The wind carried whispers now.
As Jack and the others left the fractured monolith behind, the desert around them began to change. The golden dunes dimmed to gray, and the sky turned pale, like ash washed over the sun. No birds. No stars. Just silence—crushing, unnatural.
"This isn't the Hollow anymore," Nyssa murmured. "It's something else."
"It's the Bleed," Lola said, her voice distant. "Where realities brush edges. Where what was tries to claw its way back."
Marek tapped his sword nervously. "Great. So not just haunted—haunted by time itself."
They trudged toward a spire in the distance—one barely visible through the heatless shimmer. As they drew closer, the air grew colder, not with temperature, but with memory. Like walking into a grave you once built.
The tower was black stone, smooth and seamless, twisting as if it had been melted in a spiral and left to harden in agony. It pulsed faintly, with light from within—like a heartbeat made of old fire.
"This is it," Lola said. "The Flame's tomb."
Jack paused. "You mean the First Flame?"
"No," Lola replied. "The first one she tried to save."
Kael looked up at the spire. "What is this place?"
"The tomb of her mistake."
They stepped inside.
The interior was hollow—one vast chamber lined in obsidian mirrors. No torches. No altars. Only a dais at the center, where a single figure sat in silence, cross-legged, wreathed in flickering smoke.
Jack froze.
The figure looked exactly like him.
But older.
Scarred.
Eyes dim and deep as dying stars.
It opened its mouth—and his voice came out.
"Too late."
Jack stumbled back.
"What—what is this?"
The figure rose slowly. "You were never meant to see this. But the Threshold has cracked. And now… even ashes can speak."
Lola's voice was hoarse. "This is your echo. The you who fell. The one who didn't make the choice."
The older Jack stepped off the dais, walking barefoot across the glass floor. Each footstep left faint scorch marks.
"I burned the world to save it," he said. "And then I begged the stars to erase me."
Jack clenched his fists. "You're not real."
"I was."
Silence.
"You still might be."
Kael stepped forward, shielding Jack. "If this is some kind of trick—"
"It isn't," Lola said, trembling. "It's memory made flesh. The last breath of a future that almost happened."
Nyssa's eyes narrowed. "Then why show us this?"
The older Jack turned toward her. "Because the Hollow Chorus is rising again. The blade is awakening. And the Watcher is stirring beneath your skin."
He looked directly at Jack.
"You are fracturing. You've already seen it. Felt it. You're starting to remember the ending. Our ending."
"I'm not you," Jack snapped.
"No," the echo said. "Not yet. But you've stepped into the same fire. And once it starts burning, it doesn't stop."
The room shook.
Not from outside—but from within the mirrors.
One by one, they darkened, reflecting not the chamber—but scenes from another time. Another Jack.
A world engulfed in white flame.
Lola, lifeless.
Kael, bleeding in a temple of glass.
Nyssa, screaming his name, falling into the Void.
The older Jack stood before the flames, his sword blackened, his hand reaching—but too late.
"You failed them," the younger Jack whispered.
"I tried to protect them," the echo replied. "I made the choice. I killed the Devourer."
"And became him," Nyssa said bitterly.
The older Jack turned to her. "No. I didn't become him. I became worse."
The air grew heavy.
And from the mirrors, the past began to leak—black smoke pouring across the floor, wrapping around their feet.
"I've seen enough," Jack said, voice hard. "This isn't who I am. I'm not going to break like you did."
The echo smiled. "Then prove it. Because the next time you hear the Watcher's voice… he won't ask. He'll take."
He reached into his chest—and pulled out a shard of white-hot crystal, pulsing with flame and memory.
Jack staggered.
"That's—"
"The last piece of the Blade of Echoes," the echo said. "You didn't forge it all. I did. In another breath of time."
Jack's hand shook as he took it.
And as his fingers closed around the shard, it didn't burn—it sang.
A note older than fire. A promise waiting to be kept.
"I don't want your fate," Jack whispered.
"Then make a new one," his echo said. "But be warned…"
He stepped back, dissolving into smoke and memory.
"Every world that bore the Blade… ended in fire."
The smoke faded.
The mirrors went black.
And Jack stood alone at the center of the tomb, holding the shard.
Marek exhaled. "We've got the final piece. What now?"
"We reforge the Blade," Jack said. "And we end this."
Nyssa frowned. "Where?"
Jack turned toward her—his eyes reflecting the faint glow of the shard.
"We go to the Forge Beneath the Sky. Where the First Flame was born. Where the Devourer died. And where I'll decide… if I deserve to live."