The Echowound was a contradiction made flesh.
A rift that wasn't open, but bleeding.
The valley surrounding it had no wind, but Mimus felt pressure like breath on the back of his neck. A pull. As if gravity had forgotten its allegiance. The chasm itself pulsed—not visually, but emotionally. It throbbed with every lie someone had ever told to themselves, every truth that had gone unspoken. It was vast and uneven, black around the edges, and pale with glowing Echo threads toward the center.
The group stood at the edge.
"Do we descend?" Rhesk asked, voice low.
"No," said Ilyan. "We choose to descend. That's the only way through. If we fall, it will eat us."
"I hate this place," Neren muttered. "It smells like my first funeral."
Caldrin said nothing. Her eyes were fixed on Mimus.
Because Mimus was already walking.
---
The descent wasn't vertical. It should have been. But the moment Mimus passed the threshold, the cliff unfolded into a spiral staircase made of fractured memory. Each step lit up behind him and darkened ahead, like the path only existed as long as he believed in it.
The others followed, one by one, but the distance between them stretched unnaturally. Rhesk was twenty paces behind, then fifty, then two hundred. Yet when Mimus looked back, he still saw him close.
"Echo folding," Ilyan called from somewhere far and near. "Don't trust space. Or time. Only intent."
The further Mimus descended, the louder the pressure in his head became. Not noise. Feeling.
Guilt.
Rage.
Unclaimed grief.
The Echowound fed on weight.
And Mimus carried plenty.
---
Halfway down, the path ended at a suspended platform—smooth stone ringed with thorns of crystallized Echo. At its center: a figure.
Not alive.
But not entirely dead.
It was locked in stasis, arms outstretched, bound to three intersecting poles of light. The face was hollowed, skin ash-pale, eyes open but unfocused.
Mimus recognized it.
Not as a person.
But as a memory.
It was him.
The version that let Rynor die.
"I am what you avoided," the figure said. Its voice came from the Echo itself, not from lips. "I am the Mimus who said 'Let him go.'"
The others hadn't arrived yet. Or maybe they had, and the Echowound had separated them again. This trial was personal. Singular.
"Do you regret it?" the figure asked.
Mimus gripped the hilt of his blade. "Every day."
"Then why do you carry it like armor?"
"I don't."
"Liar."
The poles shattered.
The figure moved.
And the fight began.
---
The battle wasn't physical. Not entirely.
Their blades clashed—but the damage didn't land on skin. It landed on memory. Every strike rewrote part of Mimus' past, forcing him to relive it through a different lens.
He swung left—and found himself standing over Rynor's body, blood on his hands.
He dodged right—and saw his mother's voice flicker, fade.
The clone—this other Mimus—fought with precision. With clarity. He didn't hesitate. Because he knew he'd made the right choice.
"You think pain makes you righteous," the clone spat. "But it only makes you weak."
"I chose pain," Mimus said.
"Then die with it."
The clone struck—a downward arc laced with Echo.
Mimus blocked.
The feedback surged.
His mind flooded with timelines. Echoes. Worlds where he ran. Where he killed. Where he never awakened.
He screamed.
Then—
Silence.
He looked up.
The blade was at his throat.
But it didn't move.
Because the clone hesitated.
Because Mimus stopped resisting.
"I am you," he said. "But I'm also more than you. I remember what we were, and what we could be. You only see the wound. I carry the scar."
The clone trembled.
And crumbled.
Not into ash.
But into truth.
A line of text, etched in light, where the blade had hovered:
"To heal is not to forget. It is to survive memory's fire and remain."
Mimus stepped forward.
And the platform fell away.
---
He landed hard on a second level.
Here, time stopped.
Not slowed.
Stopped.
The air was frozen mid-motion. Dust particles held in place. Mimus's heartbeat stalled. He blinked—and the world took thirty seconds to catch up.
Then he saw them.
The others.
All caught in stasis.
Rhesk, frozen mid-strike. Caldrin, blade drawn. Olyra weeping. Ilyan whispering to something not there. Neren aflame.
They were reliving their own battles.
And something else watched.
Above them: a sphere of raw Echo, pulsing.
A Curator's Eye.
Watching. Recording.
Mimus looked up. Met it.
And challenged it.
He raised his blade—not in threat.
In defiance.
The Eye flared.
Time resumed.
And every participant dropped to the floor, gasping, clutching heads, eyes wide.
They all looked at him.
And saw someone else.
Because Mimus was glowing.
Not from Echo.
From integration.
The wound had marked him.
The scar had accepted him.
And the story was no longer his alone.
It was spreading.
---
As the others regained their breath, Caldrin approached first. Her sword remained sheathed, but her eyes were sharper than blades.
"You changed," she said.
Mimus nodded. "So did the wound."
The others formed a ring around him, uncertain but no longer distant. Their Echoes pulsed in harmony, faint and tentative. Something deeper than alliance was forming.
"We can't go back after this," said Olyra.
"We won't," said Mimus.
He turned south—toward whatever lay past the bottom of the Echowound.
And Varellen listened.
---
Far above, the Curators stirred.
Three watched. One whispered.
"He is becoming louder."
"He is becoming known."
"And if he continues?"
A pause.
"We send the First Forgotten."