The ward's air tightened.Every heir felt it — that prickling sensation at the back of their necks, like the world itself was holding its breath.
The shadow under the doorframe thickened, stretching forward like a crawling stain of ink.
Seloria whispered,
"That… that isn't natural aether."
Meline's hands quivered around her blades.
"What is it?"
Eris didn't answer.
Because he already knew.
The shadow pulsed, then rose like smoke taking shape, twisting into a silhouette so thin it barely held form — a thing between a person and a memory.
Saphine clutched her own sleeves, breath shaky.
"Eris… that… feels like the Hollow."
The silhouette shimmered, its "face" tilting toward Alia's bed.
Instantly—
Alia gasped.
Her Echo flared.
Veins of light rippled under her skin.
Saphine darted forward, but Eris caught her wrist with a calm, iron grip.
"Don't."His eyes were locked on the intruder."It isn't trying to harm her."
Rhylas hissed,
"If that thing takes one step closer—"
But the intruder didn't move toward Alia.
Instead…
It turned toward Eris.
The room froze.
The silhouette twitched, as if struggling to form sound.A whisper broke out —
Not a voice.Not exactly.More like the echo of something nearly forgotten.
"…You—still—exist…"
Valari's breath caught.
"E-Exist? What does that mean?"
But Eris didn't flinch.
His expression wasn't fear.
It was something closer to recognition.
Something older.
Something cold.
"You followed us," he murmured."Not her. Me."
The shadow trembled violently, distortions rippling through its form.
Its whisper deepened, layered with overlapping tones — ancient, broken.
"…Left behind… a fragment…without the vessel… without… the boy…"
Saphine felt a chill that seeped straight into her bones.
"Eris… what is it talking about?"
The thing convulsed again — and suddenly its "face" shifted, forming two hollow sockets.For a split second… a familiar shape.
A white-haired boy.A smile that wasn't quite human.Eyes that never belonged to any mortal flesh.
Saphine's breath stopped.
Myr stepped back, whispering sharply:
"That—that looks like—"
Eris finally spoke, voice low.
"It isn't mine."
The silhouette jerked.
"…You—escaped—your thread… but we—did not…"
Now every heir was trembling.
Seloria swallowed.
"Thread?ESCAPED?What does that even mean?"
Aerin Valmont spoke with a shaking voice:
"Eris Vale… what exactly are you?"
The shadow lunged—
But not toward Alia.
Not toward Saphine.
It shot directly at Eris, passing through every barrier as if they weren't there.
Saphine screamed his name—
But Eris didn't move.
The darkness hit him like wind—And then light burst from him in a violent pulse, throwing the shadow back, twisting it like smoke in a storm.
Eris stood untouched.
Akasha flared behind him like a golden halo fracturing reality.
The shadow writhed but didn't dissolve.
Instead…It laughed.
A broken, glitching laugh.
"…You are incomplete… little sage… incomplete…"
Eris's eyes narrowed.
"And you are dying."
The shadow froze.
"You have no body.No name.No future."His voice softened, almost pitying."Just a fragment clinging to a memory of me that no longer exists."
Saphine felt her heart drop.
A fragment of him?
But the shadow spoke again—And its voice this time carried sorrow instead of malice:
"…We were one… before the fall… before the forgetting…before you chose… to live as 'Eris Vale'…"
Silence.
Even the runes dimmed.
Myr's eyes widened in horror.Valari paled.
Saphine turned slowly toward him.
"Eris…what did it mean by 'before the forgetting'…?"
Eris didn't answer.
He walked toward the writhing shadow, his steps gentle but absolute.Reaching out, he touched its collapsing form with two fingers.
A ripple of golden light spread.
The shadow shuddered, melting like dusk under morning sun.
But before it vanished—
It whispered one last time:
"…Find… the missing name…before it finds you…"
The silhouette faded into dust-like motes of darkness.
Gone.
The Silence After
Saphine realized she was gripping the bedframe so tightly her hands hurt.
Aerin stepped forward, voice cracking.
"Eris Vale…Is that thing saying you're—you're part of something bigger? Something—"
He didn't finish.
Because Lyssandra whispered the thing everyone feared:
"That wasn't a monster."She swallowed."It was a remnant of something connected to him."
Rhylas added, pale and shaken:
"Something far older than any Echo."
Meline exhaled shakily.
"And it said… he escaped his thread."
Saphine looked up at Eris, heart pounding.
He wasn't smiling.He wasn't calm.
He looked tired.
Old.
Distant.
Like someone who had just seen a grave he thought he'd buried long ago.
She walked up to him carefully.
"Eris…what was that thing to you?"
He finally looked at her.
And for the first time…
He didn't hide behind riddles.He didn't pretend.
He simply said:
"A piece of the person I used to be."
But the worst part?
