Sorin’s first memory was of fire. Not a comforting warmth, but a consuming blaze—ashen skies, the scent of burning wood, and the distant echoes of screams swallowed by the inferno. It wasn’t his memory. It wasn’t his pain. But it lived inside him, buried in the marrow of his bones.

  He never questioned it. The past of another, woven into his soul, was simply part of him.

  But tonight, in the shadow of the ruined chapel, there were no flames. Only the cold wind biting through his cloak and the dim glow of a broken lantern swaying in the hands of a dying man.

  Sorin stared down at him, blade still in hand. The man coughed, crimson spilling between his lips, staining his tattered armor. He was a knight of the Sanctum Order, one of the many who had been hunting him since the moment he left the ruins of Eryth’s Tomb.

  “I should’ve known,” the knight rasped, voice brittle with pain. “The heretic walks like a ghost.”

  Sorin didn’t respond. He never did in moments like this.

  The knight’s breathing grew shallower. His gauntleted hand trembled as he reached for something beneath his cloak—a parchment, old and tattered. With what little strength he had left, he thrust it toward Sorin.

  Sorin hesitated, then took it.

  Unfurling the parchment, his own face stared back at him, inked in harsh, accusing lines. WANTED FOR HERESY. FOR THE CRIME OF POSSESSING A FALSE ECHO. FOR THE CRIME OF EXISTENCE.

  A bounty. One he’d seen many times before.

  The knight gave a weak, humorless chuckle. “A monster… wearing the skin of a man. Tell me, heretic—do you even know what you are?”

  Sorin closed his eyes. The distant echo of another voice whispered in his mind.

  "You are not meant to exist."

  He opened them again and tightened his grip on his sword.

  The knight exhaled, long and slow, before his body fell still.

  Sorin remained motionless for a moment, watching the faint wisps of the knight’s final breath dissipate into the night air. Then, silently, he turned away.

  The bounty parchment fluttered to the ground, landing in the pool of blood beneath the body.

  Sorin moved through the empty streets of the ruined city, his steps silent against the cracked stone. Once, this place had been called Vhalis, a city of scholars and temples, where prayers had been whispered beneath golden spires. Now, it was a corpse of a city, long abandoned after the War of the Zenith had left it crumbling.

  The few who remained were the desperate, the forsaken—people clinging to life among the rubble. Sorin kept his hood drawn low, avoiding their gazes as he passed.

  In the distance, the Blackspire, the last standing remnant of the old palace, loomed against the night sky. It was there he needed to go. If the rumors were true, someone within those ruins had information about the Echo within him.

  And he needed answers.

  His hand drifted to his chest, where beneath his armor, the scarred remnants of his first awakening still lingered—a brand that pulsed with something unnatural.

  Suddenly, a sound—too light to be wind, too deliberate to be an accident.

  Sorin stopped.

  A shadow shifted on the rooftop above. A figure moved, barely visible against the blackened ruins.

  Not a common thief. Not a desperate survivor.

  Another hunter.

  Sorin didn’t hesitate.

  The moment steel hissed from a sheath, he was already moving.

  The whistle of a blade cutting through the air was Sorin’s only warning.

  He twisted, narrowly avoiding the dagger aimed for his throat. The steel caught his hood instead, slicing the fabric as he rolled backward, drawing his own sword in one fluid motion.

  The hunter landed in front of him, a blur of dark leather and glinting steel. Their movements were practiced—too smooth to be some common mercenary. A trained killer. A Sanctum Blade.

  Sorin exhaled slowly. Of course they wouldn’t just send knights.

  The hunter didn’t speak. They lunged again, twin daggers flashing in the dim moonlight. Sorin parried the first strike, but the second nicked his shoulder, a shallow cut. He barely felt it. His body was always slow to register pain.

  A test. The hunter was probing his defenses, trying to gauge how fast he could react.

  Sorin pressed forward, shifting from defense to offense in an instant. His sword swung in a precise arc, forcing the hunter to retreat. He was bigger, stronger—but they were faster.

  The hunter danced back, breathing steady, then suddenly threw a vial at his feet.

  Sorin recognized the alchemical glint a second too late.

  Shatter. A burst of thick, violet smoke exploded around him, burning his lungs. His vision blurred, and his limbs felt sluggish.

