His Bride, Her Revenge

Chapter 129: The War of Echoes

The rift hung above the Hollow Crown like a wound in the sky.

It shimmered with impossible light, violet and white and black all at once, twisting the stars around it, pulling the night into its throat like a greedy god. Snow blew sideways. The wind screamed. And from the pulsing mouth of the rift, the Perfected Heir stepped into the world.

He was tall. Inhumanly so. Clad in armor like obsidian veined with red light. His skin shimmered like cooled metal. His hair was jet-black, slicked back and windless despite the storm. But what struck Seraphine most... were his eyes.

They were Cambria’s.

Ice-blue. Piercing. Haunted.

But devoid of warmth.

"Do you know who you are?" Seraphine asked, her voice reverent.

The Heir blinked slowly. The wind around him ceased. The mountain stopped breathing.

"I am memory," he said, voice echoing with something deeper. "I am the echo of vengeance. I am the child of god and ruin."

Seraphine smiled. "Then it’s time, my darling."

He turned to her.

"Time for what?"

She extended her hand. "To burn down the world that betrayed us."

Avalora Two Days Later

The war tents stretched like a white scar across the eastern cliffs. Soldiers moved in silence, their armor etched with the sigils of the new crown. Cambria stood at the edge of the command pavilion, studying the maps with eyes that hadn’t closed in thirty-two hours.

"The Ironlands are no longer dormant," General Calem reported, pointing to the pass that snaked through the mountains. "Scouts report strange energy readings. Movement we can’t explain."

"What kind of movement?" Cambria asked.

"Not armies. Not convoys. Something... else. Some say it moves like a shadow. Others say it floats."

Cambria looked to Maddox, who stood beside her in dark tactical armor.

"Project Pandora protocols what’s the likelihood Seraphine activated a new tier?"

Maddox exhaled. "Near impossible. Every Pandora prototype we recovered was destroyed in the Ascension Fire. But if she had access to the rift "

Cambria’s voice was cold. "She did."

Calem hesitated. "Your Majesty... if she’s tampering with the rift’s energy then we’re not just dealing with enhanced soldiers. We’re dealing with... anomalies. Warped creations."

Cambria’s voice was steel. "Then we change the game."

She reached for the scroll tucked into her belt. The final remnants of Seraphine’s journal, decoded by Julian Mercer himself. She spread it open across the war table.

Maddox frowned. "Is that ?"

"The gate of echoes," Cambria said. "She drew it. Long before the rift appeared."

The sketch was crude. But unmistakable. A vertical eye split by fractures, surrounded by figures kneeling in worship. At the center, a tall form with a flame rising from its skull.

Julian, who had entered silently behind her, whistled. "You know what that means, don’t you?"

Cambria didn’t look up. "She didn’t just want a new heir. She wanted a mirror."

Maddox’s brow creased. "A mirror of what?" noveldrama

Cambria met his eyes.

"Of me."

Inside the Palace Citadel Later That Night

Elara Vale stood in the archives, books scattered around her like corpses. Her fingers were stained with ink, her sleeves rolled to the elbow. She was hunting something. Not in the modern scrolls, or even in the vault ledgers. She was digging through the oldest, dust-choked records of the Vale bloodline.

She barely noticed Evelyn enter.

"You’re up late," Evelyn said.

Elara didn’t glance up. "You’re not supposed to be here."

"And yet here I am."

Elara’s eyes flicked toward the obsidian shard still tucked into Evelyn’s sleeve. "That thing will kill you."

Evelyn smiled faintly. "Everything worth power usually does."

A beat of silence.

Elara went back to flipping pages.

Evelyn wandered closer. "Looking for the curse?"

"The prophecy," Elara corrected. "The Vale birthright. The one Lucien never told Cambria about."

Evelyn’s brow lifted. "You still believe that nonsense?"

"No," Elara said. "I don’t. Which is why it’s terrifying that it’s coming true anyway."

She turned the book around.

Evelyn leaned over. Her breath caught.

The drawing was old. Ink faded. But the lines were clear.

A crowned queen with Cambria’s face.

A dark figure behind her with Maddox’s eyes.

And above them both... the Heir of Nothing.

It had no face. Only a hollow where its soul should be.