Alia suddenly gasped—
Eyes snapping open—
And in a trembling voice she whispered:
"…I know… his name…"
Alia's small fingers tightened on the blanket.Her lips quivered, her Echo pulsing faintly around her like a trembling halo of fractured gold.
Then she whispered it.
A name.
A sound that didn't belong in mortal tongues.
A word that felt like it slipped between the ears instead of entering them — a sound that wasn't heard but remembered.
Every heir froze.
But none of them understood it.
The syllable twisted in their minds, sliding off their memories like oil off water. It refused to stick, refused to be known, refused to be held.
Seloria clutched her temples.
"Wh– what was that? I can't… even repeat it…"
Rhylas tried to mouth it. Nothing came out.
Aerin frowned sharply.
"Did she speak… another language?"
Meline shook her head, pale.
"No language alive sounds like that."
Saphine's heart hammered.She heard the name — she knew she did — but when she tried to grasp it, the memory spiraled out of reach like a dream melting in morning light.
She stared at Eris.
He wasn't reacting like the others.
His expression was tight, unreadable.
Almost… afraid.
But before anyone could press him, Lyssandra — who had remained eerily silent through all this — suddenly snapped her gaze toward the far corner of the room.
Her eyes sharpened.
Then softened.
Then sharpened again.
Seloria noticed first.
"Lyssandra? What—"
Lyssandra raised a finger for silence.
Every heir froze.
Eris narrowed his gaze at her, eyes flickering with Akasha's golden script.
"You noticed it too."
Lyssandra didn't answer him.She stepped forward, stopping exactly three paces from the corner, where nothing seemed out of place.
She spoke calmly, her voice steady in a way that made everyone tense.
"Nice try."
The air in the corner rippled.
Once.
Twice.
Like a curtain shaken by an invisible hand.
Lyssandra tilted her head slightly, a faint smirk appearing.
"You were bolder last time, Janus.Peeking while Saphine reached for that book.Did you think I wouldn't recognize the same stench twice?"
Saphine's breath hitched.
"Janus…? HERE?!"
Meline instantly summoned her daggers, stepping protectively near Valari.
Aerin's hand flew to his relic.
Rhylas cursed under his breath.
Seloria's eyes flared with spell-light.
The very shadows thickened—
Then exploded outward in a swirl of distorted space.
A figure stumbled out of the distortion, caught red-handed, cloak flickering like glitching static.
Janus.
His mask was cracked.His breathing uneven.
But his smile?
That was perfectly intact.
"Tch… I was so close to slipping out unnoticed."
Eris stepped forward immediately, placing himself between Janus and the sleeping Alia without hesitation.
Janus chuckled at that.
"How touching. The False Heir standing guard.Tell me, Eris Vale…does she soothe that gnawing void inside you?"
Eris didn't blink.
"Three seconds."
Janus paused."…Pardon?"
"That's how long you have before I break your legs."
Saphine grabbed his arm—Not stopping him, but grounding him.
He didn't look at her, but the tension in his shoulders eased by a hair.
Lyssandra raised her chin.
"Janus, we all felt the distortion when you entered. You didn't come to fight. So talk."
Janus shrugged lightly, as if caught visiting a friend instead of infiltrating a guarded room full of elite heirs and the Akasha-bearer.
"The fragment wasn't mine. I came to see who it was reacting to."His eyes glinted behind the mask."And imagine my surprise."
Eris's aura spiked, warping the glowstones in the walls.
Janus added quickly,
"Relax. If I wanted to kill any of you, I would have done it when you were fainting like frightened rabbits."
Rhylas bristled.
"Try it now."
"No thank you," Janus said cheerfully."Eris Vale is here."
The room's atmosphere thickened again.
Janus tapped his fingers lightly together.
"The name the girl spoke? You won't remember it. You aren't meant to. Even I can't utter it without consequences."
Saphine frowned sharply.
"But Eris remembers."
Janus turned to him.
And his tone changed —no longer mocking, but somber, razor-thin.
"Only someone who walked that path once could withstand even the echo of it."His head tilted."Tell me, Eris Vale…do you remember yourself?"
Eris didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Because his silence was enough.
Janus laughed softly.
"Good. That means the storm is coming."
Then he snapped his fingers.
The distortion swallowed him instantly, leaving only the echo of his final whisper:
"See you soon, old friend."
The room fell into dead silence.
Valari exhaled shakily, shoulders trembling.
Myr whispered,
"So Janus… wasn't even the real threat."
Saphine looked at Eris, who was still staring at the corner where Janus had been.
She approached gently.
"Eris…what was that name Alia said?"
His eyes lowered.
For the first time, he didn't hide behind mysterious riddles.
He simply said:
"It's the name of the person I used to be.A name the world itself rejected."
Saphine swallowed, her voice barely a breath.
"Then… what are you now?"
Eris looked at her.
The room around them seemed to fade.
And with a soft, almost fragile expression he whispered:
"Trying… to be someone worth staying as."