I was standing in front of that wall on the lower floor on Dragon Tower. My hands hovered in front of me as I tried to convince myself to do this. Just knock on the wall and see the last secret of Dragon Tower.

I didn't dare ask myself, 'what's the worst that could happen?' I already knew the answer to that. Spiders and ghosts.

Fethris was quiet behind me, either letting me gather my courage or listening to M talk. I didn't know what M might have been telling him, it could've been anything.

I needed to focus and just…get it over with.

I raised my right hand in a gentle fist, my palm facing me. Not fully clenched, but enough to tap my middle knuckle on the wood.

One. Pause. Three. Long pause. Two.

There was half a second where I was worried I had gotten myself all worked up for nothing. But then there was the sound of something sliding. Wood against stone and very close.

Then the wall slid open. Revealing a staircase that spun counterclockwise down into darkness. No sconces, windows, enchantments or runes on the walls.

No spiders, which was an upgrade from last time I opened a door that had remained closed for a century. Maybe this had been closed even longer, the only one who knew couldn't talk to me right now. Unfortunately, he was also the only one who knew what was down there.

I looked back at Fethris, glad I wasn't doing this alone. I would probably close the wall and pretend this never happened if I was by myself. And out of the others, I was happy it was him.

Fethris was grinning, like I'd just given him a present.

It was enough to dispel the little voice reminding me of what happened last time I went into a mysterious locked door. But then again, even that had worked out eventually.

Into the depths of the unknown it was.

I took my first step into the darkness. Left hand on the wall to stabilize me as I stepped down the curved staircase. The door stayed open long enough for Fethris to join me. But once his footsteps joined mine I heard the door close behind us.

I expected us to be thrown into complete darkness. But there was a light, familiar Echo Blue glowing from further down.

Neither Fethris nor I said anything as we slowly made our way down the dark steps. The stairwell was only small enough for one person at a time, so Fethris and I were in single file with him behind me.

I didn't know why my heart was pounding so loudly in my ears. Could Fethris hear it? The rushing of my blood was bad enough to make my skin feverish and even my curse was reacting. Artic cold and sharper than a chef's knife. I needed to calm down if I wanted it to go away.

I knew myself well enough to know that it wasn't going to be possible until I saw whatever was at the bottom of these stairs. Assuming nothing happened.

Get a grip Serafina. If this was dangerous, M wouldn't tell you to go down here.

The light got brighter as we got further down, getting easier and easier to see. I couldn't tell exactly what color the walls around us were, everything was soaked in blue. The stones in the walls were bigger than most bricks, with a relatively thin layer of mortar.

No sign of erosion on any of the rock. An effect of magic? Was this what this place always looked like? Did Malcarg and Jantres walk this way once upon a time?

Considering the color of the light we were approaching, the latter must have. The former was hard to guess.

When we reached the bottom of the stairs, Fethris gasped.

I might have done the same, if I wasn't frozen still.

The room itself was small. About the same as the attic, but in a different shape. A nine-sided room. In the center was a pillar, about four feet tall. On top was a perfectly smooth sphere, it looked like glass to me. The sphere was the source of the light, glowing bright enough to completely illuminate the room but not blinding.

I stepped forwards towards the pillar, just a few steps and enough for Fethris to enter the room.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He was speechless as he examined our surroundings. Trailing his fingers on the stone walls. No paintings or carvings to tell us specifics, but…

"Same color as the Echoes," Fethris commented. A confirmation we were having the same thoughts. "The enchantments on the Tower must be thousands of times more powerful than what we do. This would have taken…weeks maybe months to power. He had to put that power somewhere."

"That makes this…like the heart of Dragon Tower?" I pondered as I continued staring at the sphere. There was a strange smell in the air, it reminded me of cobblestone streets that had just been rained on.

Nostalgic and almost pleasant.

"The center of the enchantment that powers the Echoes, if nothing else," he confirmed.

"The Echo Chamber," I realized. The one Red had mentioned. This was what she'd wanted me to find. Why?

"The place Red mentioned?" he asked.

"Can you think of any better place to be called that?"

"Sure, but what does finding this place tell us?"

"I don't know," I mumbled as I wrapped my right hand around my left wrist. It didn't stem the tide of glacial pain, but it grounded me in the moment.

Red. The Wraith. Death's Echo. This room.

What weren't we seeing? There was nothing else in this room. Empty of everything except us and the pillar with a sphere filled to the brim with Jantres' mana.

What was I missing here?

