CHAPTER 517: TRIALS (6)

Nysha’s grip on her daggers tightened. "You’re lying. Lindarion isn’t even—"

"—from this era?" the being finished smoothly. "Correct."

Lindarion didn’t move. But something darkened in his gaze.

The being continued, voice low, measured, and too familiar:

"I was the one originally tied to the Devourer’s fate. The one meant to inherit the core. The one destined to fall into corruption and become its next vessel."

Lindarion’s heartbeat slowed. "So what happened to you?"

"I was erased," it answered simply. "Removed from existence. My timeline severed. My path unwritten. You were created to replace me—an attempt to avoid catastrophe."

Nysha stared at Lindarion. "You... replaced him?"

Ashwing whispered, horrified: "A spare. You were a spare—"

The echo-being raised a hand, silencing them.

"I am not your enemy," it said. "But neither am I your ally. I am the consequence of your choice in that chamber. The moment you accepted the second inheritance, our paths touched."

Lindarion’s voice was calm. Too calm.

"What do you want?"

The being smiled—not cruelly, not kindly, but with the haunting softness of someone who once had the same soul.

"I want to exist again."

Nysha stepped in front of Lindarion harder this time. "No."

The echo didn’t acknowledge her protest. Its gaze stayed fixed on Lindarion.

"There are two ways," it said. "You allow me to merge into you... and we become whole. Or—"

It pointed toward the desert, where the dunes had begun to sink into spiraling pits.

"—you try to kill me."

Ashwing screeched. "THOSE ARE NOT GOOD OPTIONS—"

Nysha’s voice cracked like a blade. "He’s not choosing either."

The being laughed softly. "He must. There is no third path. That is why this desert exists—this place between timelines, between fates. It was forged to hold what should not be."

Lindarion finally spoke again, voice steady as carved stone.

"You said there are two paths," he murmured. "But the trial said something else."

The echo stilled.

Lindarion stepped closer, the glow in his eyes brightening—not with the being’s light, but with his own.

"It said the path is unwritten."

The being tilted its head, expression shifting for the first time into something like uncertainty.

"You’re not considering—"

"Yes," Lindarion said. "I am."

Nysha grabbed his sleeve. "Lindarion—don’t do something reckless—"

He gently removed her hand.

Ashwing covered his face with a wing. "We’re all going to die, aren’t we—"

Lindarion took one step forward.

Then another.

Then he stood face to face with the impossible echo.

"You think fate only has two choices," he said quietly. "But if you are me... then you should know. I don’t accept binaries."

A wind rose around him. Not desert wind.

Mana wind.

The echo’s form flickered, unstable. "You don’t understand what you’re provoking."

"I do," Lindarion replied. "I’m provoking a third path."

"Impossible."

"Unwritten."

The echo-being braced itself, fractures spreading across its form. "If you attempt to forge a new fate... all timelines linked to you will destabilize."

Lindarion’s voice lowered into something ancient and resolute, something that did not belong to someone so young.

"Then let them destabilize."

Nysha stepped back—because the sand around him was rising. Spiraling. Responding.

"Lindarion," she whispered, "what are you doing?"

He didn’t look at her.

He kept his eyes locked on the echo.

"When something threatens my future," he murmured, "I don’t choose between the options given."

The echo-being’s cracks widened.

"Then what do you choose?" it demanded.

Lindarion raised his hand, and the desert stilled in absolute silence.

"I create a new one."

The desert did not roar, shake, or collapse. It held its breath.

The dunes froze mid-shift. The spiraling pits halted as if time had been paused with a single thought. Even the heat—ever-present, oppressive—was gone, replaced by a steady cold that seeped from Lindarion’s aura.

The echo-being stared at him, fractures spreading across its torso in thin, luminous veins. "You would risk unraveling your own existence for a path that isn’t written, isn’t guaranteed, isn’t even recognized by the laws that bind this world?"

Lindarion stepped closer, unflinching. "I don’t need recognition. I need freedom."

Nysha’s hands tightened around her daggers. She knew she couldn’t interfere—not with this. Something in the air told her that any movement from her could disturb whatever fragile balance Lindarion was building.

Ashwing hovered near the ceiling, wings tucked, eyes wide. "Do we run? Do we hide? Do we just... wait to see which version of Lindarion survives—?"

"Quiet," Lindarion said—not harshly, but with a resonance that startled even the echo-being.

The sands around him began to move again, but differently this time: not in violent spirals, but in sweeping, deliberate arcs that formed sigil-like patterns across the ground. Ancient, pre-Runic patterns—language from before the First Epoch.

The echo-being recognized them before Nysha or Ashwing could.

"You’re channeling the Desert’s Memory," it whispered. "The root-script. That knowledge was sealed from mortals."

"I’m not mortal," Lindarion said softly.

The echo-being’s expression tightened—not in anger, but in wary realization. "No... you are not."

More sigils formed, circling Lindarion like orbiting constellations. Each pulse of light pressed the echo-being’s fractured form further toward destabilization.

"Stop," the echo said sharply. "If you force the third path, you will break the tether connecting us. If that happens, the version of me that exists outside this echo will awaken."

Nysha’s eyes snapped toward him. "Outside this echo? There’s another—?"

The echo-being didn’t answer her. Its gaze remained fixed on Lindarion.

"You think you know suffering," it said, voice low. "But you have no idea what the erased path endured. The reason I must exist again is because—"

Lindarion raised his hand.

The sigils brightened.

The echo-being staggered, dropping to one knee. The fractures across its body deepened, leaking light like blood.

"Stop." Its voice warped, layered now with something ancient and desperate. "If you force this, you will kill me."

Lindarion’s expression didn’t waver. "You’re not alive."

"Not alive—" The echo-being’s voice broke. "Not alive, but real. I am a future you could have been. A future erased before I could choose anything."

Lindarion’s jaw tightened.