Page 80 of Echoes From the Void

Again.

Chapter 27

Frankie

Consciousness returnslike drowning in reverse, fighting through layers of darkness. Each sensation arrives with a new wave of pain—muscles screaming from power overuse, essence burning from absorbing corruption, bond marks pulsing with shared agony.

Matteo’s presence anchors me first, his shadows wrapped around mine in protective coils. They feel different now, more aware of the corruption we absorbed, more desperate to shield us from what’s coming. Then Leo’s voice cuts through the haze, already joking despite nearly dying.

“...all I’m saying is, if almost being corrupted gets me this much attention, maybe I should try it more often. Though next time maybe with less purple veins of doom and more dramatic swooning.”

“I will end you myself,” Matteo growls, but his hand never stops stroking my hair. Through our bond, I feel his terror carefully masked behind irritation.

I try to open my eyes, but everything feels weighted with spent power. Through our various bonds, I sense the aftermath of what we did—Finn’s exhaustion matching mine like an echo inour twin bond, Leo’s essence still adjusting to being purified, his shadows trembling with remembered corruption. And Dorian...

The absence in our bonds hits like physical pain.

“He’s gone?” The words scrape my throat raw, triggering a coughing fit that has Matteo instantly supporting me upright. His shadows pulse with concern as they wrap tighter around us both.

“Ran out of here like his Oxford shoes were on fire,” Leo confirms, though concern threads through his attempted humor. “Right after you two did your whole corruption-eating light show. Which, by the way, was terrifying and awesome and please never do it again.”

“He realized something.” Finn’s voice comes from nearby, weighted with the same bone-deep exhaustion I feel. Through our twin bond, I sense him fighting to stay conscious. “Right before he ran. Something about the void...”

Memory slams back with enough force to make me gasp—the feeling of corruption fighting us, of Finn’s light merging with my shadows, of power we were never meant to contain burning through our veins. The way Leo’s corrupted essence tried to resist us, tried to spread, tried to claim us too. The moment we finally pulled it free, purified it, made it clean again.

“We can fight it,” I whisper, the realization settling like lead in my chest. “The void. The corruption. All of it.”

“Yeah,” Leo says softly, all pretense of humor gone. “We kind of figured that out when you literally ate the corruption trying to kill me.”

“That’s a very Leo way of putting it.” I try to sit up further, grateful for Matteo’s steady support. The room spins slightly, essence still churning from what we did. “We didn’t eat it, we?—”

“Absorbed and neutralized it through a complex process of essence conversion that probably breaks several laws of reality?”

We turn to find Dorian in the doorway, frost patterns unusually settled around him. He looks different somehow—younger, less controlled, like something fundamental has shifted in him. His temporal distortions ripple with an anxiety I’ve never seen before.

“So,” Leo drawls, though his shadows reach instinctively toward Dorian’s frost, “done having your dramatic exit moment?”

“I prefer to think of it as a strategic retreat for academic contemplation.” Dorian’s prim tone carries new self-awareness as he steps into the room. His eyes meet mine, carrying the weight of whatever revelation drove him to flee. “Also, I may have frozen several priceless texts while having an existential crisis.”

“Only several?” Matteo arches an eyebrow, his shadows dancing between protective and curious.

“The entire rare books section,” Dorian admits, frost spreading in delicate patterns across the floor. “Uncle Everette is making me defrost them by hand. He was particularly upset about the demon-skin bindings.”

Through our pack bond, I feel his anxiety and fear twisted with determination. Whatever sent him running has brought him back changed, his essence humming with purpose beneath the uncertainty.

“You figured something out,” I say, watching his frost dance with my shadows. The patterns they make remind me of the corruption we pulled from Leo, but cleaner, purer.

“Yes.” He moves closer, temporal distortions rippling around him. “What you and Finn did... it’s not just about healing corruption. It’s about stabilizing reality itself. The void isn’t just darkness—it’s everything breaking down. Time, essence, the barriers between realms...”

“And we can fix it?” Finn asks quietly. Through our twin bond, I feel his mix of hope and dread.

Dorian’s hands shake slightly, frost crackling around his fingers. “You can try. But the amount of corruption you’d have to absorb, the strain on your essence...” He swallows hard. “The void isn’t just growing. It’s accelerating.”

“Could kill us,” I finish, feeling Matteo’s shadows tighten protectively. The words hang in the air, heavy with implication.

“Multiple twins,” I breathe as another piece clicks into place, memories of research files flashing through my mind. “That’s why they separated them by gender. Valerie took the girls, Blackwood took the boys. They were trying to...”

“Mom’s research,” Finn adds, his light reaching instinctively for my shadows as understanding dawns. “All those notes about breeding programs, about quantity. The charts tracking essence compatibility?—”

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