The light changes first.
Not a flicker. A shift. Like walking from the world you know into one painted in grief.
The moment the gate closes behind us, the weight doubles. Not just on my shoulders. In my chest. In my skull. As if thought itself has to fight to exist here. My breath catches, a momentary betrayal of composure, I hope Lyra doesn't notice.
The corridor stretches too long. And not long enough. Stone walls breathe with heat that isn't heat. The air smells of damp and dust and something heartbreakingly familiar I can't quite name. Like the scent of my mother's study when she was away, the absent warmth.
Lyra walks ahead, slow and steady, like her boots are tethered to the path. I follow. I think I follow. My steps feel borrowed, as if they belong to someone else.
I try to count the seconds. But they slip. Like water through fingers, or memory through time. Like every lesson I've ever learned about keeping control in uncertain terrain.
My fingers curl tighter around Ashthorn's grip. Still cool. Still distant. I wonder, not for the first time, if it's judging me. Or if it's just waiting for something I haven't yet become. The comfort of its weight should ground me, should remind me of who I am. Juno Pendragon. Academy elite. Second only to—
I look at her. Her back is straight, her steps sure. Even here, where the air itself seems designed to buckle resolve, she moves as if the world has no choice but to bend around her. Perhaps it doesn't.
The further we go, the deeper the silence grows. Not just quiet. Not absence. But a pressure. The kind that fills a room where grief has lingered too long. Where something was once mourned so completely that even the walls remember.
This isn't a space. It's a wound.
A sorrow-type echo. That much is certain.
But it isn't theory anymore. It isn't lines traced on a glowing map. It isn't elegant words at a war table. It is the very shape of the world around me. Twisting. Pressing. Breathing.
Everything curves inward here. Stone arches like ribcages. Paths that bend without turning. The air does not whisper. It waits.
And I begin to feel the presence.
It's subtle, at first. A faint prickle at the base of my neck. The sense that we are not alone. Not quite watched, but... noticed. As if the dungeon has become aware of us. Not as intruders. Not as prey. But as memories yet to be explored.
It watches without eyes. Hears without ears. And what it listens for is not footsteps, but thoughts. Regret. Emotion. The small cracks in the armor of the mind.
Somewhere ahead, a soft echo rolls down the corridor. Not a voice. Not a word. Just sound stripped of its meaning, yet heavy with intent. Hollow. Curious.
The dungeon is not passive. It is listening. Feeling. It wants to know us.
And the worst part is, it already does.
I try to stay alert, to keep my mind clear. But the very air here is like a fog, creeping in at the edges. Slowing thought. Sinking deep. My training should protect me, should shield my mind from this incursion. But the walls of my resolve feel paper-thin.
I think of the Academy.
A boy in a hall. First year. The pressure of his last name was heavier than the sword in his hand. A duel lost in front of a dozen watching eyes. A professor who looked away instead of offering comfort.
I blink.
And the image is gone.
No. Not gone. Pushed back. This place is already pulling. Already finding the tender spots beneath my armor.
I said it might be elemental, a disruption, a cluster. I spoke too confidently, too early. The certainty in my voice is a mask I'd perfected years ago, one that feels suddenly transparent in this place where truth seems to seep from the very walls.
Lyra was right.
Of course, she was.
She doesn't look smug. She never does. She moves like someone who has learned to expect truth to unfold as she sees it. But I watch the subtle shift in her shoulders, the tension in her neck. She's not untouched.
Just composed.
The privilege of the strong.
I don't resent her for it. But I do envy it. The ease with which she carries burdens that would crumble lesser souls. The quiet dignity that never wavers, even as I feel mine beginning to fray at the edges.
And it isn't just that I was wrong. It's what being wrong costs. If this dungeon had been something else, something simpler, it might have meant less danger. Less memory.
Because sorrow echoes don't just shape stone. They shape people. They reach into memory. Into regret. Into whatever wound you never closed.
I wonder what Lyra sees when she looks at these walls. If anything at all. Or maybe it just hasn't touched her yet. Or maybe, a thought that twists something inside me, she has no wounds deep enough for this place to find.
We descend deeper. The passageway opens into a wide chamber with an arched ceiling. Dust-flecked beams of blue light filter through a cracked skylight that should not exist this deep. They catch in her hair, turning the dark strands almost luminous. Even here, in this place of sorrow, she shines. Not with joy, but with an undeniable presence that seems to push back against the gloom.
Shapes line the walls. Statues. Figures knelt in prayer. Some missing heads. Others are crumbling from the waist down. Every face is carved in anguish.
The dungeon doesn't want to kill us.
It wants us to remember.
My breath hitches. I don't know why. I think of nothing in particular. And yet, the ache rises anyway. A hollowness beneath my ribs that feels both ancient and new.