  A binding mist. Designed to restrict movement.

  Damn it.

  The hunter surged forward, seizing the moment.

  Sorin’s body screamed at him to move, but he was a fraction too slow. A dagger slipped past his guard—aimed straight for his ribs.

  In that moment, time slowed. The distant echoes in his blood roared to life.

  "Do not die."

  The unnatural power that had always lurked beneath his skin stirred.

  Without thinking, he moved.

  His hand snapped forward, catching the hunter’s wrist mid-strike. Too fast. Too strong. A movement no normal human should have made.

  For the first time, the hunter hesitated.

  And in that hesitation, Sorin struck.

  With one brutal twist, he disarmed them, sending the dagger clattering to the ground. Then he drove his sword forward.

  A clean thrust. Precise.

  The hunter barely had time to widen their eyes before Sorin’s blade ran them through.

  They gasped—a sharp, wet sound. Sorin yanked the sword free, and they crumpled, blood spilling onto the cracked stone.

  The violet mist began to thin. The cold wind returned.

  Sorin wiped his blade clean and stepped over the body.

  The Blackspire was waiting. And he had no time for ghosts.

  Sorin reached the base of the Blackspire, the last ruin standing amidst the wreckage of Vhalis. It was an imposing structure—once a grand palace, now a shattered husk. Its walls bore the scars of war, and its towers leaned like dying giants. The great iron doors had long since rusted away, leaving only a gaping entrance that yawned like the maw of some ancient beast.

  The wind howled through the ruins, carrying distant echoes of the past. He ignored them. Memories weren’t real. Only the present mattered.

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  Sorin stepped inside.

  Darkness swallowed him whole.

  The interior of the Blackspire was colder than the night outside, the air thick with the scent of damp stone and decay. His boots scraped against the cracked marble floor as he moved deeper into the ruins.

  If the rumors were true, someone here knew about the Echo inside him—the thing that made him a walking heresy, that let him move faster than human limits, that made him something other.

  He needed answers.

  A faint glow flickered ahead. Candlelight. Someone was here.

  Sorin slowed his steps, pressing against a broken pillar, listening.

  Soft murmurs. A voice, low and deliberate.

  He stepped forward.

  And suddenly, a blade was at his throat.

  “I was wondering when you’d come, heretic,” a voice whispered behind him.

  Sorin didn’t flinch.

  The dagger’s edge pressed against his neck, but he could already tell—the grip was firm but not tense, the stance measured but not aggressive. A warning, not an attack. Whoever this was, they weren’t an assassin.

  “Turn around,” the voice commanded.

  Slowly, Sorin obeyed.

  The figure standing before him was not a knight, not a mercenary, not a zealot of the Sanctum Order.

  She was a scholar.

  A woman clad in tattered robes, ink-stained hands gripping the dagger with a steadiness that betrayed experience. Her dark hair was pulled back in a loose braid, and her eyes—sharp, calculating—flickered over him with cold analysis.

  “You’re not what I expected,” she muttered, lowering the blade.

  Sorin remained silent.

  The woman stepped back, sheathing the dagger at her hip. “You came looking for answers,” she said. “And I have them.”

  Sorin studied her carefully. He had learned long ago that knowledge was more dangerous than any sword.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  The woman smiled, though there was no warmth in it.

  “My name is Aeris Variel,” she said. “And I know what you are.”

  Sorin kept his expression unreadable, but inside, tension coiled like a drawn bowstring.

  I know what you are.

  No one had ever spoken those words to him before. The Sanctum Order called him a blasphemy, a heretic, but they had no answers. They only saw what they feared.

  Aeris, however—she knew something.

  “You’re sure about that?” he said, his voice measured.

  Aeris crossed her arms, unimpressed. “You wouldn’t have come all this way if you didn’t think I did.” She gestured toward the ruined throne room at the heart of the Blackspire. “Come. If you want answers, you’ll find them here.”

  Sorin hesitated. He didn’t trust her. Not yet.

  But he had spent too long searching for a truth that refused to show itself. He had no other leads.

  So he followed.

  The throne room was a graveyard of grandeur.

  Broken pillars lined the chamber, their marble forms cracked and scorched by battles long past. The ceiling had caved in, leaving gaps where the stars peered through like watchful eyes.

