The ruins did not let them leave easily.
As Elara stepped beyond the last broken pillar, the air tightened around her ribs, as though the world itself were testing whether she understood what she had just learned. Each breath felt borrowed.
Kael noticed first. He slowed, eyes narrowing. "Something's wrong."
"I can feel it too," Mira said. "The Witness Site hasn't released us."
Elara swallowed. The weight inside her chest shifted—unsettled, restless. "It's not holding you," she said quietly. "It's holding me."
The ground beneath her feet pulsed once, then again, like a warning knock from below.
A crack split the earth.
Not wide. Not violent.
Intentional.
From it rose a thin mist, coiling upward until it formed the vague outline of a human figure—featureless, unfinished, as if reality itself had not agreed on what it should be.
Mira stepped back. "An Echo."
Kael drew his sword in one smooth motion. "Of what?"
Mira's voice was barely a whisper. "Of consequence."
The figure tilted its head toward Elara.
When it spoke, its voice sounded like many voices layered imperfectly together.
Continuity walks unguarded.
Elara's hands trembled. "I'm not unguarded."
The Echo laughed softly. You are guarded by people. You are claimed by time.
Kael stepped in front of her. "You want her, you go through me."
The Echo did not look at him.
Flesh defends flesh, it said. Cycles defend truth.
It raised an arm, and the air around them distorted. Kael's blade vibrated violently, humming as if trying to tear itself free from his grip.
"Elara!" Mira shouted. "You have to respond—it recognizes authority, not force!"
Elara's heart pounded. Authority. That was what the ruins had called her to.
She stepped forward, gently pushing Kael aside.
"Stop," she said.
The word wasn't loud.
But the Echo froze.
Elara didn't know how she did it—only that something inside her aligned, like a lock turning for the first time.
"I acknowledge the fracture," she said slowly, the words rising unbidden. "I carry its memory. But you are no longer needed."
The mist wavered. Denial weakens the seal.
"This isn't denial," Elara replied. "It's responsibility."
The Echo leaned closer. Responsibility requires payment.
Elara met its hollow gaze. "Then take it from me—not from the world."
Kael's breath caught. "Elara—"
The Echo reached out, pressing two fingers to her forehead.
Pain flared white-hot.
Images flooded her again—this time not of the past, but of possible futures.
Cities breaking.
Names forgotten.
Faces she had not yet met, crying out for help she might never arrive in time to give.
Elara gasped, knees buckling—but she did not fall.
She anchored herself to the present.
To Kael's steady presence.
To Mira's sharp, fearful hope.
To the river's murmur behind them.
"Enough," she whispered.
The Echo recoiled, cracking apart like mist struck by sunlight.
The earth sealed itself with a low, final rumble.
Silence followed—real silence this time.
Elara collapsed into Kael's arms, shaking.
Mira rushed forward. "You shouldn't have done that alone."
Elara managed a weak smile. "I wasn't alone. I just… stepped where only I could stand."
Kael held her tighter, jaw clenched. "You don't get to offer yourself up like that again."
She looked at him, exhaustion etched into every line of her face. "I don't get to pretend I'm not part of this anymore."
Mira exhaled slowly. "Then we change the rules. If you're the bridge… we make sure it doesn't collapse."
They moved away from the ruins as the light shifted toward evening.
But Elara felt it now—deep, undeniable.
The world had taken note.
Not as a threat.
Not as a savior.
But as something far more dangerous.
A reminder.
And reminders had a way of unraveling carefully buried lies.