It was a slow realization that didn't come to me as a surprise. "You're part of this place." shaped by it, colored by it. You had no soul I could touch because you were made from a silence this world had that never seemed to end.
'The flickering mists, spiraling pits, the black sand and even blacker rock.' All made from the same essence.
The answer had been staring me in the face since the beginning 'resonating.' I didn't need to dim my soul or presence, that is not who I am.
I needed to tune it, to shift its color not hide but mimic this place.
Reaching inward, not with the intent to fracture or cast but to release. To let my essence catch the same shade as this hollow place.
Anecus for the first time wasn't trying to suppress, he was changing frequency
Cassia POV
He room was silent again except for mothers needle and thread.
Watching the sun set behind the hills I wanted to ask so many questions, trying to speak something I wanted into existence. "When I go in…If I see him."
"Don't expect to. No two trials are the same. They don't overlap." fathers voice was filled with regret, I wasn't sure from what exactly but I can understand it.
I just nod and hold the fig leaf a little tighter. 'I'll just have to be strong enough so he doesn't worry.'
It was on my way to brush my hair more out of comfort than need. I heard it, *Ding!* it bloomed behind my ears from beneath my thoughts, Then a small golden panel furls out before me.
Glyphs scrolled in perfect sequence.
║ ⟡ DIVINE CIRCUIT NOTICE ⟡ ║
[Echo Stream Alignment Detected]
▸ Trial Environment: Now Forming
▸ Transfer Commences in Moments
[We look forward to your Ascension]
[Good luck]
The glyphs only hovered for a breath before dimming and folding in on itself.
Frozen in place I could feel my mouth go dry, my heart and my whole body shook. "...it's happening."
Mother looked up from her seat by the hearth eyes widening at the inevitable. Father looked like he was going to collapse reality to keep me here.
Naia went rigid.
I repeated it louder this time not knowing what to do. "It's here, My Echo."
I watched as mother stood quickly but attentively like if she moved too fast I'd vanish.
She gathered me into her arms pressing her forehead to mine. "My beautiful stubborn girl, my clever Cassia." The shuddering breath against my nose was warm and smelt of vanilla. "You come back to us, you hear me?"
She kissed my cheek, then my forehead her hands cradled me like I was little again. Back when a scraped knee was the end of the world. I could see the tears in her eyes now on the verge of falling. "Come back to us baby."
Then the world slipped from my vision It wasn't quite falling it was like standing still while everything else descended around me. The light in the room pulled away, the warmth from mother peeled from my skin.
Then silence.
The Echo Stream took me.
Anecus POV
Changing the frequency of my soul wasn't actually that difficult. Finding the one I needed to mix with the surroundings while also merging multiple into one was hard but not impossible.
It was taxing on my mind and soul but I had a really good feeling about this.
Anecus wiped a hand down his hollowed cheek and breathed in the hot air. With the state of his body Anecus's best guess was around two weeks since he entered. 'How long has it been on the outside?
'Is everyone ok?'
'Has Cassia started her Echo what if... she's smart she'll be ok.' letting thoughts he has been pushing away fill his mind he has found the worse part about this place.
"I miss them."
A sharp cracking sound filled the air as a piece of obsidian was sheared off by the wind bring Anecus out of a daze. 'this is probably going to be the last attempt.'
Gathering the last remnants of my focus I repeated a mantra I'd created to assist with visualizing this technique.
"Let my steps speak like the wind… May my body be humbled like the splintered obsidian. Allow me to dance with the shifting sands… Grant my heart the steady beat of the perpetual sky above."
Anecus had done this again and again and again, letting words help shape the unshapable. There was a moment when his insides became quiet.
Then it happened, it wasn't like a flame or thunder. It was like a rag soaked in oil plunged into water, except he was the oil leaking off the edges drifting through the current.
Anecus felt himself bleed outward, his soul, his sense of self stretched and smeared to fit into the cracks of this world.
Anecus's senses were not heightened but changed he was feeling from the obsidian itself his perception leaked into every grain of sand that whispered into every drop of water.
Malice wasn't a stranger anymore, it was of kin.
The euphoria hit with a cold edge against my neck making it hard to speak, I never wanted it to end.
Still having the ability to speak, Anecus whispered.
"I can see." Colors that didn't have names, the tremors in the stone like breathing lungs and there. Threaded like broken glass though the air..."Souls". Fragments of people, spirits who had tried to only fail and vanish.
Taking a moment to bask in this new state of perception it hit him. 'This is like an advanced version of thoughtless awareness.'
While looking at the floating souls one brilliant strand stood out as it was attached to his head. It looked fragile but radiant as it ascended into the sky only to go beyond sight reaching somewhere beyond reach.
When I opened my eyes again I wasn't looking through obsidian. I saw Malice directly, real and I smiled…not kindly.
"Your turn."