  And at the center of the room—

  A corpse lay sprawled across the remains of a shattered throne.

  Sorin stilled.

  The body was ancient, wrapped in decayed robes, its skeletal hands clutching a rusted sword across its chest. But there was something wrong about it. Something unnatural.

  The air around it hummed—a faint, pulsing sensation, like a heartbeat too distant to fully hear.

  Aeris stopped beside him. “You feel it, don’t you?”

  Sorin exhaled slowly. “An Echo.”

  Aeris nodded. “Not just any Echo. This one belonged to the last ruler of Vhalis. A man who was meant to die in the War of the Zenith. But he didn’t.” She gestured toward the corpse. “He lingered. For centuries. Kept alive by his Echo’s power long after his body should have turned to dust.”

  Sorin stared at the remains. The implications settled like ice in his gut.

  “He was like me,” he murmured.

  Aeris met his gaze. “Yes.”

  A long silence stretched between them.

  Sorin had always known he was different. His wounds healed too quickly. His strength exceeded what should have been possible. And he didn’t age—not the way others did.

  But this—this was something worse.

  “You’re telling me I’m just a dead man who hasn’t figured it out yet?” he said quietly.

  “No,” Aeris said. “I’m telling you that your Echo is unnatural. It isn’t one meant for mortals. It’s something else entirely.”

  Sorin’s jaw tightened. He had suspected it for years. Now, hearing it confirmed…

  Aeris continued, watching him carefully. “The gods marked you for something, Sorin. And if you don’t find out what that is, then one day, you’re going to end up just like him.”

  She gestured to the corpse.

  Sorin didn’t respond.

  He wasn’t afraid of death. He never had been. But something about this—this idea of existing beyond the point of reason, trapped in a body that refused to let go—it sat in his chest like a weight.

  Slowly, he looked back at Aeris.

  “What do you know about the gods?” he asked.

  Aeris smiled, but there was no humor in it.

  “More than I should,” she said.

  Sorin studied Aeris carefully.

  “More than you should,” he repeated. “What does that mean?”

  Aeris exhaled, stepping toward the corpse of the ancient king. Her fingers hovered over the decayed remains, tracing the air as if feeling the lingering presence of its Echo.

  “You know the stories,” she said. “The gods that once ruled this world. The Zenith, the Hollow Lords, the Divine Cycle. The myths everyone grows up hearing.”

  Sorin remained silent.

  Aeris’s voice dropped lower. “What if I told you they weren’t myths?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You expect me to believe the gods were real?”

  She turned to face him. “You should. Because you’re proof of it.”

  Sorin’s fingers curled into a fist.

  Aeris continued. “Ages ago, the gods didn’t just rule this world. They built it—shaped it through war, through blood, through the Echoes they left behind. But something happened. Something no one remembers.”

  She gestured toward the skeletal corpse.

  “The gods disappeared. And in their place, they left… people like you.”

  Sorin didn’t move.

  It should have sounded impossible. It should have sounded like madness. But deep down, something in him had always known—his Echo wasn’t human.

  He just never knew what that meant.

  Aeris took a step closer. “The Sanctum Order calls you a heretic because they fear you. They don’t understand you. But the truth is… you were never meant to exist in this world.”

  The words settled into him like a slow poison.

  Never meant to exist.

  He had heard those words before.

  From the knights that hunted him. From the priests that condemned him. From the voices that whispered in his dreams.

  “What am I?” Sorin asked.

  Aeris met his gaze.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I know where you can find the answer.”

  She turned, pulling a rolled parchment from her satchel and unfurling it across the remains of a fallen pillar.

  A map.

  Sorin’s eyes traced its lines, taking in the ruined cities, the dead lands, the few remaining kingdoms that still stood. But Aeris pointed to a place beyond them all—past the borders of any known civilization.

  The Sunken Archive.

  A place of legend. A vault where the last remnants of the old world’s knowledge were said to be hidden.

  “If the gods left behind anything, it would be there,” Aeris said. “The Echoes. The truth of what you are. Maybe even the reason you were created.”

  Sorin stared at the map.

  The weight of it settled into his chest.

  For years, he had wandered without purpose. Running from the Sanctum, searching for answers that never came.

