The Echo stood still.
Wind curled around its feet but never touched it. The sky above the Hollowroot Basin dimmed, though the sun had not moved. And in that quiet, Kairo felt the weight of something far heavier than battle.
Guilt.
"You rewrote the Song," Elarin repeated, voice soft and hollow.
"But you left me behind."
Each word struck like a stone dropped into still water—rippling through their marks, their memories, their sense of self.
Lira took a half step forward, flames flickering uneasily on her arms. "You're not… you can't be real. You're a reflection. A harmonic shadow."
Elarin's head tilted. "What is 'real' to a voice that never stopped echoing?"
Kairo stepped closer to the edge of the pillar, arms lowered. "You were the first. The first to die. The first note lost when the Silence fell."
Elarin nodded. "I sang the first discord. I fell… and the Song fractured with me."
Solen clutched his head. "He's not just a memory. He's a gap. A hole in the music."
"And that hole wants to be filled," Yui said quietly.
Elarin raised one hand.
The basin trembled.
Around them, the mist shifted—and out of it came visions.
Not illusions.
Not enemies.
Versions of themselves.
Yui, cloaked in Choir robes, eyes dulled by silence.
Theren, scarred and bound, fire buried beneath chains.
Lira, a smoldering husk, her flame turned inward.
Solen, voiceless, forgotten.
Kei, bleeding ink from empty eyes.
Ryn, her harp snapped, songs stillborn.
And Kairo…
He watched himself—older, colder, a tyrant cloaked in flames. Not a protector.
A Conductor.
"These are your unwritten selves," Elarin said. "The paths your Song never sang. But the world remembers them… and now, so do I."
Kairo's breath caught. "What do you want?"
"I want to be finished," Elarin whispered. "I want to become what I was meant to be… the Eighth Voice."
The air shook.
Their marks pulsed in resistance.
Ryn staggered. "He's trying to complete the Song."
"But we already did," Lira hissed.
Elarin raised his arms. "No. You completed your version. A verse with no foundation. I am the root chord. I was supposed to carry the world's first truth. You left that truth buried."
A storm erupted from the basin floor.
Their alternate selves lunged, each reflecting not just twisted fates, but what the Song remembered of them before they awakened. Half-truths. Potential pain. Echoes without resolution.
Kairo struck first—his spear clashing against the Conductor version of himself, who sang in reversed fire.
Solen dropped to his knees, humming a discordant counterpoint to his silent reflection, eroding it from within.
Yui faced her Choir-self with tears in her eyes—then forgave her, unraveling the spell that bound her with love, not light.
Kei stood still—his alternate self approached…
…and bowed.
Even the Song's fear of Kei remembered reverence.
One by one, they unraveled the alternate threads—not with violence, but by reclaiming their truths.
Until only Elarin remained.
He stood in the center of the spiral, trembling.
"I don't want to be forgotten," he whispered.
Kairo stepped forward, weapon lowered.
"Then don't be," he said.
He reached out—and sang.
A simple note.
Low.
True.
And Elarin, the Echo, reached back.
For a moment, they harmonized.
And the basin bloomed with sound.
When the note faded, Elarin was gone.
Not shattered.
Not sealed.
But remembered.
The Eighth Voice no longer a wound—but a resonance.
Far above, in the space between stars, something stirred.
The Song had remembered its Echo.
And the Everborn had heard.