A faint sound brushes against my ear. Like a voice trying to form itself out of wind.
I spin, blade half-drawn.
Nothing.
Just the walls. Just the statues.
Just the dungeon, thinking.
Lyra stops at the center of the chamber. She doesn't speak. But I see the way her eyes narrow. The way her left hand drifts slightly away from her body, the motion before a draw. Her shoulders tense in a way that would be imperceptible to anyone who hadn't spent years studying her every movement.
"Typical echo dungeon," I say, voice deliberately even, casual. "Old stones, bad lighting, melodramatic atmosphere." The words sound hollow even to my ears, brittle as autumn leaves. But I need them, need the shield they provide.
Lyra turns slightly, her ember eyes finding mine. "Is that what you really think?"
Her question cuts through my pretense like a blade through silk. For a moment, I'm tempted to drop the facade, to admit the growing unease curling in my gut like smoke. Instead, I straighten my spine, call forth the familiar mask of Pendragon confidence.
"Of course," I reply smoothly. This is just... architectural melancholy." I even manage a smile, the kind that never quite reaches my eyes.
She studies me for a moment too long. "You're lying."
Not an accusation. A statement of fact.
I feel my mask slip, just for an instant. "I hate this place," I murmur, the truth escaping before I can catch it.
She doesn't look away. "Good. Means you're still yourself."
Something in her voice, not pity, but understanding steadies me. Grounds me in a way Ashthorn's familiar weight cannot. In a way, nothing else can. She sees through me, always has. And somehow, being seen makes the burden lighter.
I nod. More to myself than to her.
Ashthorn hums faintly. Just once. Like a thought trying to surface and failing.
There is a door ahead. A threshold. Half-open. Light leaks through in a way that suggests no source. Just direction.
I step closer to Lyra. Close enough to feel the warmth of her presence against the chill that has settled in my bones. I want to say something. Maybe a joke. Maybe a question. Maybe a confession of how, even here, in this place of sorrow, I find myself drawn to the quiet strength she embodies.
But the moment feels like it's holding its breath.
Instead, I say, "You think this place was a shrine?"
She tilts her head. "Or a tomb. Or both."
"It feels old."
"Grief always does."
There's a pause, and for the first time since we entered, Lyra turns fully toward me. Her eyes, those deep crimson eyes that hold warmth where they should burn, search my face. "You're quiet."
I shrug, aiming for nonchalance. "Trying not to think too loud. In case it listens." The joke falls flat, even as I try to build it into a shield.
"Juno." My name in her voice is gentle. Not pitying. Just present. "You don't have to pretend. Not with me. Not here."
For a moment, I consider denying it. But there's something in her gaze that makes lies impossible. "Old habit," I admit softly. "The Pendragon way. Show no weakness."
She almost smiles. "I know your weaknesses. All of them." She says it not as a threat but as a reassurance. "And you're still standing."
The words sink deeper than they should. A balm I didn't know I needed.
Another step. Another breath. We cross the chamber.
There's no sound but the soft scuff of boots against dust and the distant creak of something too large to see. Or maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's just the memory of sound. This place could hold echoes of things that never happened and still make them feel true.
"Do you ever wonder," I say, "what it would be like to walk into a place like this and feel nothing?"
Her eyes meet mine, steady as ever. "I think it would mean I'm dead."
Her answer is simple. Unflinching. Like most truths. And in it, I hear what she doesn't say that to feel, even pain, is to be alive. That numbness is not strength but absence.
"And you?" she asks, her voice softer. "Are you feeling too much or trying not to feel at all?"
The question catches me off guard. I look at her. The proud line of her jaw. The subtle curve of her lips. The strength in her stance that it never reads as hardness. Beautiful isn't the right word. It's too simple. Too expected. She is essential. Like air. Like water. Like the steady heartbeat of the world itself.
"Both," I answer honestly. "Always both."
She nods, understanding without needing more. That's Lyra, she hears what I mean, not just what I say. It's unnerving. It's comforting. It's why, despite everything, despite history and rank and expectation, she remains the only person I trust completely.
We move again. Past statues. Past what look like altars, long forgotten.
The door at the far end is older than the rest. Wood, not stone. Bound in faded metal. One hinge groans as Lyra pushes it open.
The air inside is colder.
I pause.
She looks at me. Not with impatience, but with the quiet knowledge that I will follow, not because I must, but because we face this together.
"Ready?" she asks, and in her voice I hear not command but invitation.
No. Not really. The sorrow that permeates this place has already begun to take root in me, to find the hidden fractures I've spent years denying. But with her, somehow, I feel strong enough to face whatever waits beyond.
But I nod anyway.
And we step through together.
And the echo breathes again.