The wind carries a breath of cold over the cliffs by dawn. It moves through the towers like a whisper, threading the high arches and stone parapets, rustling the banners that hang limp and heavy from the night before. The sky is pale, painted in thin strokes of peach and silver. A quiet hour, half in shadow, half in light.
I wake before the summons comes.
Not because I am eager. Not because I could not sleep. But because the stillness felt unfamiliar, my thoughts had nowhere else to go. They circled, stalled, and looped in silence. The kind of silence that presses inward.
The blade lies beside the bed, unsheathed. Ashthorn, silent and watchful. I had hoped for something in the night. A shift in resonance. A softening of distance. But it remains the same. Present. Distant. As if still deciding whether I am worthy of its voice. Seven successful bonds with previous pseudo-echoes, yet this one, the one that matters most, refuses to yield. The irony is not lost on me.
I reach out, fingers hovering over the hilt. The metal gleams in the early light, catching fire along its edge. Beautiful. Cold. So much like the name I carry: burnished by legacy but without warmth of its own. I pull back without touching it. There will be time enough for silence later.
I think of last night. The sharpness in my voice. The silence that followed. Her face lit by torchlight, unreadable. The way she saw through my frustration to the fear beneath it. I tell myself it meant nothing. But it lingers. In the joints of my fingers. In the space behind my ribs. The memory threads itself into the morning, quiet and uninvited, until the clink of armor and the cool bite of the air draw me back to the now.
I dress without a word. Tunic, cloak, and the light armor of a scout. Functional. Familiar. My fingers move automatically over the clasps, finding each buckle through muscle memory deeper than thought. The Pendragon crest rests over my heart, embroidered in silver thread. A dragon in flight, wings curved forward like a shield. Protection or promise. Maybe both.
The weight of the armor settles on me differently today. Not heavier, but more present. More real. As if the metal itself understands where we are going, what we might face. Pendragons have been entering dungeons for generations. Some returned. Some didn't. Their stories are carved into the very stones of this estate, whispered in the corridors after dark. I wonder, briefly, if today's journey will become another such tale.
They find me in the hall, already walking. The steward gives a nod, nothing more, and gestures for me to follow. His eyes linger a moment too long on the blade at my hip. Does he see what I feel? The hesitation in the bond? The incompleteness? Or am I imagining judgment where there is only duty?
We pass through the inner chambers, past rows of cold lamps and silent statues. Ancestors who bore the name before me. Heroes, some of them. Legends, others. All watching with stone eyes that seem to follow my passage. The corridor stretches longer than I remember. Stone beneath my boots. The echo of footsteps that once walked this path before me. I imagine them in heavy armour, quiet voices, the air tight with duty. Their names hang somewhere in the high arches, just out of reach.
The war room has changed.
The map at its center pulses with light. Azmere Pass glows faintly, threads of red and amber creeping out from its heart. The echo surge has not quieted. It has grown. Like a wound that deepens without bleeding. The sight sends a chill through me that has nothing to do with the morning air.
Mother is already seated. So is Halric. The rest filter in slowly. Twelve voices. Twelve perspectives. Some cautious. Some ambitious. All focused on the shifting patterns across the map, the living representation of something ancient stirring from slumber.
Lyra arrives with the same calm she wears like armor. She meets my gaze briefly. There is no smile. Only understanding. The Prism Crown is absent, but Aegis hovers at her shoulder, a constant sentinel. She takes her place at the table with the natural grace that seems to follow her everywhere. Even here, surrounded by power and authority, she belongs without trying.
Lord Tarvus speaks first. "No further flares from the relay stones, but the signature has deepened. Whatever is forming, it is not receding."
"Nor has it broken," says Halric. "That gives us time."
Time, yes. But how much? The map suggests urgency. The red lines have spread since yesterday, reaching further into the surrounding terrain. Like roots. Like veins.
I step forward before anyone else does. Better to shape the path than chase it.
"The distortion pattern is consistent with a forming echo dungeon," I say. "The terrain is folding faster than predicted. If a dungeon is taking shape, we must be inside it before it seals."
My voice carries the certainty I've trained my entire life to project. The conviction of a Pendragon. The authority of the heir. Years of education and preparation distilled into precise analysis. Whether the blade at my side accepts me fully or not, this, at least, I know.
Corven leans forward. His voice is clipped. "And if it has already sealed?"
Lyra answers before I can. "Then we find the gate. Every dungeon has one."
She steps beside me. Not ahead. Not behind. A subtle declaration of partnership that doesn't go unnoticed by the council. Some exchange glances. Others nod in approval.
A flicker of warmth stirs at her presence. I do not look at her. I do not need to. Her voice lands beside mine, not to correct, not to soften, but to echo. It should steady me. It almost does. There's a comfort in not standing alone, even if the person beside you is the one who has always stood above.
"A shadow team will hold at the ridge," I add. "No comms unless triggered. We move in clean. Quiet. Two points of entry, both scouted. If the pass is compromised, we retreat."
The words come with practiced ease. Strategy has always been my strength. The calculations, the contingencies, the measured assessment of risk. This is where I excel, where even Lyra sometimes defers to my judgment. The place where legacy becomes an advantage rather than a burden.
