The voice didn't leave after the Pit.
It coiled around Kael's thoughts like smoke, murmuring in the spaces between breaths.
"You're hungry," it sighed, its lips pressed against the inside of his skull. "I can taste it."
Kael woke with a gasp, fingers clawing at his Mark. The eclipse pulsed under his skin, black veins spiderwebbing toward his elbow. Across the barracks, the other survivors slept. The silver-eyed girl—Lyss—curled into herself, her Mark (a jagged hook under her collarbone) glinting in the low light. The scarred one—Veyra—lay perfectly still, eyes open, staring at the ceiling as if waiting for it to collapse.
A chime shattered the silence. Lights flared crimson.
"Training Block Alpha. Move or be removed."
The drill yard was a cavern of steel and flickering holograms. Commander Dain waited beneath a projection of the Rift—that yawning wound in the sky. Up close, her armor unsettled Kael. The obsidian veins weren't decorative. They moved, slithering under the metal like parasites.
"You are Duskbound now," she said, tapping her own Mark—a twisted helix around her throat. "The Mark grants power. Power is not free."
The hologram shifted, showing a human figure with three glowing cores: Flesh. Shadow. Void.
"The Rift tears at reality. Echoes are fragments of that tear—parasites that rewrite you." A pause. "There are three paths."
BLOODECHO – Enhances the flesh. Strength. Speed. Regeneration.
Cost: Your body forgets its limits. Bones snap and reform wrong. Skin petrifies.
SHADOWECHO – Warps perception. Cloaking. Phasing. Illusions.
Cost: Memories fade. Faces blur. You forget why you fought.
VOIDECHO – Channels raw Rift-energy. Blasts. Telepathy. Shields.
Cost: The Echo talks back. And it lies.
"You don't choose your Echo," Dain said. "It chooses you."
Then came the footage. A man screaming as his Shadowecho devoured him—his body dissolving into smoke, his last words "I don't remember my name—" before exploding into static.
"Resist the hunger, and this happens. Feed it, and you might live long enough to matter."
The drones attacked the moment the hologram vanished.
Kael barely dodged. The machine's fist grazed his ribs—
—and the Mark screamed.
Shadows pooled in his palm, forming a jagged blade. He slashed. The drone staggered.
"More," the whisper urged. "Take."
The Mark convulsed.
A memory surfaced: Nia's hands braiding his hair, her laugh bright against the bunker's gloom. Then—agony. The memory tore away, and the blade in his hand lengthened.
The drone's head hit the floor.
Kael gasped. The hunger dulled—but Nia's face was fuzzier now.
Across the yard, Veyra watched him, her Bloodecho knitting a gash on her arm shut with jagged black stitches.
"You're quick," she said. "But you're starving." She nodded to Lyss—the girl was on her knees, clutching her skull as her Voidecho's energy crackled wildly around her. "We all are."
That night, a masked handler gave them vials of murky liquid.
"Hollowborn essence. It slows the decay."
Lyss drank hers greedily. Kael hesitated.
"Liar," the whisper crooned. "It's not a cure. It's a leash."
But he drank. The hunger quieted. His thoughts cleared.
And the whisper laughed.
Lyss cornered him later, her voice a blade in the dark:
"They're turning us into them," she hissed. "The Essence isn't medicine—it's Hollowborn blood. It's why Veyra's skin cracks. Why I hear screaming."
A shadow shifted. Veyra leaned against the doorway, her Mark pulsing.
"Rest," she said. "Tomorrow, they drop us in the Deep Hollow."
Lyss paled.
Kael's Mark throbbed.
"You'll die down there," the whisper mused. "Unless you let me in."
Kael stared at his reflection in the steel wall.
His pupils were gone.
Only gray light remained.