The echoes spoke in silence.
Not telepathy. Not sound. Just... certainty.
The Echo-Vaelen stepped forward first, clad in the Tribunal's ceremonial uniform, every motion calculated, every expression hollow.
"I never betrayed Kairn. I became what the Tribunal wanted," it said."Look at me. I have power. Purpose. Legacy."
Vaelen stared at it, halberd at the ready.
"You're everything I walked away from."
"You're everything that survived."
The echo raised its blade, identical to Vaelen's but polished and untouched by battle.
They clashed.
Steel met steel, but deeper than metal, the memories collided. Every parry echoed a forgotten vow, and every strike reopened emotional wounds buried for years.
Elsewhere in the chamber, Echo-Zaiya hovered in mid-air, eyes dim, mouth sealed shut, surrounded by a halo of crumbling glyphs.
Her robes bore the chains of containment.
"I never heard the Council's voices," she whispered, head twitching with suppressed static."I was safe. Quiet. Alone."
Zaiya stepped closer, pain rising in her throat.
"You're what they made me before I knew who I was."
"They never erased you," the echo replied. "They protected you from knowing."
Zaiya reached out, then stopped.
"No. That silence wasn't protection. It was a cage."
Her real glyphs surged like fire.
She pressed her palm to the echo's forehead.
"I name you as Unwritten. You have no hold on me."
The echo shattered into spiraling dust.
Elya was not so lucky.
Her echo smiled.
Same stance. Same voice. Same blade. But instead of guilt, it radiated cold pride.
"I left them all," it said. "Didn't hesitate. Didn't grieve."
"You're not me," Elya hissed, circling.
"No. I'm what you would've been if you let go of weakness. If you stop pretending, memory makes you strong."
They clashed in the air, sword to sword, fire in every blow. But the echo's movements were too familiar, her instincts too sharp.
Elya faltered, tripped, and sliced across the ribs.
Blood hit the floor.
From across the room, Vaelen saw her fall and shouted:
"Don't let it speak for you!"
"Easy for you to say," she spat, blood dripping down her chin. "You've already forgotten who you were."
The Archivist's voice cut in, loud, layered:
"You are not your echo! You are the act of choosing differently."
Elya rose slowly.
Breath heaving.
Vision blurred.
But her grip… tightened.
"Then let me show you my choice."
With a scream, she flipped forward, disarmed the echo with a twisting maneuver only she had ever used, and then drove her blade through its chest.
"I remember enough."
The echo's body dissolved in flame and words.
Fragment-93 flared near the Archive's central code-core.
"They're breaching the seal."
The Archivist turned.
"Then we must protect the First Glyph."
Zaiya stepped forward.
"Let me bind it."
"It may unmake you."
"Then let it choose."
The Origin Cut floated to her.
Zaiya inhaled deeply.
Her voice softened, steady but trembling.
"I am Zaiya Avel-Kai."
"Born of broken spirals."
"Bearer of breath and script and silence."
She pressed her fingers to the glyph.
It pulsed once, twice. Then entered.
She screamed.
Every voice in the Council screamed with her.
The chamber lit white.
Her body hovered mid-air.
Glyphs poured from her skin like wings on fire.
Then… stillness.
She fell into Vaelen's arms.
Alive.
Eyes open.
But changed.
"Zaiya?" he asked.
"I remember everything," she whispered."Even what they never let me know."
Zaiya lay still in Vaelen's arms.
But her eyes, those burning silver spirals, reflected something new, a glyph no one had seen before. Not even the Archivist.
Fragment-93 hovered closer, its luminous body glitching at the edges.
"Her binding is successful," it said. "But unstable."
The Archivist studied her, then turned to the chamber's center. One final wall lit up a name long buried.
"She has unlocked the Last Scribe."
Elya and Vaelen stood beside Zaiya as the glyph displayed itself:
Name: Lysian Avel-Syrin
Title: Nytherion's Last Scribe
Status: Erased
Relation: Progenitor Class – Zaiya Avel-Kai
Zaiya sat up, trembling.
"That name… I've dreamed it."
The Archivist nodded slowly.
"He was the one who created the Glyphborn Accords. He encoded the Archive beneath the Rift. Your bloodline was designed to hold memory when the rest of the world forgot."
Fragment-93's glow began to dim.
Lines of light bled from its core.
"The Pale Censor's code pulse is reaching us. My firewall layer is almost gone."
"Then you need to leave," Vaelen said.
But the fragment shook its head.
"If I leave, the Archive collapses. You'll lose the glyph. Lose her memory. Lose everything."
It turned to Zaiya.
"I am designed to preserve meaning."
A tear of light drifted from its core.
"This is what I was made for."
The Archivist raised its arms.
A portal began to open behind them, spiraling upward, filled with fractured light and floating script.
"That path leads to the Sky-Sanctum," it said."One of three sites left untouched by the Ledger."
"And the only place where the First Glyph can be rewritten."
Zaiya stood, weak but burning with clarity.
"Then that's where we go next."
"Are you sure you can survive it?" Elya asked.
Zaiya looked her in the eyes.
"I don't know."
"But I remember why we're fighting."
As they stepped through the portal, the Rift trembled.
Fragment-93 hovered to the Archive's center, its body flickering.
It placed a fading hand on the First Glyph's housing ring.
And whispered one last line:
"All stories end in silence. But meaning... survives."
Then, it collapsed into a scatter of shimmering code.
The portal closed.