Villain's Last Chance
Chapter 50: Echoes of the Forsaken

Chapter 50: Echoes of the Forsaken

The flicker in the shadows grew into something more—a dragging sound, slow and deliberate, as if the darkness itself had weight.

I stepped closer to Cairon, my fingers still curled around the Codex’s edge. Its surface pulsed with low light, reacting to the ancient energy that saturated the place. This chamber wasn’t just a prison—it was a tomb. A vault for the forgotten.

Cairon drew his sword without a sound. "Stay behind me."

I ignored him, moving beside him instead. "That’s never worked before."

A breath of dry laughter rolled from the shadows. Then—a voice.

Hoarse. Frayed at the edges. "So the Codex chooses again."

The chains shifted. Something tall uncoiled from the wall, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe.

The figure stepped into the light—an old man, hunched yet regal, with silver-white hair matted and eyes like pits of starlight. Despite his ragged state, power clung to him in threads that still shimmered faintly. His wrists bled slowly where the chains bit in, but he didn’t flinch. He looked straight at me.

"No... not again," he whispered. "You wear her face."

Cairon shifted. "You know who she is?"

The man laughed bitterly. "I know who she was. And I know what she became."

My throat dried. "The villain."

"She was never meant to fall," he said. "But the Codex does not only record truth—it enforces it. And when truth is rewritten... someone must bear the cost."

I took a slow step forward. "Who are you?"

"A Heir. Like him." He nodded toward the space we’d come from. "But I refused. I challenged the Codex’s order. And so, it chained me here—to remember."

Cairon looked at me sharply. "You said there were others."

The man gave a bitter smile. "Do you think you’re the first? Each cycle, the Codex calls forth a bearer. Each one walks the line between salvation and ruin. And when they fail... this is where they end."

I shivered. "Why show us this now?"

"Because you haven’t failed yet," he said, eyes gleaming. "And because this time, something broke the pattern."

He leaned forward, chains groaning. "You shouldn’t exist. The Codex should have rejected you. And yet, it responds. That means you are either the undoing of everything... or the final key."

The chamber trembled. Stones cracked. Dust fell in sheets from above.

Cairon’s grip on his blade tightened. "We have to go."

"No," I said. "Not yet."

I turned back to the chained Heir. "If I’m the key, then tell me—what am I unlocking?"

The man’s face darkened. "The ending you were never meant to see."

Suddenly, the Codex in my hands surged. The runes scrawled along its surface ignited in red fire, and pain lanced through my mind—a vision, sharp and searing:

A battlefield, soaked in blood. Me—Elara—standing atop ruins, face split between shadow and light. Cairon before me, sword raised... but hesitating.

Behind him—a sea of corpses.

And the Codex—split in two.

I stumbled back, gasping. Cairon caught me just before I hit the ground.

"What did you see?" he demanded.

I shook my head. "An end. Our end."

The old Heir leaned back, satisfied. "Now you understand."

But before I could speak again, the entire chamber shuddered violently. A fissure cracked through the floor, and something screeched from the tunnels beyond—a sound that didn’t belong in this world.

Cairon cursed. "This place is collapsing."

The old man didn’t move. "Go. But remember—power unchecked becomes prophecy fulfilled."

I looked at him one last time, feeling something tighten in my chest.

Regret. Pity. And fear.

Then Cairon dragged me from the chamber, just as the floor behind us split wide open.

The shadows roared.

And we ran.

____

We ran—but the tunnels weren’t the same.

The path we’d come through twisted and warped, stone grinding against stone, shifting like a living maze rearranging itself. The Codex in my hands trembled violently, almost as if it was fighting me. As if it didn’t want me to leave.

Cairon noticed. "It’s reacting to something. Or someone."

Another crack exploded overhead, and debris rained down. I threw up a shield instinctively, shadow and force weaving into a barrier that shimmered in the dim light. The Codex’s runes blazed with power, casting eerie reflections across the walls.

"Keep moving!" Cairon shouted.

I sprinted after him, but a sharp scream echoed from behind—human, raw, and terrified.

We stopped at once.

Cairon’s eyes narrowed. "That wasn’t the Heir."

"No," I whispered. "It was... me."

It was my voice. Screaming. Echoing from deeper inside the ruins.

A pulse rippled through the air like a heartbeat. And then I saw it.

A shimmer, just beyond a crumbled archway—a vision, suspended in space like a mirror of memory. And within it, I saw myself. Kneeling. Blood on my hands. A figure sprawled before me—Cairon. Dead.

My reflection lifted her head. Eyes glowing pitch black.

"I told you," said a voice behind me.

The chained Heir’s projection stood at the edge of the vision, untouched by the collapsing ruins. "The Codex doesn’t just preserve the past. It remembers all possible futures."

I stared at the vision as it flickered, distorting like a broken film. "That’s not going to happen."

"It already has, in another thread," the Heir said. "You need to understand what you are becoming."

Cairon grabbed my wrist. "We don’t have time for this."

But I couldn’t look away. I took a slow step toward the vision. The girl—the other me—smiled.

"You think you can save him?" she said. "You already destroyed him. The moment he hesitated. The moment he let you live."

"No," I said. "That’s not me."

The vision bled into smoke, but her voice lingered.

Not yet.

The air thickened with magic—raw, ancient, uncontained. The ruins weren’t collapsing because of time. They were responding to the Codex. To me.

"I’m drawing it out," I breathed. "The Codex... it’s triggering the cycle again."

Cairon pulled me around a corner, breath ragged. "Then break it."

"How?"

His hand pressed to my chest—not roughly, but steady, grounding. "Start by choosing something different."

A boom cracked the chamber behind us, the floor giving out in a violent roar. Heat blasted up through the stone as a chasm opened, splitting the entire floor in two. Flames licked up from below, unnatural and pale. I felt it then—something climbing. Something not of this world.

The thing that had been locked away.

The Forsaken.

"Run!" I screamed.

We leapt across the widening gap, barely catching the ledge. Cairon grunted, pulling me up with a heave. As soon as our feet hit solid ground again, the floor behind us gave way completely.

The Codex burned against my hands. A voice whispered low and clear—Open the third seal.

"What?" I gasped.

But Cairon heard it too. His face went cold. "There’s another one?"

"The Codex has seven," I said, breathless. "Only two have opened."

Cairon stared at me like I’d just confirmed his worst fear.

"Then we need to leave this place before another opens," he said. "Now."

We burst into the last corridor, the exit just ahead—arched stone drenched in moonlight. I could taste the outside. Freedom.

But the ground behind us cracked open once more—and something clawed its way out.

It wasn’t a beast.

It was a figure.

Tall, emaciated, with skin like scorched parchment and no eyes—just burning hollows in its face. Its presence crushed the air around it. I fell to my knees. The Codex trembled violently, then hissed with steam.

The Forsaken stared straight at me.

"I REMEMBER YOU," it said, voice like broken glass. "YOU WERE MERCY ONCE. NOW YOU ARE JUDGMENT."

Cairon raised his sword. "Get out. I’ll hold it off."

"Don’t be stupid!"

"You have to leave with the Codex," he snarled. "That thing wants you."

"No!" I stepped forward, shadows coiling around my fingers. "We fight it together."

Cairon’s expression twisted—part anger, part fear, part something I couldn’t name.

"I’m not losing you again," he whispered.

And then he kissed me.

It was rough and desperate, like a promise made at the edge of a blade. Then he shoved me through the threshold, just as the Forsaken lunged—

The doors slammed behind me.

And I was outside.

Alone.

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