The night held still, as if even the stars dared not intrude.
The fire had burned low, reduced to a soft amber glow that painted the room in gold and rust. Selene dozed lightly against the wall now, not quite asleep, not quite awake, her breathing steady, her shoulders relaxed for the first time in… how long?
The boy had curled up beside Alpha, head against his side. His breathing was deep. Dreamless. Safe.
Alpha stayed awake.
His eyes were on Vanitas. The sword was wrapped in cloth, resting against the far wall. Still, the weight of it felt like a second heartbeat in the room, steady, unreadable.
He blinked slowly.
And when his eyes opened again…
He wasn't in the room anymore.
There was light, blinding, silver-blue, dancing through shattered glass that hung in the air like falling stars. Wind howled through the ruins of a place he didn't recognize. A temple, maybe. Or a battlefield.
He turned.
And saw himself.
But not him.
This version of Alpha was older. Hardened. His face was thinner, more sunken around the eyes. His clothes were different, black robes with strange markings, something foreign, something ancient. His eyes were the same color, but colder.
"You've come early," the Echo said.
Alpha didn't move. His breath fogged the air.
"What is this?" he asked.
"Not a warning. Not a threat. Just a reminder."
The Echo stepped closer. The light dimmed behind him.
"You don't know the weight of what you carry. You think you're keeping them safe. But every step forward makes you more like me."
Alpha clenched his fists. "I'm nothing like you."
"Not yet."
The world around them rippled. Mirrors cracked. Every shard reflected a different version of him some fighting, some fleeing, one curled up, whispering to no one.
"We are all possibilities," the Echo said. "You think the sword grants power. But it remembers. It judges. And in the end…"
The Echo's voice dropped lower.
"It always chooses."
Alpha stepped forward, jaw tight. "Then I'll choose before it does."
The Echo smiled faintly.
"Spoken like someone who hasn't made the choice yet."
He jolted awake.
The fire was nearly out. The boy stirred beside him. Selene was awake, eyes already on him.
"You saw him," she said.
Alpha said nothing.
"The Echo," she added. "The one you might become."
Alpha looked down at his hands.
They weren't trembling. But they should've been.
"Why does it feel like… like he's not just possible," Alpha murmured. "Like he's already in me?"
Selene didn't answer for a moment. Then she leaned forward, voice soft.
"Because he is. You were born with him. Just like I was."
"Then what stops it from taking over?"
She smiled faintly, bitterly.
"Nothing. Except remembering who you want to be… louder than he remembers who you were."
The fire died.
But the warmth remained, just a little longer.
They slept without speaking again.
But something in the silence felt understood.
The sun barely touched the edges of the sky when they set out again. Morning came slow in this part of the world, like the land itself hesitated to greet the light. Alpha walked in silence, Vanitas now hidden beneath a new wrapping of dark cloth. The boy stuck close, unusually quiet, casting glances upward as if weighing unspoken thoughts.
Selene led them.
They moved through broken paths and whispering forests, the world around them dense with memory. The deeper they went, the stranger the trees became, bark etched with sigils faded by time, roots that curved in unnatural spirals. The air shimmered faintly, humming with old energy.
"We're close," Selene murmured.
"To what?" Alpha asked.
"A place the Echos don't like."
She didn't explain further.
The path narrowed, stone giving way to moss and silence. Finally, they reached it, hidden in the crook of a cliff, half-swallowed by time: a sanctuary carved from ancient obsidian, covered in tangled ivy. It looked like a ruin that had never truly lived.
"This place was built before the Trials," Selene said softly. "Before the twin-wielders were separated. Before the Echoes were born."
Inside, the sanctuary was colder. Symbols crawled along the walls, glowing faintly when Selene passed them. She lit no fire, just let the natural light filter in through broken stonework above. Scrolls lay tucked in crevices, their bindings cracked but intact. Shelves crumbled. Dust reigned.
Alpha moved slowly through the space, fingers grazing a book with two mirrored figures drawn across the cover. Their swords crossed in a downward spiral. One figure was painted in red. The other, in pale gray.
Only one remains.
The boy lingered near the door, then slowly stepped inside.
"This place feels… wrong," he whispered.
"That's how truth feels when you're not ready for it," Selene replied, without malice.
The boy glanced at Alpha.
"Is that why you look different today?"
Alpha raised a brow. "Different how?"
The boy hesitated. "I don't know. Like you've got someone else's shadow."
Alpha stiffened.
Selene's eyes narrowed slightly. But she said nothing.
