

Dozens of figures circled us, faceless but radiant. Each of them bore marks wolf, witch, or both. In the center stood a woman in black flame.

She had my face.

But older. Wiser.

Broken.

"You've come far," she said. "Too far, maybe."

"Are you... her?" I asked. "The First Hybrid?"

"No," she said. "I'm what she left behind. An echo. A sliver. A warning."

Kaelen reached for me, but his hand passed through mine.

We were no longer in control.

The echo raised her hand, and visions exploded around us.

A war.

A child born to bridge two empires.

Loved by both. Feared by all.

She fell in love with a wolf prince. Tried to unite their people.

But on the night of their mating, his own pack betrayed them. Burned her alive.

Her screams etched a curse into the land.

Not out of vengeance

But grief.

"They killed what I loved most," the echo whispered. "So I killed what they would love after."

Kaelen flinched.

Because her eyes were his eyes.

I trembled.

Because her magic felt like mine.

"You carry my sorrow," the echo said to me. "And you," she turned to Kaelen, "carry my rage."

I tried to step forward. "Then help us break it."

Her eyes glinted. "You don't break sorrow. You live through it."

Kaelen growled. "Then why bring us here?"

"Because the Wyrm stirs," she said. "The one who fed on our pain, who whispered the betrayal into the ears of our kin. It still lives. Still watches."

"And our child?" I asked. "Will it be corrupted?"

She hesitated.

Then: "That depends on you."

The battlefield cracked.

The echo began to fade.

"Wait!" I cried. "Tell us how to stop the curse!"

Her voice came from all directions.

"Balance blood with blood. Life with life. You must give back what was taken."

Then she vanished.

And we were falling again.

We landed hard, coughing.

The Hollow Throne was gone.

The crater silent again.

Kaelen pulled me upright.

Neither of us spoke.

Until I asked, "What did she mean? Balance with blood?"

He stared at the horizon, jaw tight. "I think we need someone who knows... how to undo magic cast in death."

I swallowed. "Someone like Maelin?"

"No," he said, voice dark. "Someone Maelin fears."

Back at camp, I found the stone again.

Still pulsing.

Still waiting.

I picked it up, intending to toss it far into the sea.

But before I could move, a voice filled my mind.

Not Kaelen's.

Not mine.

But something in between.

"You can't protect both," it whispered. "You must choose."

And this time…

The voice came from within me.