"I know," she answers, the quiet devastation in her tone infinitely heavier than the wound in my side.
"We cannot break this line," I state, surveying the recovering enforcers. My magic is too suppressed to clear the corridor, and her output is too volatile to control. We are cut off from the catacombs.
I grab her arm, dragging her away from the Vanguard formation and toward a set of heavy, unadorned double doors set deep into the alcove of the eastern wall.
The Echo Crystal Vault.
It is not merely an archive for the memories of the dead; it is a panic room built by the suffocating paranoia of my ancestors. The heavy doors and the internal walls are lined with deep-earth resonating prisms—rare minerals capable of absorbing and nullifying immense arcane and physical trauma for a finite period.
I shove the heavy doors open, throwing her into the freezing, crystalline dark of the vault.
I turn back to the corridor just as the Vanguard surges forward, their halberds raised. I grip the massive iron rings of the doors and pull them shut with a deafening, metallic slam. I slide the three heavy deadbolts into place, plunging us into absolute darkness, save for the faint, ghostly luminescence of the memory crystals suspended from the ceiling.
A second later, the first concussive blast of siege magic strikes the outside of the doors.
The crystal walls hum, vibrating intensely as they absorb the kinetic force, but the heavy iron hinges groan in protest. The vault is impregnable, but only until the resonating crystals reach their capacity and shatter.
I lean back against the sealed doors, sliding down the cold metal until I hit the floor, my hand pressing desperately against the bleeding null-iron wound. We are completely trapped, locked in a cage of dead memories, and the clock is rapidly ticking down to zero.
25
MIREYA
The heavy iron doors of the Echo Crystal Vault shudder.
The first concussive blast of Vanguard siege magic strikes the exterior, a muffled, deafening thud that vibrates throughout my body. Inside, the absolute, ringing silence of the tomb is a stark contrast. The pale, ghostly light of the suspended memory shards illuminates the freezing space, casting long, fractured shadows across the stone.
Khaelor slides down the thick metal of the doors, his breath hitching as he presses his large hand against the bleeding null-iron wound at his ribs. The anti-magic steel has destabilized his curse; the black-gold veins along his neck pulse erratically, weeping a dark, toxic smoke that smells sharply of rotting copper.
I step toward him, my hands trembling. I cannot stand back while he tears himself apart to shield me.
"Let me bind the wound," I say, reaching out, my fingers stretching toward the ruined fabric of his tunic.
"Do not touch me," he snarls, his voice a jagged, guttural warning.
He violently shoves my arm away. The force of his rejection sends me stumbling backward. My hand strikes the sharp, unpolished edge of a deep-earth resonating pedestal. The crystal slices cleanly into my palm.
I gasp, cradling my hand as a thin line of crimson wells to the surface.
Khaelor’s lethal, untouchable facade shatters.
He lunges forward, ignoring the agonizing wound at his own side, and seizes my wrist. His massive, corrupted fingers surround my hand, his molten amber eyes locking onto the cut with absolute, undisguised terror. The mask slips entirely; he is a monster who just drew the blood of the only creature he swore to protect.
"I am fine," I whisper, trying to pull my wrist back.
He does not let go. His thumb brushes the edge of the cut, the blistering heat of his skin searing my freezing flesh.
The guilt I have been carrying since the memory flood finally fractures, collapsing under the sheer weight of his misplaced care. He is bleeding on the floor of a tomb, apologizing with his eyes for a scratch, while I am the architect of the century-long nightmare that put him here.
"Stop doing this," I beg, the tears I refused to shed spilling hot and fast down my ash-streaked cheeks. "Stop protecting me. Khaelor, they are going to break those doors down, and they are going to kill you and they are going to use me to achieve that end. You have to let me initiate the recall."
His gaze snaps from my bleeding palm to my face. The terrified protector vanishes, replaced by the apex predator of House Venn. "I forbade it."
"It is my fault your family is dead!" I scream, the sound bouncing off the crystalline walls. "It is my fault you cannot breathe without fighting the rot in your own marrow! Let me diefor the atrocity I committed! Let me complete the anchor so you can walk out of this vault free!"
The tension in the freezing air violently snaps.
Khaelor hauls me upward by my wrist, his other hand gripping the back of my neck. He spins, slamming my back against the heavy, freezing edge of the crystal pedestal. The impact forces a ragged exhale from my lungs.