"This was written a hundred years ago," Elara whispered.

"And yet it’s happening now."

Evelyn looked to the window.

The rift pulsed in the northern sky like a bruise on the horizon.

In the Wastes Between Avalora and the Hollow Crown

The first battalion fell at dusk.

They never saw the enemy.

Only their screams echoed back through the valley broken, static-filled transmissions of metal against flesh. By the time scouts arrived, all that remained were symbols scorched into the ice. Strange glyphs. Like Seraphine’s markings.

Cambria stood in the snow, her cloak billowing. The air smelled like ozone and blood.

"Tell me exactly what happened," she said.

The lone survivor, a trembling young captain, saluted weakly.

"They floated," he whispered.

"Floated?"

The boy’s voice cracked. "They didn’t walk. They didn’t speak. They were like... shadows in armor. Eyes like stars. They moved without sound and they knew our names."

Cambria’s chest tightened. She looked to Maddox, who stood beside her, eyes grim.

"They’re not soldiers," she said. "They’re echoes."

He nodded. "She’s copying us. Not just our faces. Our memories."

"Which means she has access to the Vaults of the God Engine."

"And the Echo Core," Maddox finished.

Cambria turned to the wind.

"She’s not building an army," she said softly.

"She’s building reflections."

Back in the Hollow Crown

Seraphine stood before her army.

Or what passed for one.

The Echoes stood in perfect silence. Dozens of them. Clad in mismatched armor, some with faces identical to people Cambria had known. Her old tutors. Her advisors. Even horrifying duplicates of Maddox and Elara.

Each was forged from memory. Enhanced. Bound to Seraphine’s will.

And at the center stood the Heir.

Still nameless. Still soulless.

"I want her broken," Seraphine said softly. "Before she even reaches the gates."

The Heir tilted his head. "What breaks a queen?"

"Doubt," she whispered. "And ghosts."

The Night Before the War

Cambria stood in the chapel of the Vale ancestors. She lit a single candle for each of the fallen. Then one more.

For the girl she used to be.

Maddox entered quietly. He didn’t speak at first. He just stood beside her, letting the silence say what words couldn’t.

Finally, she asked, "Do you believe I’ll win?"

He turned to her. "You already did."

She blinked. "What?"

"You survived Seraphine’s rise. You exposed Project Pandora. You built something out of nothing. You came back to me."

Her throat tightened.

Maddox took her hand.

"But if you’re asking if I’ll stand beside you if I’ll die beside you I will."

She looked at him, eyes shining with something she hadn’t let herself feel in weeks.

"Then whatever happens tomorrow," she said, "we end it together."

DAWN

The War of Echoes began not with horns or battle cries.

But with silence.

The kind that comes before a storm so ancient, even the gods forget how it ends.

Avalora’s army stood in formation, banners raised. Cambria rode at the front, clad in black and silver, the sword of Seraphine strapped across her back. Maddox beside her. Julian and Elara are behind.

Across the field, from the veil of fog, came the Echoes.

Dozens. Then hundreds.

All wearing faces they knew.

Cambria saw her mother. Her childhood tutor. The face of a soldier she had once executed. All staring back at her. All hollow.

Then the Heir stepped forward.

And the ground trembled.

Maddox’s voice was quiet. "Cambria. That thing. It has my eyes."

"No," Cambria whispered. "It has mine."

And the battle began.

Swords clashed. Fire erupted across the hills. Maddox was pulled into a duel with his own Echo. Elara faced a mimic of herself, fighting not with fists but with every secret she had never told.

And Cambria

Cambria found herself face-to-face with the Heir.

He moved like the wind. Fast. Too fast.

He blocked her blade with ease, eyes glowing blue.

"You don’t belong," he said, voice distorted.

"I created this world," she spat.

"You left it broken."

He struck and her sword shattered.

Cambria dropped to her knees.

The Heir raised his hand.

A beam of dark light charged at his palm, pointed at her chest.

Maddox screamed her name from across the field.

And then

A white flame erupted between them.

Time froze.

And from the fire stepped a figure in gold and red

Lucien Vale.

His voice thundered through the sky.

"ENOUGH!"

The flame expanded, engulfing the Heir, Cambria, and the battlefield itself.

And the screen of the world cracked.