There is talk of the dungeon's potential shape, its emotional resonance, the signs it may be trying to show us before it becomes something we cannot control. Lyra and I offer what theories we can, each of us tracing from the same map, but seeing slightly different roads.
She notes the fold patterns in the terrain, how they ripple inward in a way that mirrors sorrow-type formations, echoes drawn from grief, regret, loss left too long. Her finger traces the contours with a certainty that suggests more than academic knowledge. As if she feels the echo's pulse through the paper itself.
"The curvature here, and here," she says, indicating two points where the map's illumination burns brightest, "is characteristic of emotional resonance. Not rage. Not fear. But grief. The kind that hollows rather than burns."
Her voice is clear, certain. I watch the way the council listens to her. As they should. When Lyra speaks of echoes, even those who have spent decades studying them grow quiet.
Then I speak. Not to contradict, but to refine. To question gently. "The inner ridges fracture too sharply," I say. "There's more instability than grief here. It reads more like disruption. Interruption. Like something meant to stay buried was forced awake."
My analysis draws from different texts, different theories. Not emotion, but structure. Not feeling, but form. The approach I've always taken, the lens through which I view the world.
There's a pause. Not silence, but tension. Not disagreement, but possibility. Lyra tilts her head slightly, eyes narrowed in thought. She doesn't refute me. Instead, she adds, "Unless it's both. A disrupted sorrow. The remnants of something that tried to break and couldn't."
The observation lands with unexpected weight. A bridge between our perspectives. Two pieces that fit where I hadn't seen the connection.
We do not argue. We never do. We lay the pieces down, side by side. Two truths, maybe. Or two halves of one. Let the council decide what they mean.
The wind rattles one of the high stained glass windows. Light flickers across the table in red and violet shards, dancing across the map like spirits. My mother remains still. But in her silence is expectation. The room has never been loud, but now the quiet feels sharp. Like breath held too long.
As the last scrolls are sealed and sigils pressed, someone near the edge of the table mutters a question.
"Do we know what kind of echo lies at the core?"
No answer.
Some echoes are old. Some are broken. Some are waiting.
And some, if left too long, no longer remember they were meant to be used. They simply consume.
A flicker of memory surfaces. Velcrin. Thirty years ago. A dungeon left to swell beneath the city until it broke. Twelve thousand dead. A city lost to ash and echo-fire. We have not forgotten. We cannot. The disaster that made my mother's reputation, that cemented the Pendragon name as guardians of the empire. It hangs over this room like a shadow.
The meeting adjourns with little fanfare. Chairs scrape quietly against the floor. Robes rustle. The weight of what has been decided presses inward, subtle but real. One by one, the council departs. Only Lyra and I remain.
We walk in silence until we reach the edge of the hall. The quiet between us is not uncomfortable, but it is heavy with things unsaid. About last night. About the mission. About the blade that still refuses to fully sync.
She breaks it first. "Still think it reads as disruption more than sorrow?"
"If it's sorrow, it's the kind that doesn't mourn," I say. "It clings. It corrupts."
She hums. "Then we'll be careful where we step."
The simple acknowledgment carries the weight of a promise. Not just caution, but partnership. A reminder that whatever awaits us in Azmere, we face it not as rivals, but as allies.
We descend into the lower halls. The air grows cooler, the stone narrowing. Our footsteps echo differently here, in the heart of the mountain where the estate's foundation meets ancient rock. At the bottom, the storage wing yawns open. Shelves stacked with provisions. Gear racks lined with weapons. Vials of condensed light. Tethered wards. Folded cloaks. Echo anchors. The tools of Conquerors, arrayed in silent readiness.
The room smells of leather and metal, of preservation oils and the faint ozone tang of dormant echoes. It reminds me of the Academy preparation halls before field trials. The same anticipation. The same methodical assessment of needs and risks.
"The suppression talismans," Lyra says, moving toward a locked cabinet near the far wall. "We'll need at least three each."
I nod, already calculating weight distribution, equipment priorities. "And the tethered comms. The low-frequency ones. Less chance of interference from the echo field."
We move with practiced efficiency, selecting gear with minimal discussion. This part, at least, is familiar ground. The technical aspects of preparation have been drilled into us since our first days at the Academy. Each item is chosen with purpose. Each decision weighed against potential scenarios.
Lyra moves ahead, already scanning for what we'll need. I trail her path, my thoughts flickering between the edge of the map and the blade at my side. The blade that should be an asset but might prove a liability. The uncertainty gnaws at me, a doubt I can't afford when lives, including our own, hang in the balance.
"You're thinking too loudly," she says, not looking up from the pack she's organizing.
"I'm thinking practically."
"You're worrying about the blade."
I don't deny it. There's little point in pretense with her. "A compromised tool endangers the mission."
She straightens, faces me directly. "You're not the blade, Juno. And the blade isn't you."
The words land like a stone in still water, rippling outward in ways I can't fully comprehend. Before I can respond, she returns to her preparations, leaving me to consider what she means. What separates a person from their tools, their echoes, their legacy? Where does one end and the other begin?
I select the final items: echo detection phosphors, a collapsible mapping frame, emergency flares that burn in colors no natural flame could produce. Each chosen according to protocol, each placed precisely where it belongs.
Azmere waits. We have hours, maybe less. We pack in silence.
The kind that says everything