I moved just one step closer, barely more than a gentle shuffle forwards.

The pain in my wrist increased tenfold. An active phantom stabbing in my wrist. This wasn't fueled by panic or worry anymore.

Was it the concentration of magic in the air?

I needed to leave, I realized too late.

It was a single moment. Barely a second of time. Yet, it lasted forever. Like someone had hit the pause button on my life. I felt the danger before I saw it. An instant of pain so strong it was blinding. Then blue. Bright blue, like clear clean waters. Echo Blue. It filled my vision and lungs and veins all at once. Compared to the pain of the curse, it was like being splashed with cool water.

In the next instant, I was on the cold stone floor.

"Serafina!" Fethris called as awareness came back to me.

I groaned and struggled to sit up. I was leaning on my right arm as I pushed myself up. I looked down at my left hand. Dark green oozed out of the curse on my wrist, staining the tips of my fingers. In the blue light of the chamber it almost looked black.

I could taste metal on my tongue.

"Hey, speak to me."

"I'm…"

"Don't you dare say okay."

"I think it's passed. I don't know what that was."

"Come on, time to leave." He held out his hand to help me up.

"Yeah." I took it and pushed myself to my feet. A little wobbly, but steady enough for a careful trek back up the stairs.

Fethris looked at my wrist in worry. I wiped my hand on the black pants of the uniform. Not enough to remove the evidence completely, but it was better. At least it didn't destroy my gloves.

The pain was almost gone. Close to a dull ache now. My breathing was steady and the metal taste was fading rapidly. I leaned more heavily into the wall going up. Luckily, my right hand wasn't affected by the curse.

It was a slow ascent. But Fethris didn't complain.

He did keep glancing back at me though. Was it just to check to see if I was still standing?

"I'm not quite that frail," I commented after the sixth time I caught him doing it.

"You'll have to forgive me for being worried." He didn't really sound sorry, but the teasing lacked bit due to the real worry I could hear in his voice.

"Aren't you glad I didn't come down here alone?" I tried to calm him with a bad joke.

"More than I maybe should be."

"It doesn't even hurt anymore."

"That's not the reassurance you think it is."

"I'm more annoyed we didn't learn anything new. I need to get rid of this curse, but I've known that for months. Unless you saw something?"

"I mean… nothing I wouldn't have expected to find. It's… not unlike other enchantments I've seen. But I haven't seen something that old before."

"Hey, if one of us had fun that's cool."

"I don't know if I would call that fun, but it's…enlightening. In its own way."

"Oh?"

"We have our Echoes. Kelpie has its swamp."

"Gross."

"The smell was terrible. But taking a swim apparently heals wounds."

"Did you go swimming?" I asked incredulously. I couldn't see it. The image didn't make sense.

"No. I tripped a guy who thought I was better off in Kelpie than Dragon. He fell in face first."

I laughed, that made way more sense.

"What I was getting at, is the question if all the Towers have a similar chamber somewhere inside them."

"I would suspect so. If they're all enchanted in the same kind of way."

"Secret passages all over the school. More secrets hidden and locked away."

"Well…maybe it's not so much a secret. Or…wasn't meant to be?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's been two thousand years. No matter how good the record-keeping is…things get lost. Maybe the enchantments were meant to be part of the curriculum more."

"Huh. Certainly a thought worth pondering. But we'll probably never really know."

"Well. We could know. Or more specifically you could. One of the guys responsible talks to you regularly. If anyone would know the reasons for all of this, he would."

Fethris stopped in place. We had to be near the top by now. "I hadn't thought about it like that. What him being here means. We have two thousand years of wisdom at our fingertips."

"He chose us. And seems to like the company. What's the harm in asking more questions?"

"If you could ask him anything, what would you ask?"

I took a moment to think about that. About what it meant to ask something, someone, that old about something. Anything.

"I think…I might have to ask him what really makes someone a Dragon someday."

"Do you want to know what I think?"

"Of course."

"I think being a Dragon means looking at the world in ways no one else does, and not shying away when it turns out to be something you weren't expecting."

I smiled at the idea. Maybe there was something to that. "I guess seeing things differently is the one thing I have going for me."

I couldn't see it, but with the slight scoff I heard I suspected he rolled his eyes.

Then he knocked on the door in front of him. Looking all the part of a wall from this side just like it did when we entered.

Once, pause, thrice, longer pause, twice.

The bright light of Dragon Tower was almost blinding after our excursion in the darkness of the Echo Chamber.

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