Chapter 47 – The Echo Crown
The glyph burned like fire in Liam's chest.
Crimson light licked at his skin, wrapping around his arms, searing into the blood-bond tethered between him and Ella. The glyph pulsed now with each heartbeat—not his alone, but three distinct rhythms converging: his, Ella's, and the ancient, resurrected queen's—Neretha.
The chains that had bound her shattered one by one with ringing, unnatural clangs, not broken by brute force, but by acceptance. Every step she took was mirrored by a shift in the magic that bound the crypt, the air trembling beneath her will. Her form was regal, but wrong—ethereal yet heavy with presence. As if time bent itself around her, memories threading behind every flick of her gaze.
"You can't keep her out of your mind, Liam," Ella said, backing closer to him as the sarcophagus turned to dust behind Neretha. "She's not just a vampire. She's an echo that feeds on memory, identity. She'll erase you to wear you like a mask."
"Then maybe I'll be the first to wear her instead," Liam muttered, fists clenched.
Neretha's smile was patient. "The Echo Crown does not bend to those who resist its call. But those who listen… they become legend."
She raised her hand. The glyph split apart into seven fractals, swirling through the chamber before sinking into Liam's body. He gasped, staggering as heat and pressure exploded behind his eyes.
Flashes.
A throne room of obsidian.
A war of shadows across the night sky.
A thousand voices screaming, their memories devoured in waves of red.
He fell to his knees.
Ella was there, her fingers on his shoulder, pouring her own blood energy into him, stabilizing his fraying consciousness. But it wasn't enough. The glyph was older than time. Older than death. It didn't just hold magic—it held history.
"You must master it," Ella said through gritted teeth. "Before it masters you."
Neretha stood motionless now, her hands raised to the air, tracing glowing sigils only she understood. Around them, the chamber shifted. Stone cracked. Roots curled inward through the walls, covered in glowing runes—memory roots. Not grown from earth, but grown from time itself. This was Neretha's sanctuary, buried inside the castle. And now it breathed again.
"I will reclaim the throne," she said. "And through your blood, I will rule the living and the remembered."
"Over my dead body," Ella spat.
Neretha didn't flinch. "So be it."
The walls erupted.
Shadows poured in—shapes twisted by ancient regrets. Guardians formed from forgotten promises and cursed love. They descended with spears of starlight and blades etched with names long lost. Liam was lifted off the ground by the force of their appearance. Ella's wings burst from her back, black as night, her eyes glowing like twin moons.
"Stay with me," she whispered. "You're the center of this. You're the crown now."
Liam's vision stabilized, focusing on Neretha's sigils. The Echo Crown wasn't a physical object. It was conceptual—an authority, forged from belief and reinforced by memory.
And Liam held the deciding memory.
He closed his eyes.
He remembered.
Not just his own life—but hers. Ella's first smile. Their first kiss. The night he offered her trust instead of fear. The moment they became something more than contract-bound strangers. And through those, he found clarity. Focus.
He reached inside the glyph—and turned it.
It screamed.
The glyph shuddered, rearranging itself in the air with violent force. Neretha's form flickered.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, suddenly less amused. "You're not supposed to be able to—"
"I'm not your vessel," Liam growled, rising with blood dripping from his eyes. "I'm not your mistake. I'm your end."
He raised his hand.
The glyph responded.
It collapsed inward, forming a spiral that burst outward in a ring of pure red light. The memory-roots recoiled. The chamber trembled. Ella stepped beside him, her power synchronized with his, their combined bloodcraft amplifying the resonance.
"You were sealed because you thought you could rewrite fate," Liam said. "But you forgot something."
"What?" Neretha hissed, her form twisting with rage.
"The future has free will."
The final glyph formed in Liam's palm.
He struck her chest with it.
Light burst.
Neretha's scream fractured the crypt.
A cyclone of red and gold swirled around them, casting echoes of every life she had ever devoured into the ether. They watched as those memories fled—souls finally freed. The chamber collapsed inward, a vacuum of history closing on itself.
Ella grabbed Liam, wrapping them in her wings as the world imploded.
Silence.
And then—
They stood in the surface courtyard of Crimson Castle. The glyph was gone. The sky was pale. Dawn.
Ella held his face. "You're still here?"
"I think so," he said. "And I think she's not."
Behind them, the tower that once housed the crypt slowly disintegrated, stones vanishing like smoke.
Althaea approached, bruised but alive. "You did it."
"No," Liam corrected. "We did."
From that day on, a new glyph was carved into the throne of Crimson Castle—one not of control or consumption, but of unity. It glowed softly with the blood of two souls bound not just by contract, but by love, defiance, and choice.
End of Chapter 47 – The Echo Crown