Chapter Twenty-Three The Deepest Echo
That night, Lyra dreamed of the Kingdom of Echoes again — not a memory this time, but something else, something that felt more like a message.
She stood once more in the Garden of Names, walking between the tall stone pillars, until she found herself standing before Maren, who looked tired, but very much alive, her silver key still hanging steady around her neck.
"Maren!" Lyra called, relief flooding through her. "You're safe."
"For now," Maren said, her voice carrying strangely, like it was traveling a great distance to reach her. "This is only a dream, Lyra Solis — the Kingdom finding a thin place to reach you through, now that the door on your side has closed. I do not have long."
"What happened after we left?" Lyra asked. "Is Verity —"
"Verity retreated, once she realized she could not easily force her way past me alone," Maren said.
"But she was right about one thing. This is far from over.
I wanted to warn you, before you wake — the remade bargain has done more than simply ease your fear, Lyra.
It has weakened the wall the original curse built between your life and the deeper truths still buried in your past. More echoes will surface now.
Stronger ones. Memories you are not ready for may begin finding you, whether you seek them out or not. "
"What kind of memories?" Lyra asked, a chill moving through the dream.
Maren's expression grew grave. "The memory of the war that is coming.
I have seen fragments of it, in echoes far older than Iris, far older than even the First One.
A great conflict, Lyra, one that splits the two of you onto opposite sides before it ends.
I do not know if it is a memory of what has already happened, in a life neither of you has recovered yet, or a memory of what is still coming, reaching backward to warn you. "
"Opposite sides?" Lyra repeated, horror creeping into her voice. "Cassian and I — against each other?"
"I do not know the shape of it fully," Maren admitted.
"Only that it is coming, and that it will test everything the two of you rebuilt in that First Room.
Be ready, Lyra Solis. Whatever trust you have found, whatever honesty you have finally built between you — it will be asked to hold far more weight than a single terrible night in a hidden kingdom. "
The dream began to fade, the Garden of Names blurring at its edges, and Maren's voice grew fainter.
"One more thing," she called, already dissolving into the mist of the dream's ending. "Whatever comes, remember what you chose in that room. Remember that you chose each other freely. Let that be the truth you hold onto, when everything else grows uncertain."
Lyra woke with a gasp, her heart pounding, the warning ringing in her ears long after the dream had faded completely.