Chapter 12 – The Echo Chamber
The rain hadn't stopped for days.
It beat relentlessly against the domed ceiling of the old observatory, high in the Arkan Mountains—an abandoned relic of the forgotten empire of Astria. Once a hub for scholars, seers, and skywatchers, now it was a place the world no longer remembered.
Except one.
Velka Dae stood alone in the center of the chamber. She wore no cloak, no armor—just a black uniform too neat for a runaway, too clean for a corpse. Her dark hair was soaked, clinging to her face, and her eyes—those silver-grey eyes—didn't blink as she stared up at the constellations mapped on the cracked ceiling.
She was waiting.
Not for salvation. Not even for answers.
She was waiting for him.
"You're late," she said aloud to no one.
No footsteps echoed, no wind howled—but she knew he was near. Someone like Shayan didn't arrive with noise. He arrived like a thought—unannounced, quiet, and always at the edge of comprehension.
A second later, she heard the shift. The sound of displaced air behind her.
"I didn't expect you to leave an invitation in the Vault of Reversed Time," Shayan said, his voice low, unreadable.
Velka smiled faintly. "Had to make sure you still remembered how to read."
He said nothing at first. Then: "You're like me."
"No," she corrected. "You're like me. I just got here first."
That caught him off guard.
Velka turned, her expression unreadable. "You think you're the only one with a perfect memory, don't you? The only one who sees the past like it's the present. Who feels time pressing in like a vice."
Shayan's eyes narrowed. "I don't assume. I observe. And until recently, there was no trace of anyone else capable of memory-phase manipulation."
"Because I made sure of it," she replied.
Lightning crackled outside the observatory windows, illuminating the space for a split second—long enough for both of them to see the other clearly.
Velka was younger than him. Maybe seventeen. But her presence was unnervingly composed, unnaturally calm. Her aura didn't scream power—it whispered certainty.
"You didn't wipe the Kyoto Vault clean," Shayan said. "You left traces on purpose."
"I wanted you to find me."
"Why?"
Velka stepped toward the center of the chamber, where a glowing sphere pulsed faintly—an ancient relic built by the Astrians. It projected fragments of memories when touched by mnemonic energy.
She extended her hand toward it.
"Because I saw something in the memory-stream," she said. "A future that doesn't belong to either of us."
Shayan watched as the relic activated, casting swirling visions into the air—war, blood, screaming, and… a shadow. Not a person. Not a god. Just… an absence.
Something outside memory. Untraceable.
"There's something coming," Velka said, her voice now trembling ever so slightly. "Something we can't remember because it doesn't leave memories. It devours them."
Shayan stepped forward. He wasn't one to believe in vague prophecy.
But even he could feel it—an absence tugging at the edges of his mind.
An echo of a war he couldn't recall.
> "Then we don't just rule the world," he said softly. "We'll have to protect it."
Velka looked up at him, eyes dark and full of storm.
> "If we don't kill each other first."