Chapter 72 The Echo
We stumbled out of the memory.
I collapsed.
Milo knelt beside me. “What did you see?”
“I was... crowned. But it wasn’t me. It was someone else. Or maybe a version of me. She was cold. Empty.”
He frowned. “The shard didn’t just take your memories. It left echoes. Fragments of futures that never happened.”
I looked around.
The Veil pulsed.
And something moved.
A shadow.
Watching.
Waiting.
Like one, everyone became on guard, knowing that something was watching us, waiting for us to make a move. Waiting for the shadow itself to make a move.
We tried to leave.
But the Veil shifted again.
A voice echoed.
“You shattered the Crown. But the Crown remembers.”
Milo drew his blade and held it in one hand while in the other his shadows were waiting and ready.
I summoned flame without thought.
Gerald bleated.
Quacknor hissed.
The shadow stepped forward.
It wore my face.
But not my flame.
Not my heart.
Just my crown.
And it smiled.
I stood shocked and scared, I couldn’t remember, I couldn’t understand how I was here and I was there as well. I took a step back and shadow me smiles as it advances. With every step I take to retreat, it advances. As one, we all retreat, and as we leave the veil bridge and take refuge in the Watchtower, the shadows' evil laughter can be heard loud and clear throughout all of Aeloria.
Three days after encountering the veil, Ellira returned. She told us about the Archives of Echoes. “It’s a place where time goes to sulk and memories get filed under 'miscellaneous.” She said while producing a memory shard held in her hand.
It was still pulsing.
It was still rewriting.
“She wears choice,” she said, “but choice rewrites her.”
I stared at the shard. It pulsed like it knew I was watching. Like it was saying, “Hi, I’m your plot twist.”
Milo had a plan.
To extract the shard.
To restore me.
But it would mean risking my flame.
And my life.
Naturally, everyone had opinions.
We stood in the Watchtower, the sky above us swirling with stars that might’ve been memories or just really dramatic weather.
“I may forget you,” I said. “I may forget myself.”
Thessa scoffed. “You already forgot my birthday last year. This isn’t new.”
Lira smiled. “We’ll just reintroduce ourselves. I’ll bring snacks.”
Ellira frowned. “This is dangerous.”
Kael shrugged. “So is breakfast with Gerald.”
Yuel nodded solemnly. “We’ll remind you.”
Zeke pulled out a scroll. “I’ve prepared a list of things you should never forget. Number one: never trust a duck.”
Quacknor quacked threateningly.
Gerald headbutted a pillar.
Milo took my hand.
“We’ll find you,” he said. “Even if you forget us. We’ll remind you who you are.”
I nodded. I wasn’t ready, though. I wasn’t ready for me to be gone and for who I am to be threatened. Since coming to Aeloria, things have been great and amazing. I feel like I belong here after wanting to belong for so long. Now I am not so sure. I smiled at each of my friends, my family, it was forced, and I am sure they could tell.
“Let’s begin,” I mutter.
And the ritual began.
They called it the Ritual of Unbinding.
Which, frankly, sounded like something you’d find in a dusty tome next to “How to Accidentally Summon a Demon in Three Easy Steps.”
I stood in the center of the Watchtower’s upper chamber, surrounded by friends who looked like they were preparing for either a magical intervention or a very dramatic group therapy session.
Thessa was drawing runes in ash around me, muttering under her breath. “If this goes wrong, I’m blaming Kael.”
Kael, lounging nearby, smirked. “If this goes wrong, I’ll be the one saving your ash.”
“Did you just—” Lira groaned. “Not the pun. Not during the ritual.”
Yuel ignored them all, his voice calm as he chanted verses older than the stars. His words echoed through the chamber like ripples in still water. Ancient. Steady. Slightly judgmental.
Ellira stood at the edge of the circle, monitoring the veil with a device that looked suspiciously like a teapot glued to a compass. “The veil’s stable. For now. But if it starts humming in D minor, we run.”
Zeke was scribbling furiously in his journal. “This is going to make an excellent chapter. Possibly a trilogy. Mo and the Memory Thief. Or The Girl Who Forgot. Or—”
“Zeke,” I said, “if I die, you are not allowed to turn it into a musical.”
He looked mildly offended. “Fine. A tragic opera, then.”
Milo stood in front of me, holding the shard.
It pulsed in his hand like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to either of us.
“You ready?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “But let’s do it anyway.”
The first part of the ritual was simple.
Set myself on fire.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
I summoned my flame, letting it rise from my palms, my chest, my eyes. It danced around me, golden and wild, like it remembered who I was even if I didn’t.
The shard reacted instantly.
It pulsed harder, like it was trying to sync with my flame. Or override it.
Milo stepped into the circle, holding the shard out. “Now.”
Thessa tossed a memory stone into the flame. It shattered, releasing a swirl of images—me laughing, fighting, crying, dancing with Gerald at the Festival of Falling Stars.
I didn’t recognize any of it.
But my flame did.
It flared.
The shard screamed.
Yuel’s voice rose, his chant shifting into a language that made my bones ache. The runes around me glowed, lifting off the floor and spinning in the air like angry fireflies.
Kael summoned a wind that circled the chamber, catching the runes and scattering them into a vortex of memory and magic.
Lira stepped forward, holding a blade made of starlight.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s ceremonial.”
I raised a brow. “Ceremonial like ‘symbolic,’ or ceremonial like ‘oops, I stabbed you’?”
She grinned. “Little of both.”
She sliced the air in front of me.
The shard reacted violently.
It burst from Milo’s hand and slammed into my chest.
I screamed.
The world shattered.
Not literally. Just in my head.
I was everywhere and nowhere.
I saw myself as a child, chasing fireflies.
I saw myself crowned, cold and cruel.
I saw Milo dying.
I saw Gerald leading an army of ducks.
(That one might’ve been a hallucination. Or a prophecy. Hard to tell.)
The shard was inside me now, clawing at my memories, trying to rewrite me again.
But the flame fought back.
It surged, golden and furious, burning through the false futures, the broken echoes, the lies.
I felt something snap.