Lysa backed away from them as if their presence burned.
Her breath came in sharp, uneven pulls. Her hands trembled at her sides, fingers curling and uncurling like she couldn't decide whether to run or fight.
Arlen pushed himself upright, ribs aching. "Lysa—"
"Don't." Her voice cracked like thin ice.
Mira rose beside him, slower, steadier. "We didn't mean to see it."
"You weren't supposed to," Lysa whispered again, but this time it wasn't anger. It was grief wearing the shape of fear.
Rowan looked between them, confused. "What did you see? What happened in there?"
Lysa flinched at the question.
Arlen swallowed hard. "Her Echo."
Rowan's expression shifted — realization, then dread. "Oh."
The wind stirred around them, carrying the faint hum of the fracture behind them. It pulsed like a heartbeat, slow and heavy, as if the memory inside it still lingered.
Lysa wrapped her arms around herself. "It wasn't supposed to pull you in. It only reacts to me."
"It reacted to your pain," Mira said gently. "Echoes always do."
Lysa shook her head. "You don't understand."
Arlen stepped closer, careful, like approaching a wounded animal. "Then help us. Let us understand."
Her eyes snapped up to his — dark, furious, terrified. "You saw him. You saw what it did to him."
Arlen didn't deny it.
Lysa's voice dropped to a whisper. "I've spent years trying to forget that place. Trying to forget him."
Mira's tone softened. "Lysa… that wasn't your fault."
Lysa laughed — a hollow, broken sound. "Isn't it? I followed him. I touched the fracture. I dragged us both in."
"You were a child," Arlen said.
"And the Realm doesn't care," she shot back. "It doesn't care how old you are. It only cares what it can take."
The air around them tightened, as if the world itself was listening.
Rowan stepped forward, voice low. "Lysa… what was that thing? The shadow."
Lysa froze.
Her silence was answer enough.
Arlen felt the memory of its gaze crawl across his skin again — cold, deliberate, hungry.
"It's been following you," Mira said quietly. "Since then."
Lysa's jaw clenched. "It doesn't follow. It waits."
"For what?" Arlen asked.
Lysa looked at the ground, her voice barely audible. "For me to break again."
A long silence settled over them.
The fracture behind them flickered, its light dimming like a dying ember.
Arlen took a slow breath. "Lysa… we're not your enemy. Whatever that thing is, whatever it wants — you don't have to face it alone."
She shook her head. "You don't get it. You saw one memory. One moment. But that place—" Her voice wavered. "It didn't let me go. Not really. I've been carrying it with me ever since."
Mira stepped closer. "Then let us carry some of it too."
Lysa's eyes glistened, but she blinked the tears away before they could fall. "You can't. It's mine. My burden. My mistake."
Arlen's voice was steady. "It's not a mistake to survive."
Lysa looked at him then — really looked — and something in her expression cracked. Not open, not healed, but fractured enough for light to slip through.
Before she could speak, the ground trembled beneath them.
Rowan stiffened. "Another fracture?"
"No," Mira whispered. "This is different."
The tremor deepened, a low rumble rising from the earth like something waking up.
Arlen turned toward the horizon.
A thin line of light split the sky — faint at first, then widening, brightening, stretching like a wound tearing open.
Lysa's face drained of color.
"No," she breathed. "Not now. Not again."
Arlen felt the air shift, charged and electric.
Mira grabbed his arm. "Arlen… the sky is cracking."
The line of light pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Then it spread, branching like lightning frozen in place.
Lysa whispered, "It found me."
And the world held its breath.