Chapter Ten:

  “The Domain of Echoes”

  The boat scraped ashore on a surface that looked like solid rock but sounded like sand—the scrape more felt than heard.

  The five stepped onto ground that cracked faintly beneath their boots—dry, brittle, and thin as old shell. The color of the terrain shifted with every step: patches of obsidian gave way to bone-white ridges, then to cracked bronze plates warped by heat. Beyond them, the landscape stretched and broke in impossible ways—stairways that led nowhere, ruined archways that floated five feet off the ground, and a horizon that curved wrong.

  This had to be the Domain of Echoes—the place the Ferryman warned them about.

  There was no wind. No sun. Just a pulsing red glow from somewhere below, and the ceaseless hum of whispers beneath the edge of hearing. Constant. Inescapable.

  Rai turned a slow circle. “I don’t like this.”

  “No one does,” John said.

  RW stalked a few paces ahead, ears twitching. Then she stopped and stared at a patch of empty space.

  There was nothing there.

  Then she hissed.

  Helen dropped to a knee beside her. “What do you see?”

  RW didn’t answer.

  Dorian exhaled. “Feels like being watched by your own thoughts.”

  They turned—and the boat was gone. No ripples. No sound. Just vanished.

  In its place stood a dark, shattered doorway. Cracked stone, warped hinges, and on its surface, words etched in a broken language none of them could read.

  Except RW.

  She blinked slowly, then said:

  “Do not speak to what has already passed.”

  Then, without another word, she turned toward the broken horizon.

  She didn’t look back.

  Neither did they.

  The path unraveled beneath their feet—sometimes stone, sometimes glass, sometimes something that shimmered and broke if you stepped too hard. There was no sky. Only mist. Lightless and alive.

  The whispers grew louder.

  Not in volume, but in clarity.

  “Don’t leave me.”

  “I wasn’t ready.”

  “Why didn’t you stay?”

  Rai’s footsteps slowed. John caught it.

  “What is it?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Then they saw him.

  Akira.

  Or something wearing his face.

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  He stood a dozen paces ahead, barefoot, clothes torn at the sleeves. He looked up.

  “Rai,” he said.

  She stopped.

  Everyone else did too.

  “Don’t,” John warned.

  Rai stared. Her hand twitched where her fan used to be.

  “I waited,” Akira said. “You left me.”

  His voice cracked. Not broken. Just... tired.

  Rai didn’t move.

  Helen stepped beside her. “It isn’t him.”

  “I know,” Rai said.

  She didn’t take another step forward. But she didn’t step back either.

  Akira smiled—soft, almost human.

  Then he dissolved. Mist swallowed the spot where he had stood.

  They kept walking.

  More voices joined the fog.

  John’s name echoed next. Soft, insistent. A familiar voice.

  He said nothing.

  Helen turned to the left and stopped.

  The skyline of Athens blinked into view between two broken arches—bathed in gold and fire.

  She inhaled.

  “Keep moving,” John said.

  Helen didn’t argue.

  Dorian was last to falter. A child’s laugh drifted on the mist, followed by a woman’s voice. “You said you’d come back.”

  He froze. Then he shook his head, rubbed the back of his neck, and walked faster.

  RW didn’t look at any of it. But her fur had fluffed out.

  They walked on, flanked by memory, watched by nothing—and everything.

  The whispers stopped all at once.

  No fade. No warning. Just silence.

  And then the path opened.

  A wide clearing stretched before them—flat, silver ground that reflected their shapes without distortion. Nothing else.

  No ruins. No arches. No sky.

  Just them.

  And their reflections.

  The Echoborn rose slowly, as if uncurling from the silver floor. Each figure matched one of them—down to the clothes they no longer wore, the weapons they’d left behind, the lines around their eyes.

  But none of them blinked.

  John’s stood facing him, silent, twin blades still strapped to its back. It didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

  Rai’s held her war fan open, but the metal had rusted, flaking red across the ground.

  Helen’s wore the ceremonial braids she hadn’t tied since Athens. Her face was bruised. Her mouth bled.

  Dorian’s looked younger. Cleaner. And angry.

  RW’s... didn’t move at all. It mirrored her perfectly. Until it turned around and walked into the mist.

  Dorian was the first to speak.

  “Anyone else feel like this is the part where something terrible happens?”

  His Echo stepped forward.

  “You don’t belong here,” it said. “You never did. You’re not brave. You’re just lucky.”

  Dorian opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked down.

  Then he said, “Yeah. I know.”

  The Echo froze.

  Then it cracked. Split down the middle. Shattered into dust.

  Helen’s turned to her. “You left them.”

  “I stayed,” she said.

  “But you didn’t save them.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  The Echo smiled. “That’s the truth.”

  Then it faded.

  John’s Echo took a step.

  Then it changed.

  Its posture softened. Its eyes sharpened. One hand lifted—a delicate flicker of motion he hadn’t seen in so long.

  It became Yumi.

  Not completely. The hair was wrong. The stance too still. But the expression—calm, knowing, resolute—was hers.

  "You kept going," she said. "But you stopped hoping."

  John didn’t speak.

  Her voice didn’t tremble. “You’re not trying to save him anymore. You’re hoping to save me, to... free yourself.”

  He exhaled through his nose and closed his eyes. She wasn't wrong.

  She smiled—small, sad—and vanished like breath in winter air.

  Rai’s stood motionless.

  “You killed him,” it said.

  “I gave him what he asked for.”

  “Then why are you still carrying it?”

  Rai didn’t answer.

  The Echo stepped forward.

  RW growled.

  The Echo stopped.

  And melted into the mist.

  They stood alone again.

  No enemies. No voices.

  But none of them felt victorious.

  The path reformed beneath their feet, winding toward a raised platform of cracked stone. At its center: a circular gate, black as pitch and rimmed with bone-white carvings. It wasn’t open, but it wasn’t shut either—like it was waiting for permission to exist.

  John stepped forward. But the moment his foot touched the base of the dais, the air stiffened—like a shotgun cocked in a quiet room.

  A voice—not the Ferryman’s—spoke from the mist. It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.

  “To descend, you must leave behind what binds you.”

  They looked to one another.

  “What does that mean?” Helen asked.

  “Memory,” Rai said. “Or guilt.”

  “Or self,” John added.

  Dorian walked to the edge of the platform, peering at the carvings. “I don’t think it’s just a toll. It’s a key.”

  Silence again.

  Then John stepped forward.

  He placed a hand on the edge of the platform, staring at the carvings. His mouth opened—but no words came.

  “I thought maybe I could fix it,” he said. “Fix all of it. If I could save Roland... maybe I could undo her death too.”

  The others stayed silent.

  John exhaled. “But she wouldn’t want that. She wouldn’t want to be the reason I stopped seeing the rest of them.”

  He stepped onto the platform fully. “This isn’t about fixing the past. It’s about saving what’s left.”

  The carvings flared with pale blue light.

  The gate opened.

  Beyond it: firelight. Distant screams. A wind that smelled like charred flowers and forgotten names.

  RW padded ahead a few paces into the glow, then turned back to the group.

  “Well,” she said. “Don’t just stand there.”

  They followed her in.

  And the gate sealed behind them.