“Let’s be quick,” Bastian said, taking a seat at the head of the polished, ornately carved table that took up most of the room.
Eamon needed no more encouragement than this. He plucked three large books and a leather portfolio from his stacks, moving as if he’d spent the past hour rehearsing this presentation. Knowing him, there was a good chance he had.
“Here is our target,” he said, picking up the tome bound in dark cloth and flipping to a page he’d marked with a scrap of parchment. “A place known asMemoria Resonare. Or, more commonly, the Chamber of Echoes.”
The yellowed page showed an illustration of a chamber filled with row after row of tall stone slabs. They looked like gravestones, in a way—except that more than just names and epitaphs were etched across their faces; every inch of them seemed to be covered in carved words. He flipped to the nextpage, which showed several more rooms with walls that were equally carved up, one of which had a pool of water in the center of it.
“I know that place,” I said, surprising myself.
The others turned to look at me.
“I saw that pool in the vision the sentier gave me. And Lorien also mentioned the chamber to Calista in the last vision I saw, when I was holding the shard of his cursed soul.” I concentrated, trying to recall his exact words. “You’ve committed your sins and vows to the Chamber of Echoes…that’s what he said to her, I think.”
“…Interesting.” Eamon’s eyes lit up with scholarly excitement. “And what he said aligns with what I’ve discovered in these texts.” He tapped the open book. “Every Vaelora once carved their truths into the walls of this chamber. Confessions, fears, regrets, all the darkest parts of themselves—things they had to acknowledge and let go of before ascending to their full power.”
“Like a purging ritual?” Thalia asked.
“Exactly.”
“Mind carved into one realm…” I thought aloud. “That’s the line from the curse we’ve been trying to decipher. This must be what it was referring to.”
“It all fits,” Bastian agreed.
“So, where is this place?” Thalia asked.
Eamon consulted his notes, his eyes darting over piles of materials, calculating. “Most texts I’ve been referencing seem to agree that it’s located underneath the temple where the Vaelora once spoke their vows and received the blessings of kings and queens. And that temple is at the absolute center of the realms—built where the gods first granted the Vaelora their power, according to legend.”
“In Nerithys, then?” my brother asked.
Eamon nodded. “In the Kingdom of Midna, to be precise, but outside the royal city proper. In a neighboring village known as Vestral.”
Concern flickered across Bastian’s face. “We haven’t been able to explore beyond the royal city’s ruins. There’s a chance this other village and its temple don’t even exist anymore, like so much of the middle realm.”
“It’s divine-touched architecture.” Eamon spoke with his usual certainty, even as a frown threatened to drag down the corners of his lips. “If anything is still standing among the rubble and decay, it will be that temple.”
“But if it’s a sacred site meant only for Vaelora, does that mean we won’t be able to enter?” Thalia glanced between Eamon and me. “That Nova will have to face whatever is inside the chamber on her own?”
Eamon didn’t seem to have an answer for this.
My gaze fell to the empty chair beside me, where Aleks should have been sitting. The growing distance between us felt like a physical thing, suddenly, its weight heavier than any crown or other duty I was trying to balance underneath.
And I had a bad feeling that whatever we found in this Chamber of Echoes was only going to make it worse.
Maybe that was why I so desperately wanted to pretend nothing had changed; that we would face this trial together like all the others we’d faced. I wasn’t alone. He was still with me, even if things between us were strained.
So I said, “Aleks might be able to enter as well.”
My brother bowed his head slightly, massaging the space between his eyes.
Thalia folded her arms across her chest, a deep, uncertain frown overtaking her features.
Eamon gave no outward sign of either approval or dismissal. As usual, he offered the most even, measured reply. “Heistheclosest embodiment of a Light Vaelora we have. Even given his…ah…complicationsthat we’ve been discussing, he’s still clearly connected to Lorien’s power in some way or another. He still might be able to open passages and bypass wards, as he’s done in the past—as he did in the Midna Palace, for example. It would be worth a try.”
Assuming he’s still able to summon pure Light magic.
I didn’t say it out loud. But my mind was full of images from this morning, of his wrong-looking magic consuming my shadows. What if that happened again? What if something evenworsehappened?
The thought was terrifying.
