Eclipsed Horizon — Chapter 117: "Anchor Descent"
Lyra felt the world fold inward the moment she crossed the anchor threshold.
No time to brace.
No ramp-up.
Just impact—
A plunge into resonance that was too deep, too fast, too raw.
Her breath vanished.
Her balance vanished.
Then—
Light.
A corridor of fractured luminance stretched before her, identical to the one Cael had slipped into—crystal walls breathing with pulse-ripples, the floor reflecting a sky that wasn't a sky. It felt like standing inside a wound in the world.
Lyra steadied herself, pulseband burning bright around her wrist.
"Cael," she whispered.
A faint echo answered.
Not him.
But close.
She ran.
---
1. The First Memory Gate
The corridor bent sideways—space behaving like it had been sketched by someone who had never seen straight lines before. Lyra forced her sense of direction forward, trusting instinct and her connection to Cael.
The first gate materialized ahead:
A floating ring of broken glass, spinning slowly.
Inside it shimmered a memory—
Cael alone in an academy courtyard, sitting beneath the resonance tree.
He looked younger. Tired. Isolated.
Lyra's chest tightened.
She had seen this.
She remembered this.
She had walked right past him that day, pretending not to feel the pull between them because she didn't trust it.
She stepped closer, reaching out—
A whisper slithered behind her.
> "You weren't ready for him then."
Lyra turned sharply.
The echo of Cael—
his double—
stood at the edge of the corridor, half-shadowed, eyes glowing pale blue.
Lyra's jaw tightened.
She refused to retreat.
"You're in his head," she said. "But this? These memories? They aren't yours."
The Echo tilted its head.
> "Memories belong to those who keep them."
A cold smile.
"He kept me."
The gate flickered violently, destabilizing.
Lyra felt the anchor pull in her wrist—Cael's resonance reacting to her anger.
Good.
It meant he still sensed her.
"I'm here to bring him back," she said, voice steady.
The Echo stepped fully into view.
> "He didn't ask to be found."
"That's not your decision."
> "It is if he breaks."
The glass gate cracked—
splintering into shards that shot toward her like knives.
Lyra raised her arm—
her pulseband flared—
The shards dissolved before touching her.
She glared at the Echo.
"You don't get to weaponize his pain."
The Echo's smile didn't fade.
> "I don't have to.
You already do."
The corridor shook—
not physically, but emotionally.
And Lyra finally understood.
This wasn't Cael's mind losing to the Echo.
This was the Echo using Cael's fear of hurting her as leverage.
Lyra lowered her arm, forcing her voice to soften.
"Listen to me. He doesn't break because of me."
Her hand hovered over the memory gate, letting it pulse against her fingers.
"He breaks when he thinks he's alone."
The Echo paused.
For the first time, uncertainty flickered across its expression.
Lyra stepped through the shattered memory frame, ignoring the shards that rose like a warning.
"I'm not leaving him alone," she said, and walked deeper in.
---
2. The Corridor Warps
The path dissolved beneath her feet.
Lyra fell—not down, but sideways, dragged into another layer of Cael's mind. Colors twisted. Gravity evaporated. Symbols—Pulseband rings, anchor sigils, fragments of the sky-scar—floated weightlessly around her.
When ground reformed beneath her, it was—
A rooftop.
She recognized it instantly.
The academy roof.
The one he used to hide on.
The one he once told her was "the only place that listened."
Lyra turned slowly.
Cael sat at the ledge—
not younger, not current.
Somewhere in between.
His hands trembled against his knees.
His pulseband flickered erratically.
"Cael…"
He didn't look up.
Lyra approached cautiously, aware this wasn't truly him—just a memory posture. But the resonance signature was unmistakably his.
She knelt beside him.
"You're scared."
He swallowed.
"I couldn't stop it," he murmured. "I tried to bury it. I tried to forget."
Lyra shook her head gently.
"You don't have to forget to heal."
He finally looked at her—
And something cracked.
The world rippled violently.
This memory wasn't stable.
The Echo's voice reverberated overhead:
> "He didn't bring you here."
"I did."
Lyra stood, eyes burning.
"Then watch closely," she said.
"Because I'm taking him back."
---
3. The Echo Confronts
The rooftop shattered into floating debris, breaking apart like drifting plates of a broken planet. Lyra and Cael stood on a fragment barely the size of a hoverpad.
The Echo materialized above them, its form shifting—
Cael's shape fracturing into prisms, then reforming into something almost human, almost familiar.
> "Anchor Vance."
It hovered, unnatural and weightless.
"You're interfering with a restoration."
Lyra stepped in front of Cael.
"I'm interfering with your delusion."
The Echo raised a hand.
Resonance trembled—
a cold force pressing against her chest like a reversed heartbeat.
Lyra's knees buckled—
But she didn't fall.
A warm pulse wrapped around her wrist.
Cael's hand.
He wasn't fully conscious, but this much he could still give.
The Echo hissed.
> "He cannot stabilize you both."
Lyra's eyes sharpened.
"He doesn't have to."
Her pulseband ignited—
not alone.
A second ring intertwined with hers.
Cael's.
Together they flared, resonance fusing, anchoring, stabilizing the collapsing memory around them.
The Echo recoiled—as if struck.
> "Impossible."
Lyra stepped forward, pulsebands bright enough to cast shadows.
"You don't understand our bond."
Her voice didn't rise.
It didn't tremble.
It simply told the truth.
"You're not restoring him. You're isolating him."
The Echo's form flickered violently.
Lyra raised her glowing wrist, light spreading across the rooftop debris.
"You want a doorway?"
The air hummed.
"I'm closing it."
She brought her hand down—
Resonance exploded outward.
Everything turned white.
---
End of Chapter 117: "Anchor Descent."