Beyond Hollow Echoes (Book Three)

⋆˖☽ ​​​​​​Chapter 6 ☾˖⋆

We stood in the shadow of the library. It was undeniably the oldest structure in all of Scryer, constructed from pale white stone that stood in stark contrast to the dark timber and stone houses surrounding it. Two large pillars flanked the entrance, carved with intricate stone vines that twisted their way up the columns to a vaulted roof. Letters were etched into the stone archway above the closed oak doors.

In the bustling square behind us, townsfolk hurried by, their breath pluming in the freezing air. A few cast fleeting glances at the structure, but no one turned their full attention toward it or slowed their brisk pace. Just as the innkeeper had said, it was a forgotten place.

Ondina reached out, her hands wrapping around the iron handle. As she pulled the door open, my gaze drifted to Emeric.

His green eyes were already fixed on me, heavy with the unspoken memory of the shadows beneath the ancient tree. My pulse fluttered against my collarbone. My hand reached up to grip the familiar, grounding wood of my bow. Caught staring, Emeric jerked his head away. He lifted his bruised hand to cover his mouth and jaw, clearing his throat, but the shadow of his hand couldn't hide the flush of red creeping up the tips of his ears.

I turned my head back to the entrance, my chest tight. Ondina was standing there, holding the heavy door open for us. A questioning look crossed her features as her eyes darted between the two of us, catching the charged air. She didn’t say a word. I kept my eyes averted, my freezing fingers brushing against the worn oak as I followed her inside.

The air within the library was thick with the scent of ancient vellum and undisturbed dust. Towering shelves lined the entire expanse, packed tight with decaying books from the floor all the way to the vaulted ceilings. Large, arched glass windows were set between the bookcases, letting the gloomy, gray winter daylight pour into the narrow aisles in dusty beams. Above us hung a wrought-iron chandelier, its flickering candles casting long shadows.

There was only one large reading table, pushed off to the side and overwhelmed by towering stacks of texts. An older man sat in the wooden chair, a feathered quill gripped tight in his hand as he scribbled meticulously into an open ledger.

I glanced around the room. Aside from him, there was only one other soul in the building: a young girl with bright red hair sitting on the stone floor against a far shelf, her face buried in a book. As she turned a page, the crisp rustle echoed across the silence.

"I will speak with him," Ondina murmured, keeping her voice low.

I nodded, aware of Emeric's frame stepping up close behind me. "We will wait for you here."

Her steady footsteps echoed against the pale stone floor as she approached the table. The librarian's quill stopped scratching. He looked up at her, his weathered face unsure and suspicious at first, until she spoke a few hushed words. A warm, surprised smile broke through his wrinkles. Though I couldn't hear him from across the room, I watched his lips move to say, "I may be able to help."

I wonder if she will be able to get any useful information. I turned to look at Emeric, who was busy scanning the shelves around us, his posture rigid.

"I hope she will," I murmured. I drifted over to the nearest bookshelf to give him space, dragging my index finger along the cracked leather spines. The faded, gold-leaf letters stamped into the covers were just beautiful, meaningless shapes to me. I glanced up as Emeric stepped close beside me, reaching up to a higher shelf. The scent of sandalwood and winter air washed over me as he pulled down a thick volume. He opened it and began scanning the dense pages.

I will be of no use here. Desperate to look busy, I grabbed a random book from the shelf and pulled it open, staring down blankly at the pages of scribbles, pretending to read.

Ondina slipped beside me. "Flip the book," she whispered into my ear, keeping her voice low. "It's upside down."

A humiliating flush crept up my neck and flooded my cheeks. My fingers fumbled clumsily with the cover as I snapped it shut, subtly rotating it in my hands so I could open it again the right way up.

Emeric snapped his own book shut and turned to her. "Anything?" he pressed.

Ondina let out a long, frustrated sigh. "He didn’t say much. He just asked why I would go looking for information on a child's ghost tale, and told me I'd best stay out of trouble."

"By the moons," Emeric mumbled, dragging a hand through his dark hair. "We are running out of—"

"But," Ondina interrupted, a fierce spark returning to her green eyes, "he said if we must know further, we need to find section A-3." She glanced over her shoulder at me. "He said it was this way."

I slid the useless book back onto the shelf how I had found it—or at least, I hoped I did. I followed close behind her, my gaze drifting down the aisles. Small wooden plaques hung from the end of each row, covered in letters I couldn't decipher.

Ondina stopped abruptly. She reached up, grabbed a leather-bound tome off the shelf, and held it out to me. I opened my hands to receive it. She pressed it into my palms, her grip lingering for a deliberate second as if to silently command, keep it this way up. She grabbed a few more thick volumes, dropping them onto the ground before sitting cross-legged next to them. I followed suit, shivering as the chill of the cold stone floor seeped through my clothes. Across the narrow aisle, Emeric leaned his shoulders against a bookshelf, one leg crossed over the other as he began flipping through the pages.

I fixed my eyes on the dense text in front of me, making sure to turn a page every so often. After some time passed, Ondina nudged my knee, slipping another open book into my lap.

"Thank you."

"I will tell you if I find anything," she whispered back, her eyes rapidly scanning the pages.

An intense prickle of awareness washed over the back of my neck. Emeric's gaze was burning into the side of my head. I tilted my chin to look at him. His green eyes shifted away, feigning interest in a page. He pushed off the wood and slid down to the floor, settling next to me in the cramped aisle. The heat he carried enveloped me, fighting off the chill of the stone.