  Now, for the first time, he had a destination.

  But before he could speak—

  A deep, echoing sound tore through the ruins.

  Aeris stiffened. Sorin’s hand went to his sword.

  Then—

  A voice. Low and rasping. A voice that should not exist.

  “…H???o???w???… long… has it been?”

  Sorin’s breath hitched.

  The corpse on the throne had begun to move.

  Sorin’s grip on his sword tightened.

  The skeletal figure atop the ruined throne shifted, its decayed hands still clutching the rusted sword across its chest. Bones scraped against stone as it stirred—a sound too dry, too brittle, too wrong.

  Aeris took a slow step back. “That’s… not supposed to happen.”

  The corpse exhaled.

  A sound that did not belong to something long dead.

  “…Who… stands before me?”

  Its voice was like shattered glass—fragile, broken, yet layered with something ancient.

  Sorin didn’t answer. His muscles tensed, instinct screaming at him to move, to cut it down before it fully woke.

  But then—

  The corpse’s hollow sockets locked onto him.

  Sorin felt it. A weight pressing against his very being, sinking into his bones.

  And suddenly—

  His mind was not his own.

  The world around Sorin shattered.

  The ruined throne room, the Blackspire, the cold wind of the night—it all vanished, swallowed by a wave of searing light.

  And when his vision cleared—

  He stood in a kingdom untouched by ruin.

  Vhalis. Before the fall.

  The marble walls stood unbroken. Golden banners bearing the insignia of the old empire fluttered in the breeze. The air was warm, filled with the scent of incense and the distant murmur of a thousand voices.

  Sorin staggered, his breath unsteady. A memory. A vision. But not his own.

  “You see it, don’t you?”

  Sorin turned sharply.

  The king stood before him—not a decayed corpse, but a man of flesh and blood. Tall, draped in imperial robes, his eyes burning with an unnatural fire.

  “Tell me, stranger,” the king said, voice calm yet heavy. “Do you know what it means to be forsaken by the gods?”

  Sorin’s pulse pounded. The air here felt too thick, too suffocating.

  “You’re dead,” Sorin said evenly. “You should not be speaking.”

  The king smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “And yet, here we are.”

  The golden halls trembled. Cracks splintered across the marble. The illusion was breaking.

  The king’s gaze darkened. “Listen well, traveler. The path you walk leads only to despair. You seek answers, but they will only bring you ruin.”

  Sorin’s head ached. Something was clawing at his mind, pressing into his very soul.

  The king took a step forward. “The gods left behind their creations… but not all of them were meant to endure.” His burning eyes bore into Sorin’s. “You are not meant to endure.”

  A piercing pain shot through Sorin’s chest. He collapsed to his knees, gasping.

  The world around him shattered into darkness.

  Sorin’s eyes snapped open.

  The Blackspire. The ruined throne. The corpse.

  He was back.

  But the pain in his chest remained, as if something had reached inside him and tried to pull him apart.

  He struggled to his feet. Aeris was at his side, shaking him. “Sorin! Can you hear me?”

  He blinked hard, his body drenched in cold sweat.

  The corpse on the throne was finally still.

  Aeris looked between Sorin and the dead king, eyes sharp with both curiosity and alarm. “What the hell just happened?”

  Sorin swallowed, his breath ragged.

  “He spoke to me,” he said hoarsely. “The last king of Vhalis. He said…”

  He hesitated. The words still burned in his mind.

  "You are not meant to endure."

  Sorin exhaled. “He warned me. Told me that the path I’m walking will lead to ruin.”

  Aeris studied him carefully. Then, after a long pause, she simply said:

  “…And do you believe him?”

  Sorin thought about it.

  Then he clenched his fists. “No.”

  He had spent his whole life running from his own existence, from the unnatural thing inside him.

  But not anymore.

  “The Sunken Archive,” he said, looking at the map Aeris had unrolled earlier. “You said it has answers.”

  Aeris nodded.

  “Then that’s where I’m going.”

  She smirked. “I figured as much.”

  Outside, the wind howled against the ruins. Somewhere beyond the broken city of Vhalis, the world still hunted him.

  But Sorin no longer cared.

  He had a path now. A destination.

  And no warning—not from the gods, not from the dead, not from fate itself—would stop him.