Chapter 3 The Echo Bloom

• At first light, the city looked like it was holding its breath.
• Lena and Cael stood at the mouth of an old storm drain behind the abandoned bell foundry, hidden beneath vines and soot. The iron grate had been cut through years ago and re-welded with an odd pattern—half rune, half map code. Cael tapped the cane once against the stone. A low hum answered from within.
• “The Spine isn’t a place,” Cael said, adjusting the straps of his satchel. “It’s a memory, broken and scattered underground.”
• “That sounds safe,” Lena said, tightening her cloak.
• “Nothing down here is safe,” he replied. “But some things are necessary.”
• They descended.
• The tunnel sloped downward, the stone damp and uneven. Their lanterns gave off a soft amber glow, but darkness pressed close from all sides. Mold bloomed in twisting patterns, and strange symbols etched themselves into the walls as they walked—symbols Lena hadn’t seen in any Archive books. They pulsed faintly, like breathing ink.
• “Do you ever get used to this?” she asked.
• “Never,” Cael said, voice low. “This is where memory and time blur. You’ll see moments from lives that never belonged to you—feel emotions that weren’t yours.”
• Lena said nothing, but her heart pounded louder. Already, a scent filled the air—charred roses and wet parchment—and something tugged at her chest, like she was walking toward a memory instead of through a tunnel.
• They turned a corner and stopped.
• A vast chamber stretched before them, its floor cracked and uneven. Giant roots wrapped around columns of ancient stone, glowing softly with silvery light. Floating above the center of the space was a field of translucent flowers—petals made of glass, swaying to a wind that wasn’t there.
• “The Echo Bloom,” Cael whispered. “This is where lost memories try to regrow. Most of them fail.”
• Lena stepped forward carefully. Each petal she passed shimmered and whispered—tiny voices, like fragments of thoughts caught mid-breath.
• A single bloom hovered lower than the rest, pulsing.
• Drawn to it, Lena reached out.
• Cael’s hand shot out, gripping her wrist. “No. Let it come to you.”
• The bloom descended on its own, petals folding inward, and then opening with a chime like crystal bells. In an instant, Lena was no longer in the chamber.
• She was sitting in a music hall. A young girl played the violin, surrounded by smiling adults dressed in silver and velvet. At the center sat a woman in a pale crown—her mother.
• Lena gasped. She recognized the child. It was *her*.
• The image fractured.
• Now the same hall was burning. Screams. Guards rushing in. The woman in the crown—struck down. The child—dragged away.
• Lena jolted back, stumbling.
• Cael caught her.
• “I saw them again,” she breathed. “My mother… and a crown. Was she—?”
• “A Marlowe,” Cael finished. “But more than that—she was part of the *Triumvirate*. The ruling class before the Silence.”
• “The Silence?”
• Cael’s expression darkened. “When the three ruling houses vanished overnight. Erased from every public record. Every Archive memory sealed. No one knows how or why. Until now.”
• Lena looked at her hands. “I wasn’t supposed to survive.”
• “No,” Cael said quietly. “But you did. And the Archives are remembering you now.”
• They turned toward a narrow tunnel at the far end of the chamber, its entrance marked by a handprint made of ash. Cael nodded toward it.
• “That’s the path to the Source Vault. If anything survived the purge, it’s there.”
• As they moved deeper, the flowers dimmed behind them.
• A sound echoed up from the tunnel ahead—laughter, soft and bitter. Lena froze.
• “You said not to answer voices,” she whispered.
• Cael’s face tensed. “I did. Keep walking. Don’t speak to it.”
• The laughter stopped.
• A moment later, the same voice spoke again—calm, cold, and terrifying
• "Lena… I’ve missed you.”
• Lena’s steps faltered. Her eyes widened.
• It was her voice.
• But she didn’t remember ever speaking those words