The chamber stank of scorched stone and blood.
Kael crouched beside the Seeker's crumpled form. Ashhorn stood behind him, still breathing heavy, a steady presence in the silence. The Seeker was alive—barely. Burned, broken, but not dead.
Kael placed a hand on his chest. "You're going to talk."
The Seeker coughed blood and let out a ragged laugh. "You think… I fear death?" His voice was rasping now, like cracked parchment. "You should be asking what you just became."
Kael flinched. "What was that?"
The Seeker's eyes flicked open. Clouded. Bruised. But they gleamed with cruel certainty.
"Something inside you is waking. Something older than the Echoes. You think you're chosen?" He spat blood. "You're just a door. And you opened."
Kael's hand clenched into a fist. "Why are you hunting us? The Echoes? What do you want?"
"We don't hunt you," the Seeker wheezed. "We contain you. Echoes like you break the world when left unchecked. You remember too much. And one day… you'll remember who sealed it."
Kael frowned. "Who sealed what?"
The Seeker smiled.
Then bit something under his tongue.
Kael reached for him—too late.
The Seeker's eyes rolled back. Black veins spread across his face, and he convulsed once. Twice.
Then stilled.
Dead.
A faint whiff of brimstone lingered in the air.
Kael stared at the body, jaw clenched. "Coward."
But his voice trembled.
He sat back slowly, hands still glowing faintly silver. His breath came uneven. He stared at his palms—no longer shaking, but they felt wrong. As if something beneath the skin wasn't truly his anymore.
That power… it hadn't come from Arelis. It wasn't part of any Echo magic he knew. It hadn't even asked his permission.
It had simply taken control.
And it had liked it.
"I wasn't supposed to win," he whispered. "That thing—I—was going to kill him, even after he was beaten."
Ashhorn settled beside him, resting its head in Kael's lap.
Kael didn't move.
He watched the burned-out mirror across the chamber. Its shards were dark now, dimmed after the outburst. As if they, too, feared what had emerged from within him.
"What am I becoming?" he asked the silence.
No answer came.
Only the echo of power that still lingered like a shadow at the edge of thought… waiting to be called again.
Or worse—waiting to call him.