The echoes that hunt

Far to the east of the Hollow Vault, where the cliffs of Ilnagath overlook the Ldditen Sea, the cult-fires had already been lit.

The Wane Waneholds slept beneath veils of mist, their crumbled towers leaning like drunken priests over the abyss. The moon cast no light here not directly. Instead, it hung above the sea like a blistered eye, its glow refracted and broken, scattered across the black water like spilled silver blood.

At the summit of one such tower its name lost to time a congregation knelt in a perfect circle, heads bowed, voices humming a hymn older than words.

They were the Shadeknots. Echo-bound. Memory-drinkers. And tonight, they had heard a new note in the dark. A ripple. A resonance.

The Voicebreaker, high priest of their order, stood with arms outstretched, bones tied to his wrists with copper wire. His robes were stitched with tongues literal, pale tongues, taken from oathbreakers and dreamliars.

"Another has stirred the Vaultheart," he whispered.

A collective intake of breath. A dozen acolytes raised their veiled heads.

"Do we hunt it?" one asked.

"We do not hunt," Voicebreaker said. "We unbind. The song is not meant to be sung by flesh. And yet he sings."

He stepped toward the altar at the center of the tower. Upon it lay a slab of mirrored obsidian, cracked at the center, with red smoke seeping from the fracture.

"He must be silenced. Or the others will remember. And if they remember, they will become."

The smoke curled upward, forming a shape vague, male, limping through memory. A boy marked by fire. A name trying to form.

Back within the Hollow Vault, Calyx stumbled as the aftershocks of the vision faded. Dust still drifted down from the ceiling, and the smell of ash lingered on his breath.

Serah steadied him. "You stayed conscious longer than I expected."

"I don't feel fine," Calyx muttered, pressing his hand to his temple. The twin spirals on the back of his hand still pulsed one faintly silver, the other darker now, shadowed.

Wren examined the Vaultheart remains. "Whatever it gave you, it won't be subtle."

Calyx looked around. "Is that thing still watching me?"

"No," Serah said. "But others might be."

Bast nodded. "We should move. Echoes linger."

"Echoes?" Calyx asked.

"Residual memory," Serah replied. "Not ghosts. Worse."

As they exited the chamber, the air grew thinner. The Vault no longer felt like a breathing beast. It felt like a tomb again. The kind that buried songs and the names who dared sing them.

They emerged into the night above, cloaks pulled tight. The mystical moon still hung bright, but something about its angle felt wrong as if the sky itself had shifted while they were underground.

A figure stood at the ridge, waiting.

Not a friend.

Calyx stopped short.

The man wore no armor. Just layered black robes stitched with bone thread. His face was veiled. Behind him stood five others, each holding a crook made of knotted root and stone. Their mouths were stitched shut but they hummed.

Serah swore under her breath. "Echobinders."

"What do they want?"

"You."

The veiled man raised a pale hand. "Calyx of no-name. You've trespassed into memory. You carry flame not meant to burn."

His voice was like pages tearing.

Calyx stepped forward, confused but unafraid. "You know who I am?"

The man nodded. "You are a ripple. A spark. You are the wrong song at the wrong time."

Wren readied his blade. "They're here to end you, boy."

"Not just end," Serah said. "Unmake."

The veil-wrapped man extended both arms.

And the stitched-mouth cultists began to hum louder.

Not words. Names. And Calyx felt something inside him recoil. Not pain. Worse. Erasure.

The hum from the Echobinders grew louder. It wasn't music, not truly but something deeper, layered beneath the skin of sound. It moved like a fever through the bones, scraping memory loose with every note.

Calyx staggered, gripping his skull. Images flooded his mind, fast and fractured his mother's face, the baked scent of rootbread, Serah's silver thread, the Vaultheart's shatter all slipping.

"They're stealing—" he gasped.

"No," Wren growled, stepping forward, "they're unmaking. That's what they do."

He flung his blade in a wide arc. It didn't glow, didn't sing, but its edge carried a kind of finality that felt ancient. It struck the air before the nearest Echobinder and shattered their hum like glass.

The cultist spasmed, blood spurting from the seams of his sewn mouth as he collapsed into the moss.

The others hissed still voiceless and shifted their hums into sharp dissonance. Calyx dropped to his knees, clutching his chest.

Serah knelt beside him. "Focus. Don't let them in."

"I'm trying—!"

She grabbed his marked hand and pressed it against her forehead.

"Remember me. Not them."

And for a moment just a moment he did.

He saw her standing alone beneath the moon, head bowed, eyes sharp. Not afraid. Not broken. Solid.

He clung to that memory.

The spirals on his hand pulsed and the hum faltered.

Serah let go and stood, drawing her crescent-forged dagger. "They're using your name against you. You're too raw, too fresh. It's like blood in the water."

Bast loomed at the rear, arms folded. "Then stop bleeding."

"Helpful," Serah snapped, lunging into the fray.

The battle wasn't loud just sharp. Each strike of steel against stone-flesh cracked the unnatural quiet like thunder under velvet. Wren moved like a ghost, severing vocal cords and slashing through memories. Serah's blades cut lines in the air that shimmered briefly, like she was carving thought itself.

But the Echobinders didn't fall easily.

Even as their bodies broke, echoes spilled from them floating shadows, whispering other people's memories, crawling toward Calyx.

One reached him. It was shaped like a child his own younger self. Wide-eyed. Scared.

"Don't forget me," it whimpered.

He looked into its face and saw himself reaching for the rope at the riverbank, moments before the fire came.

Then he spoke:

"I already did."

He raised his marked hand and the echo burned away. Not with fire. With truth.

The fight ended with a sharp snap as the final cultist collapsed. Wren drove his sword into the earth to silence the humming that lingered on the wind.

Calyx sat in the mud, shaking.

Serah dropped beside him. "They'll send more now."

He nodded. "Who were they?"

"The Shadeknots. The Choir of the Echo. They feed on what people forget. And they fear what you've begun."

"I didn't ask for any of this."

"No one ever does."

Wren wiped blood from his blade. "Your power is tied to remembrance, boy. The more you're remembered by others or yourself the stronger you become."

"And the more they'll try to erase me?"

Wren didn't answer. They made camp beneath the crumbling ridge. Wren took first watch.

Serah sat beside Calyx, holding a small fire-glass stone. Its glow shimmered in her eyes.

"You did well," she said.

"I didn't do anything."

"You didn't run. That's something."

He looked at his hand. The spirals no longer pulsed. They had settled into his skin, like scars that didn't ache anymore.

"I saw myself," he whispered. "But wrong. Younger. Afraid."

Serah nodded. "The name you carry isn't just words. It's weight. It'll show you versions of yourself you've tried to forget."

"And the Vault called me…"

"Ashwrought," she said. "It's not your name yet. But it's reaching for you."

He lay back, watching the moon.

"Why me?"

Serah didn't respond right away. Then: "Because the moon doesn't shine on the worthy. Only the wounded."

Far across the sea, back in the Shadeknot sanctum, the Voicebreaker screamed.

The altar shattered. The mirror split. The memory they had tried to eat had burned them instead. He turned to his remaining followers, face torn with fury.

"He remembers. And now… we must make the world forget him."