The wind didn't howl in Varellen that night—it whispered.
Low, breathless. As though the world itself were exhaling after the Harrowers' retreat.
The group made camp in a hollowed cavern near the edge of the Clasp. The walls were carved with old Echo-script—ancient, brittle symbols that shifted when you stared too long. They lit no fire. The Echo here was warm enough. Still too warm.
Mimus sat with his back against a flat stone slab, blade resting across his lap. His hands ached from the battle. Not from strain, but from holding something heavier than steel: Vesyr's memory. It hadn't left him.
If anything, it had grown louder.
She was part of his Echo now. Not a guest. Not a weapon. A tether.
---
Olyra meditated near the mouth of the cavern. Her Echo formed a soft circle around her, threads of sky-light slowly weaving into a spiral. Rhesk stood guard, arms folded, unmoving.
Ilyan paced. They had said little since the battle.
And Caldrin? Gone. Again. Vanished into the shadows like smoke.
"She always disappears after," Ilyan said, catching Mimus's glance.
"Why?"
"She doesn't like people watching when she puts herself back together."
Mimus let the silence settle between them. Then:
"Do you think they'll send more?"
"The Curators?"
Mimus nodded.
"They will," Ilyan said. "They won't admit it, but they're scared. They created the Harrowers to erase echoes too large to control. But Vesyr's echo didn't fade. You amplified it."
"I didn't mean to."
"That doesn't matter."
Ilyan crouched beside him. Their eyes were heavy. Not with exhaustion—resignation.
"You've become the loudest voice in the silence, Mimus. And Varellen doesn't like loud things unless they're broken."
---
The next morning, Caldrin returned.
She looked older. Not physically—but in presence. Her Echo had frayed slightly, pulled tighter around her like a wound wrapped in silk. She sat beside Mimus without a word.
He waited.
She eventually spoke.
"Do you know what it means to carry another's glyph?"
"I thought I did."
"You don't."
Her tone wasn't cruel. Just clear.
"When someone gives you their glyph," she continued, "they give you the part of themselves that never healed. That's what a glyph is—it's not power. It's memory sealed into form."
Mimus looked down at his wrist. The sigil still shimmered faintly beneath his skin.
"Then why give it at all?"
"Because healing alone doesn't echo."
---
They moved again at first light. The next gate lay to the south—beyond the Mire of Unspokenness. A region known for consuming names, replacing language with Echo-pressure so thick that even thought had to be whispered.
They walked single file, silence trailing them like a loyal dog.
The Mire rose from the horizon like breathless fog—gray, cracked soil that pulsed faintly with emotional debris. Mimus felt it the moment they entered. A pressure behind the eyes. A weight behind each heartbeat.
They had to whisper to speak.
"Why build a gate here?" Rhesk rumbled, his voice a low tremor.
"Because the Curators didn't build it," Olyra answered. "It formed on its own. Gates open where memory grows too loud to stay buried."
"And this place?" Mimus asked.
"It remembers everyone who tried to forget something important."
---
They reached the Gate at dusk.
It didn't look like a gate.
Just a crack in a standing monolith, pulsing with violet light. Echo pooled around it like mist, reacting to each of their presences.
Mimus stepped forward.
The Echo bent toward him.
Words bloomed along the stone. Not his. Not Vesyr's.
Ashlike Keeper. You who carry names not your own. Step forward. Speak what you have not spoken.
Mimus hesitated.
The others stood still, watching. Waiting.
He thought of his mother. Of Rynor. Of Vesyr. Of the boy in the ruins. Of the Curator who sent him here. Of Caldrin. Of who he might have been if none of this had happened.
He stepped into the Gate.
The Echo swallowed him.
---
Inside: a white chamber.
No sky. No sound. Just one thing waiting.
A mirror.
But not like the others.
This mirror showed him not who he was, but who he had never dared to be.
Mimus the coward. Mimus the conqueror. Mimus the boy who stayed. Mimus the man who let Rynor die. Mimus the flame. Mimus the hollow.
Each flickered in and out.
He watched them all.
And then he chose.
"I am the one who remembers," he said. "Not because I want to. But because someone must."
The mirror cracked.
And the Gate opened.
---
When he emerged, the others turned.
Rhesk smiled. Olyra bowed. Ilyan looked away, hiding something like hope.
Caldrin didn't speak.
She didn't have to.
The Echo did.
It shimmered behind them, stretching across the sky.
A phrase appeared, etched in light.
"Ash binds us"
And far above, the Curators trembled.
Because now the story had become contagious.