The girl had been unconscious for two
hours.
Ashland sat quietly near the alcove
where she lay, his back against the cold wall of the Vault's inner sanctum. A
low fire crackled nearby, fed not by wood, but by fragmented summoner stone —
its pale blue flame casting long shadows across the rune-inscribed floor.
She hadn't stirred.
Not since they pulled her from the
collapsed Gate.
Not since the creatures retreated.
Not even when Ash and Iriis had tried
light healing sigils.
But her vitals were steady. Her
breathing was calm. Her eyes, though closed, flickered beneath the lids.
She was dreaming.
And those dreams weren't hers alone.
Ash had tried not to listen at first.
But the Bond — even unintentional — pulled. The moment they brought her into
their Court's territory, she responded to the Throne's presence like metal to a
magnet.
A flicker of her aura reached him even
now. Strange, disjointed. Not like Iriis or Xeravon, whose energy was clean,
bound, stable.
No… this girl's presence felt like
something fractured trying to remember how to be whole.
"Iriis," Ash said, not looking up,
"you saw the mark on her forearm?"
The Sentinel stood nearby, arms
folded, gaze focused on the girl's form. "Yes."
"That was a Binding brand, wasn't it?"
Iriis nodded once.
"But… not a recent one. It's faded.
Scarred. Like something tried to remove it."
Ash frowned. "Can that happen?"
"Only in two ways. Either the summon
is destroyed… or the contract was broken forcefully."
Xeravon padded into the chamber,
silent as ever. He sat near the doorway, but his presence made the room feel
smaller.
Ash's brow furrowed.
"She didn't come here by accident," he
murmured. "She was sent."
Iriis finally turned her gaze to him.
"No. She escaped."
The girl stirred.
A shallow intake of breath, then a
quiet murmur — more a wordless sound than speech. Her fingers twitched. Her
eyes opened.
Golden irises.
Not glowing now — not like during the
Gatefall — but dull, dimmed, like a lantern with soot on the glass.
She blinked, eyes darting between the
faces around her. She froze at Xeravon, flinched at Iriis, and only after a
long pause did her gaze settle on Ash.
"You're… not one of them," she
whispered.
Ash leaned forward slowly, hands
visible and calm.
"You're safe," he said. "My name's
Ash. This place is… well, complicated. But you're out of danger."
She tried to sit up — winced — but
nodded.
"Where… where am I?"
"Trial Realm. Court of Broken Stars."
She frowned. "A Court?"
Ash tilted his head slightly. "That
surprises you?"
The girl hesitated.
"Courts don't form until Ascension."
"Not… natural ones, anyway."
Ash exchanged a glance with Iriis.
"What's your name?" he asked gently.
The girl looked down at her hands. At
the remnants of the Binding scar on her arm.
When she spoke, her voice was barely
audible.
"Elya."
A moment passed.
Then another.
Finally, she looked up again.
"They're going to come for me. You
know that, right?"
Ash leaned back slightly. "We
figured."
"They'll try to overwrite this Realm if
they think it's sheltering me."
Iriis stepped forward, voice firm.
"Who exactly is 'they'?"
Elya's lips trembled. Not from fear,
exactly — but from exhaustion. The kind that comes not from a sprint, but from
running all your life.
"The Echobinders."
The room fell silent.
Ash blinked. "That's not a term I
know."
Elya looked at him, her expression
shifting — confusion first, then realization.
"Because you're not System-born."
Ash raised an eyebrow. "Meaning?"
"You didn't come from a constructed
Realm. You weren't trained, or culled, or filtered."
"You were found."
She sat up now, despite the pain.
"Echobinders are like you — in theory.
But they don't bind. They don't form pacts. They find fragments — echoes of the
past — and they consume them. They use corrupted rituals to forge unstable
power. The System doesn't approve, but… it's not strong enough anymore to stop
it."
Ash looked toward Iriis.
"You knew something like this
existed?"
She shook her head slowly.
"I knew of corruption. Of rogue
Binders. But not a faction."
Xeravon growled low — a dark, pulsing
sound that came from somewhere deep in his chest. Elya flinched at it.
Ash exhaled.
"So you ran from them."
"I was a Binder once," Elya said.
"Before they… took him."
Her voice cracked.
Ash said nothing.
Iriis remained still.
Elya looked up again.
"They broke my summon. Turned him into
a weapon. Stripped his will. And then—" she swallowed, "—they used me to power
him. A reverse bond."
Ash felt a chill in his bones.
A reverse bond.
A practice that was forbidden even in
the System's own arcane laws. Using the Binder as a battery, forcing the will
of the broken summon to obey through stolen memory and fragmented soul.
It wasn't summoning.
It was slavery.
"And the Gate?" Ash asked. "Did they
send you?"
Elya shook her head.
"No. I sent myself. I forced a rift
open — raw. Cracked it with what was left of my Contract. I knew it wouldn't
last. But I'd rather vanish into nothing than let them use me again."
Her eyes glistened.
"Then I felt this place."
"Your Court."
"It called to me."
Ash stood, stepping away to the edge
of the chamber. His thoughts were swirling.
This wasn't about Ascension anymore.
This wasn't even about surviving the
Trials.
There was a war happening beyond the
System's reach — a cancer growing in the cracks of the realms. Binders who had
abandoned the balance of memory and will, and instead chosen to feed on the
broken.
And now that he had a throne — they'd
noticed him.
[SYSTEM ALERT – EXTERNAL CONFLICT
TRIGGERED]
Faction Identified: Echobinders –
Rogue Subnet
Status: Opposed to Court of Broken
Stars
Alignment: Consumption / Fragmentation
Faction Status: Hostile
Realmwide interference authorized.
Enemy operatives may now appear in
active Trials.
Warning: Enemy Summons may reflect
corrupted versions of your own.
Ash stared into the flame.
Then he turned back to the girl — to Elya.
"You're staying here."
She blinked.
"What?"
"You're safe here. You're not going
back."
Iriis stepped forward, voice calm.
"You'll be under our protection."
Elya's shoulders shook.
She nodded once.
"Thank you."
Ash turned toward the darkened edge of
the Realm beyond the Vault.
"We'll deal with them."
"And when they come for us…"
He clenched his fist.
"We'll show them what a real Court
stands for."