Page 77 of Echoes From the Void

“Oh god.” Memories hit like physical blows: floating in essence-enriched fluid, reaching for Finn through glass, Mother’s voice singing in shadow-speak while she worked.

“These weren’t just containment units,” Dorian breathes, his academic mask cracking as data streams across the monitors. “They were essence amplifiers.”

Pain explodes through our pack bond—Leo’s corruption fighting against Matteo’s mother’s barriers, against Lyra’s shadow-song. Time bleeds away with each purple pulse.

“Look.” Matteo points to a screen flickering to life. Video footage plays: two infants floating in the tanks, shadow and light essence swirling between them. When corrupted essence enters the system, we absorb it. Convert it. Purify it.

“That’s why she kept us together,” Finn whispers, his light pulsing with recognition. “We weren’t just twins. We were?—”

“A purification system,” Bishop finishes, Guardian marks flaring as he reads the data. “Your mother wasn’t experimenting on you—she was protecting you. Teaching your essence to naturally resist corruption by?—”

“By absorbing and converting it.” Understanding clicks into place like a key in a lock. Through our twin bond, I feel Finn’s recognition mirror mine. Through the pack bond, Leo’s agony tears at us both.

But now I know what to do.

“We need to go,” I say, already gathering shadows. “Now.”

“Frankie.” Matteo reads my intent through our bond, fear coating his words. “If you try to absorb Leo’s corruption?—”

“I won’t be doing it alone.” I look at Finn, seeing the same determination in his eyes. “Will I, brother?”

The shadow-walk back to the medical wing feels like tearing through reality itself, desperation driving us faster than ever before. We materialize to find Leo thrashing against restraints, purple corruption now spreading across his chest despite Lyra’s frantic shadow-song.

“Move.” Power rings in my voice—alpha and twin-blessed. Matteo’s mother starts to protest but stops when she feels the energy humming between Finn and me, ancient and terrible.

“Whatever you’re going to do,” Luna says from where she grips Leo’s hand, her lawyer’s composure cracking, “do it fast. We’re losing him.”

I climb onto the bed, straddling Leo as Finn positions himself at his head. Through our twin bond, our essence reaches for each other, preparing for what we were born to do.

“This is probably going to hurt,” I warn Leo, who somehow manages a shadow of his usual grin despite the corruption eating him alive.

“Everything you do hurts so good, echo,” he whispers before another wave of corruption arches his back.

“Ready?” I place my hands on Leo’s chest where the corruption pulses strongest, feeling it try to reach for me through his skin.

Finn nods, his light already beginning to glow. “Together.”

I close my eyes and let my shadows sink into Leo’s flesh, seeking the corruption’s core. The moment I touch it, agony rips through me—wrong essence, twisted essence, trying to corrupt my shadows too. Then Finn’s light meets my darkness, and together...

Together we begin to pull.

Leo’s screams mix with mine. The corruption fights us, trying to spread, to take hold, to twist us too. But this is what we were made for, what our mother trained us to do before we could walk.

Through our twin bond, power flows perfect and pure. My shadows draw out the corruption while Finn’s light burns it clean, making it pure again.

“Holy shit,” I hear Bishop breathe, but I can only focus on the push and pull of essence, on the fight to save what’s mine.

The corruption struggles, tries to dig deeper into Leo’s heart, but we’re stronger. We were born for this. We pull and pull until finally...

The last tendril of purple corruption flows out, dissolves in Finn’s light, and Leo collapses back onto the bed—skin clear, essence clean, ours.

I barely register Matteo catching me as darkness claims me, but through our pack bond, I feel Leo’s heart beat true and pure once more.

Chapter 26

Dorian

Temporal fractures splinteraround us as Matteo cradles Frankie’s unconscious form. Truth hits me with the force of broken time as I watch them.

---