Chapter Two: Whispers of the Weave
The morning air was thick with dust, the kind that clings to your throat and your thoughts. Aerin's knees ached from yesterday's collapse, but the memory of the mountain screaming lingered sharper than any pain.
Something is wrong inside me, they thought. Something not entirely theirs. The echo burned in their chest—a pulse of heat and weight that made their fingers tremble.
A shadow moved near the ruins of the market square. Not a bird, not a person, but something that flickered like it was made of smoke and memory. Aerin's first instinct was to flee, but the echo tugged—pulling them forward.
"You hear it, don't you?"
A voice, calm and soft, but filled with authority, came from the shadows. A figure emerged, garbed in robes stitched with strange, jagged symbols that seemed to shimmer in the light.
"I… I don't know what you mean," Aerin stammered.
"The Weave remembers you," the figure said. "And it's trying to speak through you."
Aerin's chest tightened. Every time they thought of the mountain, a fragment of someone else's memory flared—hands they'd never touched, pain they'd never felt, and glimpses of ruins swallowed by dust centuries ago.
"You're a Listener," the figure said. "One of the few who can perceive echoes of the past—and the few who can survive them. But survival comes at a cost."
The cost. Aerin shivered. They'd felt it already—pain, confusion, the taste of loss—but they didn't know the rules.
"Magic isn't what you think," the figure continued. "It isn't a spell, or a trick. It's the Weave. Everything that has ever been leaves a memory behind. Some call it World-Echo. Some Living-Echo. Some—most dangerous of all—Personal Echo. You… carry all three."
Aerin staggered back. "All three? That's… impossible!"
"Impossible for most. But you are not most." The figure stepped closer, placing a hand near Aerin's shoulder—but not touching. "Listen. Feel. Let the echoes tell you. That is the first lesson."
Aerin's fingers brushed the ground, and the world shifted—the memory of yesterday's collapse flashed again, but this time, they saw it differently. Not just destruction… but a pattern. The way the stone folded, the way the air trembled, the way voices collided.
And in that pattern, Aerin glimpsed their first hint of power.
A single whisper, carried from the mountain itself:
Remember me.