Echoes of the Forgotten Dawn

Aela took another step forward. "Sylen… is it really you?"

The girl gave a small, tilted smile—one that didn't reach her eyes. "I remember the way you used to say my name. Like it was a promise."

Kael moved to Aela's side, but she raised a hand to stop him. Her heart pounded, blood roaring in her ears.

Sylen's cloak shifted with the wind, revealing the silver threads stitched across the hem—just like Kael's, but older, frayed at the seams. A sigil glowed faintly over her shoulder: a broken hourglass, inverted.

"Where have you been?" Aela asked. "We looked for you. For months. They said you wandered into the eastern woods and never came back."

Sylen's gaze flickered to Kael. "I see you've found another one."

Kael scowled. "She's not just 'found.' She chose this."

Sylen ignored him and stepped closer to Aela. "I tried to come back. I did. But the timelines wouldn't let me. I became... unanchored. Every time I stepped closer to you, reality buckled."

Aela struggled to process it. "So what happened? Where did you go?"

Sylen looked away, jaw tightening. "I walked the Shattered Spire. I followed echoes into vaults I didn't understand. I saw a thousand versions of you—some alive, some dead, some broken. Some who had never heard a single voice at all."

Aela swallowed. "Then why didn't you come to me sooner?"

Sylen's eyes met hers again—and this time, Aela saw something behind them.

Fear.

"I wasn't sure which version of me you'd remember."

That chilled Aela to the bone.

---

They moved into the central nave of the ruin, where pillars of stone leaned like drunk soldiers and vines crawled across what was once a cathedral ceiling. There, in the center of the chamber, stood a raised platform of mirrored obsidian, untouched by decay.

Above it floated the third shard.

This one was different—long and sharp, like a sliver of a sword's edge. Its glow was icy blue, and instead of pulsing gently, it vibrated with tension, like it didn't want to be still.

Sylen motioned to it. "You came for the shard. I know. They always come."

"They?" Kael asked sharply.

"Others like you," she said. "Guardians, Seekers, even Wraith-kin. They all want what's left of the Dawn. But none of them can touch this one. It doesn't accept outsiders."

Aela narrowed her eyes. "Then how are you here?"

"I'm not an outsider," Sylen said, stepping onto the platform. "This shard knows me."

And to Aela's shock, the shard didn't repel her—it brightened, casting light across the ruin.

"She's been marked," Kael said, disbelief creeping into his voice.

"Marked by what?" Aela asked.

Sylen turned to face her. "By the memory that came before the Dawn."

Kael froze. "That's impossible."

"Not anymore," Sylen whispered. "The further we reach into the shards, the more we wake what was buried beneath them. Not just forgotten history—forbidden memory."

Aela felt the air shift. The pendant at her chest pulled taut, glowing hot. The other shards in her pouch throbbed in warning.

Sylen saw it. "It's happening to you, too."

Aela hesitated. "What is happening to me?"

"You're becoming a vessel," Sylen said. "The echoes aren't just calling to you—they're building something inside you. A memory that was never meant to be reborn."

---

Kael stepped between them again. "That's enough. We didn't come here for riddles."

Sylen didn't flinch. "No. You came for the shard."

She turned to Aela. "You can take it. It's meant for you. But it won't come freely. It's bound to a trial."

Aela approached cautiously. "What kind of trial?"

Sylen gave her a grim smile. "One that only you can see."

Aela stepped onto the platform. The shard hovered in front of her, trembling.

As her fingers reached for it, everything around her dissolved—

—into glass.

---

She stood in a mirrored landscape, infinite versions of herself staring back.

Some smiled.

Some wept.

Some bled.

One—at the center—stood utterly still, eyes empty.

The voice that came wasn't Sylen's. It wasn't Kael's. It was her own, layered over itself in dozens of tones.

"Who will you become when the world forgets you?"

The mirrors closed in.

Aela's reflection fractured into scenes:

Her as a warrior, blade in hand, standing over a fallen Kael

Her as a ghost, watching Elowen burn

Her as a queen crowned in crystal, face unreadable

Her as nothing—a fading echo

Then all of them shattered.

Only one image remained.

Aela, kneeling in a circle of standing stones, holding the seventh shard—alone.

"You are the echo and the end," the voice said. "Take the shard, and remember what must never be remembered."

She reached forward—

—and everything went white.

---

She came to with Kael kneeling over her, eyes wide with worry.

"Did it accept you?" he asked.

Aela opened her hand.

The third shard rested in her palm.

Kael exhaled. "You did it."

Sylen watched from the edge of the ruin. "Then your path truly begins."

Aela stood. "Come with us."

Sylen shook her head. "I can't. I've already seen where my path ends."

Before Aela could protest, Sylen vanished.

Not into mist.

But into glass.

Like a reflection never meant to last.