The Echo Vault did not announce itself.
There was no gate, no towering door carved with warnings, no guardian waiting with a blade or riddle. It revealed itself the way rot reveals itself in fruit—quietly, inevitably, once you are already too close to turn away.
Rhen felt it before he saw it.
The ground beneath his boots changed texture, shifting from jagged stone to something smoother, older. The air thickened, humming faintly, as though the land itself remembered being alive. His wolf stirred uneasily, pacing the edges of his thoughts, hackles raised.
Nymera slowed beside him.
"We're crossing a threshold," she said softly. "Magic changes here."
Ahead of them, the ruins of the ancient city rose from the mist like broken ribs. Half-swallowed towers leaned toward the sea, their stone fused with coral and salt-crystal. Streets disappeared into flooded caverns. Statues—neither fully human nor merfolk nor beast—stood frozen in poses of grief and defiance.
"This place wasn't destroyed," Rhen muttered. "It was… ended."
Nymera nodded. "The Convergence didn't just break kingdoms. It erased a people."
They moved deeper.
With every step, the sigils on their bodies pulsed in quiet synchrony, like a shared heartbeat. Rhen felt memories brushing the edges of his mind—not visions this time, but emotions: panic, love, rage, despair. None of it his, yet all of it familiar.
The Vault lay at the city's heart.
It was a sunken amphitheater, its center hollowed into a vast circular chamber that plunged downward into darkness. At its core hovered a sphere of fractured light—cracked, unstable, rotating slowly.
Nymera stopped abruptly.
"That's not just memory," she whispered. "That's a record."
Rhen frowned. "Of what?"
She swallowed. "Of the truth."
As they stepped into the amphitheater, the light flared.
The world tilted.
Rhen fell—
—and landed on warm stone beneath a red sky.
The air was thick with smoke and salt. Screams echoed from every direction. He spun, heart hammering, and realized his body felt wrong—stronger, heavier. When he looked down, his hands were clawed, furred to the elbow.
Across from him stood Nymera.
But not his Nymera.
This Nymera wore a crown of living tidefire. Her tail burned with luminous patterns, her eyes blazing like twin moons reflected in blood-red water.
"This is them," Rhen breathed. "The first."
They weren't observers.
They were inside the memory.
The city burned around them as soldiers clashed—wolves in half-shifted forms, merfolk wielding tridents of condensed water, humans caught between, screaming as the sea rose around their homes.
At the center of the chaos stood Azkarel.
Whole.
Radiant.
Unbroken.
"Stop this," the Warden commanded, his voice shaking the ground. "This war ends now."
The wolf—Rhen's mirror—turned, eyes blazing silver. "Then stand aside."
The mermaid—Nymera's reflection—reached for him. "We can end it. Together."
Azkarel's gaze softened for a moment. "You already have," he said. "Your bond destabilizes everything. Land and sea were never meant to merge this way."
"Neither were we meant to be alone," the wolf snarled.
Rhen felt the echo of that fury slam into his chest.
The memory surged forward.
He saw betrayal.
The Council of the Deep striking first, poisoning the tides.
The Moonbound elders unleashing the curse that twisted wolf-blood into madness.
Azkarel torn apart trying to hold the balance between worlds that no longer wanted peace.
The Convergence had not been caused by love.
It had been exploited.
"They lied," Nymera whispered beside him, tears streaming down her face. "They blamed love… to hide their fear."
The memory accelerated.
The wolf and mermaid stood alone amid the ruins, holding each other as the sea rose uncontrollably.
"We can still fix this," the mermaid pleaded.
The wolf shook his head slowly. "No. But we can end it."
They turned toward the Vault—the same fractured sphere now hovering before Rhen and Nymera—and poured themselves into it. Power tore from them, raw and screaming, sealing the worlds apart at the cost of their lives.
The city collapsed.
The memory shattered.
Rhen gasped as he slammed back into his own body, knees buckling. Nymera fell beside him, sobbing, clutching her chest as if her heart might rip free.
"They sacrificed themselves," Rhen said hoarsely. "They chose the world over each other."
Nymera shook her head violently. "No. They chose the world for each other."
The Vault pulsed, reacting.
A voice echoed—not Azkarel's.
"You see now."
A figure emerged from the fractured light—a woman, translucent, her features a haunting blend of wolf and mermaid. Her eyes held sorrow older than oceans.
"I am Lunara," she said. "Last Keeper of the Echo."
Nymera's breath caught. "You knew them."
"I was them," Lunara replied softly. "What remained."
Rhen's chest tightened. "Then tell us how to stop it from happening again."
Lunara studied them, gaze piercing. "You cannot stop the Convergence."
Nymera flinched.
"But," Lunara continued, "you can change its ending."
"How?" Rhen demanded.
"By refusing the lie," Lunara said. "The lie that one of you must die. The lie that love is imbalance. The Convergence is not destruction—it is transformation."
The Vault cracked wider, light spilling out.
"But be warned," Lunara said. "Those who benefit from the lie will not surrender it easily. The Councils. The Moonbound Elders. Even Azkarel, bound by his pain."
Nymera lifted her chin. "Then we'll face them all."
Lunara smiled sadly. "You will have to."
She reached out, touching both their sigils at once.
Pain flared—then clarity.
Rhen felt something unlock inside him—not the beast, but the bridge between man and wolf.
Nymera gasped as light traced new patterns across her skin—marks of tide and flame intertwined.
"The bond is evolving," Lunara whispered. "You are no longer echoes. You are the next verse."
The Vault began to collapse.
"Go," Lunara urged. "Before they come."
"Who?" Rhen asked.
But the answer came in the form of distant howls and the thunder of approaching water.
The hunt had begun.
Rhen grabbed Nymera's hand, and together they ran—out of the Vault, out of the ruins, carrying a truth powerful enough to end wars… or start one.
Above them, the moon burned brighter.
And far away, councils gathered.