Chapter 88 The Echo He Left Behind

Chapter 88 The Echo He Left Behind
( Aria's POV )

The torches lining the temple walls sputtered weakly, their flames shrinking as if trying to hide from the truth pulsing beneath my skin. I pressed my hand harder against the mark on my sternum, as if that alone could keep it from moving, and from burning, and from breathing.

It pulsed again.

A slow, cold throb like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to me.

Kael noticed.

His jaw tightened the way it always did before a battle and before he threw himself between danger and anyone he cared about.

“Aria,” he said quietly, “sit.”

I almost laughed. “I’m not a child.”

“You’re shaking.”

I looked down.

Damn it, I was.

My fingers trembled, my breath too shallow, my magic reacting like a cornered animal inside my veins.

Lira wrapped her arms around herself, fatigue etched into every line of her face. “We need to stabilize her aura before anything else.”

“It’s not my aura that’s the problem,” I muttered.

Kael’s gaze sharpened. “Aria, look at me.”

I did.

And the moment our eyes met, a faint flicker of gold leapt from his aura into mine.

But instead of grounding me...

My magic recoiled violently.

A shock tore through my chest and I gasped, stumbling backward. Kael caught me before I hit the floor, arms steady around my waist.

His eyes went wide. “What was that?”

Lira’s mouth fell open. “Gods. The Devourer’s mark is interfering with your bond.”

A cold dread unfurled through me.

“No,” I whispered. “He can’t touch that. He can’t.”

“It’s not fully broken,” Lira said quickly, “but it’s… distorted. Off balance. Like something is standing between you.”

Kael’s grip tightened reflexively. His voice dropped to a sharp whisper. “He is not getting between us.”

My throat tightened. “Kael....”

“No,” he said again, fierce. “He tried to kill you. Now he’s trying to claim you. This ends.”

The way he said it with low, and certain had sent a shiver through me that had nothing to do with the cold.

Lira knelt, drawing a shaking circle of blue chalk on the floor. “We need answers. We need to know why the Devourer chose you. This wasn’t random. It wasn’t opportunistic.”

I swallowed hard. “Then what was it?”

She didn’t look at me at first. When she did, her expression was almost… apologetic.

“Aria… he knew you.”

A faint ringing began in my ears.

“What?” I whispered.

“He spoke to you like you were familiar. Like he recognized something. Like he’d been looking for you.”

My breath hitched.

Kael stepped closer, his presence like a shield. His voice gentled. “Aria. Has anyone or anything, ever touched your soul before tonight?”

“No,” I said immediately.

Too quickly.

Because inside my mind, the world wavered.

A memory flickered and not even a memory, more like a dream, distant and half-erased.

A cold hand brushing against mine in the night.

A voice whispering from beneath the ice of my childhood lake.

A promise I couldn’t quite remember.

My heart thudded painfully.

Kael noticed the shift in my eyes. “Aria… what did you just think of?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. It was nothing.”

“Aria...”

“I said it was nothing.” The words came out sharper than I meant. “A dream. I was a kid.”

Lira’s gaze snapped to him. “Dreams can be memories in disguise. Especially for those who are… touched by divine power.”

“I wasn’t touched by anything divine until the goddess chose me,” I said quickly.

But the goddess’s quiet voice whispered from the back of my mind, steady and cold.

You were never untouched, child. You were only unaware.

My stomach dropped.

Kael leaned closer. “Whatever you saw please tell me.”

I looked at him, at the bond flickering faintly between us, unstable but still there. His eyes were full of worry, frustration, something dangerously close to fear.

If I told him..

He’d tear the world apart looking for answers.

If I didn’t...

The Devourer might already know more about me than I did.

I exhaled shakily. “There was a lake near the village where I grew up. I used to wander there at night. One winter… I heard something.”

Kael’s grip on my arms tightened.

“Heard what?”

“At first, just a whisper.” My voice trembled. “I thought it was the wind. But one night, I slipped on the ice and fell in. And when I sank, something reached for me.”

“Reached?” Lira whispered.

“It didn’t feel human,” I said quietly. “But it didn’t feel evil either. Just… cold. Like it had been waiting. I remember a hand brushing mine. Then a voice saying something I couldn’t understand. When I woke up, I was on the shore.”

Kael’s expression darkened. “And you never told anyone?”

“I thought it was a hallucination. I was ten.”

Lira’s magic flickered across her fingertips. “The Devourer is ancient. Bound long before you were born. He shouldn’t have been able to reach you then, unless he found a crack in the seal or… something about you drew him.”

Kael’s voice lowered. “Aria… what did the voice say?”

I tried to remember.

My heartbeat thudded in my ears.

“It said…” I swallowed. “You are mine.”

Silence swallowed the temple.

Kael went utterly still.

Lira’s face drained of all color. “That’s a claiming phrase.”

My knees went weak. Kael guided me down before I fell, kneeling with me, one hand on my back.

“That’s impossible,” he said fiercely. “You were a child. The Devourer couldn’t have chosen you then.”

“Unless,” Lira whispered, “it wasn’t the Devourer.”

Kael and I looked at her sharply.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Ancient forces aren’t like us,” she said. “They don’t see time the way mortals or even guardians do. If something marked you as a child, it could have been a fragment of him. A shadow he cast into the world before he was sealed. Something that searched and waited.”

I forced a breath. “Why me?”

“That,” Lira said, “we don’t know yet.”

Kael stood abruptly, pacing like a caged wolf. His aura flared dangerously. “We need answers. We need to know what he wants. And we need to break whatever this is before he uses it.”

“He can’t use it yet,” Lira said quickly. “She fought him. She resisted. The mark is there, but it’s dormant.”

I looked up sharply. “Dormant?”

“For now,” she added.

Kael stopped pacing and crouched in front of me, cupping my face with trembling hands.

“Aria,” he said softly, “you are not alone in this. I don’t care what he thinks he has. He does not get to take you.”

My breath caught.

He leaned his forehead against mine, aura wrapping protectively around me despite the flickering instability.

“You belong with us,” he whispered. “With me.”

The bond between us sparked weakly and struggling, but still holding.

I closed my eyes, letting the warmth of him push back the cold pulsing in my chest.

But then...

A chill ripped through me so violently I arched backward with a gasp.

The mark on my sternum flared bright silver.

Lira shouted. “Aria!”

Kael caught me as light shot from my chest in a thin, ghostly beam, slicing up toward the temple ceiling.

The air cracked.

And in the beam of light...

A silhouette appeared.

Tall.

Shadowed.

Watching.

The Devourer’s voice whispered through the room, thin as breath on glass.

Found you.

Kael roared, aura exploding in gold.

Lira recoiled in horror.

I pressed a hand to the mark, heart slamming against my ribs.

He wasn’t fully here.

He wasn’t even close.

But he was reaching.

Claiming.

Calling.

The beam snapped violently, shattering into silver sparks that burned across the floor.

Kael hauled me into his arms, chest rising and falling with furious, ragged breaths.

Lira whispered, voice shaking...

“He’s coming back.”

I swallowed the fear clawing up my throat.

I forced myself to stand.

“No,” I said, staring at the fading sparks.

“He’s already here.”