Chapter Thirteen Running Through Rooms of the Past
"There has to be another way out of this tower," Cassian said, already moving through the round room, checking windows, checking walls.
"There is," Iris said, stepping out from where she had been standing near the tall arched windows this entire time, watching the chaos below with calm, ancient eyes.
"But it will not be an easy road. Come. Follow me.
I remember every corner of this tower, even the ones the Kingdom itself has half-forgotten. "
She led them to a narrow stairwell hidden behind a tapestry Lyra hadn't noticed before — old and faded, showing a picture of two figures standing beneath a sky full of impossible stars.
"That's us," Lyra said, pausing despite the urgency. "Isn't it. In every life. Under those same star patterns."
"The stars have always been the one thing that stays the same," Iris said. "No matter what names we wear, no matter what centuries we're born into. The stars remember, even when we don't." She pushed the tapestry aside, revealing the stairwell behind it. "Down. Quickly."
They descended into a part of the tower Lyra hadn't seen before — narrower halls, dimmer light, doors lining both sides, each one humming faintly with the same golden energy as the small memories in the Garden.
"What's down here?" Lyra asked, following close behind Cassian.
"More rooms," Maren said, bringing up the rear, one hand still glowing faintly, ready to seal any door the moment the Hollow Court broke through.
"Smaller lives. Lives that were never even given a full echo — just a room, a moment, a single scene that mattered enough to be kept, even if the whole life around it wasn't."
As they ran, Lyra caught glimpses through half-open doors — a woman crying beside a river, a man teaching a child to read under candlelight, two figures dancing slowly in an empty ballroom.
Some of the faces were hers. Some were Cassian's.
Most were strangers, lives that had nothing to do with either of them, memories the Kingdom had simply decided were worth keeping.
Behind them, faintly, Lyra heard the sound of the sealed door finally giving way, followed by the same wrong, gliding silence of the cloaked figures moving fast through the tower above.
"They're through," Cassian said grimly. "Iris, how much further?"
"Not far," Iris said. "The stairwell ends at a garden door. From there, we can reach the First Room before they catch us — if we're fast enough."
"And if we're not?" Lyra asked.
Iris glanced back at her, and for a moment, the ancient echo's calm expression cracked just slightly, showing something rawer underneath.
"Then you will lose this life the same way I lost mine," she said quietly. "Before you ever get the chance to hear the truth at all. So let's not be slow, little sister. Run."