Later, they sat around an old stone basin at the heart of the sanctuary. The basin was dry now, but once, it had held sacred water, used in the ancient rite of mirroring.
"There were once two of every wielder," Selene said quietly. "Twins not by birth, but by fate. One would bear the blade. The other would bear the cost. The Echo wasn't a copy, it was a half. A tether."
"Then why kill them?" Alpha asked.
"Because the world doesn't allow two truths. Only one can be real."
Alpha stared at the dry basin.
"And you… chose to be the one who stayed."
Selene closed her eyes.
"No. I chose to let her go… thinking it would make me whole."
"Did it?"
Her smile was barely there.
"No. It made me hollow."
That night, Alpha dreamed again.
But this time… it was someone else's memory.
He stood in the middle of a ritual circle. Mirrors surrounded him. A voice, familiar but distant, whispered:
"One of us must leave. One of us must remain."
And in one of the mirrors, Alpha saw a girl, dark-skinned, eyes like silver fire, wearing a sword on her back. Not Selene.
But someone like her.
And behind her, another.
And another.
And another.
All watching. All waiting.
"You will have to choose, Alpha."
He woke to find the boy watching him.
"Was it her memory again?" the boy asked softly.
Alpha rubbed his eyes. "No. Someone else's. Maybe mine. Maybe… not."
"You don't have to be scared of becoming him," the boy said. "You're already something else."
Alpha looked at him. "What do you mean?"
"You're not like the stories. You let people stay."
The air in the sanctuary didn't sleep. It whispered.
Alpha sat near the altar long after the others had drifted to restless rest. The stone felt warmer than it should have been, as if the memories it carried refused to go cold. One of the ancient scrolls lay open on his lap, its ink fading, but not yet gone.
He traced the words carefully.Old dialect. Twisted syntax.But he could feel it breathing meaning into him.
"To name an Echo is to give it a gate."
He read the line again.
Selene's voice came quietly from the shadows.
"You shouldn't read that one alone."
"It's already too late," Alpha murmured.
She stepped into view, her cloak slipping from her shoulders. Beneath it, her armor looked worn, more like burden than defense. She knelt across from him and glanced down at the page.
"That scroll was written by the last twin-wielder who survived the rite without choosing."
Alpha looked up.
"So… they lived with both sides intact?"
"No. They died with neither."
Her voice didn't tremble. But something in her eyes cracked.
She told him everything.
Her twin had been named Astra.Not a sister by blood, but by the sword they were both chosen to carry, twins not of body, but of blade.
"She was always lighter," Selene said. "In thought. In soul. I was the one with grit. She had the grace."
"But only one of you could stay."
"We tried to outsmart the rite. Refuse it. We planned to live in exile, away from the blade's pull. Thought we could bind the sword to neither of us."
"Did it work?"
Selene looked him dead in the eyes.
"Astra burned. Not because I chose. But because not choosing… was a choice."
Alpha said nothing for a long while.
"Is that why the sword hasn't spoken to me?"
Selene nodded.
"Vanitas is waiting. Not for your strength. For your decision."
"Between what and what?"
"Between who you are… and who you are not."
That night, Alpha didn't sleep.
He wandered the sanctuary alone. Shadows moved too fluidly. Reflections caught in shattered obsidian seemed slower to fade.
He passed a cracked mirror embedded in the wall, probably once ceremonial.
But tonight, it reflected something… wrong.
In the glass: himself.
But not quite.
No cloth over Vanitas.Eyes dimmer.Smile thinner.And the boy, absent.
"You'll lose them, you know," the reflection said calmly.
"All of them. Like she did."
Alpha blinked.
The mirror was empty again.
He turned.The hallway behind him was still and empty.
He could feel the weight of Vanitas pulsing gently at his hip, not hostile, not yet. But watching. Listening.
The boy found him not long after.
"You were talking in your sleep again," he said quietly.
Alpha froze. "I wasn't asleep."
The boy frowned.
"You said a name. Astra. And another. I don't know how to say it."
"Try."
"Evarin."
Alpha didn't know that name. Not from dreams. Not from Selene.
But the sword pulsed.
And something in him… recoiled.
Later, Selene lit the old brazier at the center of the sanctuary. Blue flame. Cold light.
"There's another scroll," she said. "Locked behind sigil wards."
"Why?"
"Because it doesn't just warn about Echoes. It calls them."
Alpha stood over the flame. The heat didn't touch him.
"Then maybe that's what we need."
Selene searched his face. There was something quietly breaking in her.
"You're starting to sound like her."
"Astra?"
She shook her head.
"No. Me. Before I made the choice."