As he opened his book, his arm brushed against mine. My fingers gripped the edges of my book tight enough to tear the parchment.

"This is it." Ondina's hushed, urgent voice shattered the quiet tension.

"What… what does it say?"

Ondina traced her finger along the faded, ancient script. Her voice dropped to a haunting whisper that barely carried across the narrow space.

"Do not take for granted the days you have, but instead be warned. The deepest desires that you whisper may be far more complicated than they seem. When the weight of a thousand hushed whispers becomes too much for the Siren to carry, the Sanguine Reflection Lake shall be born. But beware, for it is closer than you know. I leave you with this final truth: nothing is as it seems."

When the hushed whispers become too much... My mind drifted back to last night, to the eerie, swelling voices echoing off the shifting ice right before Emeric pulled me into the shadows. I glanced up at him. Did he realize it too?

"Is this really the only lead we have found in all this time?" Emeric asked, his jaw tight as he stood up from the floor, brushing the dust off his dark trousers. "Just some cryptic riddle? We’ve gone through every book that stood out. Ondina, does any of this match what you recall?"

A few feet away, the young girl with the red hair looked up from her spot. Catching us looking her way, she pulled her book up higher, shielding her face from us.

Ondina stood up, gathering her stack of books and sliding them back into their exact places on the shelf. "I only recall the stern warnings not to go out at night. The elders said if we did, the Storm Siren would take us away. It was just a nursery tale told to keep children from sneaking out of bed. But I don’t remember anything more than that."

"Did the tale ever mention anything about the lake?" Emeric pressed.

"No." Ondina’s brows furrowed in deep thought. "This passage was my first time hearing it." She paused, the shadows in her green eyes darkening. "But it did mention Whisp Lake."

"Why... why are you talking about the Storm Siren here?"

We all turned. The young girl with the red hair had stood up. Her small body trembled as she clutched her book tight to her chest.

"We forgot how the story went and wanted to learn more about it," Ondina said, her tone gentle and disarming. "We recall that it mentioned Whisp Lake, but we do not remember what it means."

The girl nervously checked over her shoulder to make sure the librarian at the table was still writing and not listening. She squeezed the book harder, looking between the three of us with wide eyes. "We aren’t supposed to overwhelm the lake with our wishes. You can only share your single, absolute deepest desire... or it may not come true. If there are too many, she—."

The heavy oak library doors groaned open.

"I have to go!" The girl panicked, darting back to her spot on the floor and throwing herself into the exact same reading position as before, her eyes locked on the pages.

"Did you find any good books today, sweety?" a woman asked as she walked into the Archives. She had the exact same vibrant red hair, her cheeks flushed from the winter wind.

"Yes!" the girl said, her brown eyes lighting up with innocent relief. She darted one quick glance at us before looking back at her mother.

"Good, I am glad. Come, let us get going before the sun sets."

As the girl scrambled to collect her pile of stories, Ondina let out a long, defeated sigh. "I don’t think we will find anything more here," she murmured, turning and heading for the exit.

"No," I agreed, following her out of the aisle. "But I think we need to investigate Whisp Lake ourselves."

"We need to return to the dragons tonight," Emeric reminded us, his voice grim as he fell into step beside me. "The Cursed Moon rises in two days. We have to be back in Luminethra to help the others."

The fading winter daylight washed over us as we stepped out of the doors and back into the bustling town square.

"Then we should—"

My words died in my throat. I nearly bumped into Ondina's back.

She had stopped dead in her tracks on the cobblestones. Every single muscle in her body was locked tight, vibrating with a sudden, catastrophic shock. Her eyes were wide, she bit down on her lip.

I followed her gaze across the square.

Standing near a brightly lit merchant stall was a woman with striking green eyes—the exact same unique shade as Ondina's. Holding the woman's hand was the little girl who had dropped her doll last night. A moment later, a tall man stepped out from the stall, laughing warmly as he leaned down and kissed the green-eyed woman on the cheek.

We all remained fixed in place. An unnatural stillness swallowed the square.

The lively, bustling sounds of the Scryer market died out, replaced by silence. The winter air plummeted to a bone-aching cold that stole the breath from my lungs. The foul stench of rot wafted into my nose, drowning out the comforting smells of woodsmoke and roasted meats. My vision flared. The black miasma snaking around the unsuspecting townsfolk swelled, erupting into thick geysers of dark fog that grew denser and more aggressive by the second.

A violent shudder ripped down my spine. A prickling sensation bloomed hot at the base of my skull.

“The times are changing. Look up,” Enkarthos’s ancient voice commanded in my mind.

I tilted my head back. Above us, the gray mid-day gloom was being blotted out. Its black, shattered form rose in the sky.

The Cursed Moon was rising.

Why? Why is it changing?

“This is what must come to pass.”

Black miasma began seeping off the Cursed Moon, bleeding down from the heavens like a dark, corrupting rain toward the earth. For one agonizing second, everything in the world was perfectly still. The air itself seemed to pause, holding its breath.

The silence violently broke.

A rush of foul air swept through the square, carrying with it a unified eruption of monstrous, blood-curdling screeches from the deep woods outside the walls. The Moon was calling them. The ice of Whisp Lake let out a deep groan that vibrated up through the soles of my boots.

The ring of steel sliding from its scabbard shattered the remaining quiet. Emeric unsheathed his greatsword in a single, fluid motion. "We have to go. Now."

"Close the gates!" a guardsman roared from the high stone walls.

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