They moved through the day like dancers repeating steps to a song neither remembered clearly.
Breakfast was quiet. Too quiet.
Alpha poured tea. Selene offered bread. The boy watched them both, eyes flicking between every smile, every pause that lasted a breath too long.
They weren't arguing.
They weren't anythinging.
Just… pretending.
Selene nudged her bowl aside and glanced up. "Do you remember the old ruins? The ones we camped near after the Sand Vale?"
Alpha nodded. "You got sick from the mushrooms."
Selene froze. Laughed too late. "It wasn't the mushrooms. It was the water."
"Was it?" Alpha tilted his head. "I remember you insisting you knew what you were doing."
She smiled again. "You said, 'Trust me, I've boiled worse.'"
He blinked.
The phrase was right. The words correct.
But the tone was off. The way he said it, calculated, precise. Like he'd studied it.
Like he'd read it from a script.
Selene's stomach sank.
Alpha reached for the tea. "Do you still hum in your sleep?"
She flinched.
He smiled. A small, knowing thing. "I used to hear it. Just faintly. Like a warding spell."
Selene said nothing.
She didn't hum in her sleep.
She'd told him once, on a drunk night, that she used to. When she was young. Before the trials.
But she hadn't done it since.
Alpha wouldn't have heard it.
Unless… he wasn't the one listening.
The boy coughed.
They both looked up at him. He flushed.
"I—I think I'll take a walk," he said, nearly knocking over his bowl in his rush to leave.
The door closed behind him too fast.
Silence returned.
Selene reached for the kettle.
Alpha's voice stopped her.
"What was the name," he asked softly, "of the girl who broke her mirror during the first Rite?"
Selene didn't answer right away.
She didn't breathe.
Because he was asking her about someone who never existed.
A story she'd told only once. Whispered, in fear, during her first month with him. When the dreams had been worst.
A story she made up.
To see if he was listening.
She met his eyes.
Still soft. Still Alpha-shaped.
But she no longer saw safety in them.
She saw reflection.
And maybe, just maybe, a grin hiding behind glass.
She didn't sleep that night.
Not really.
She lay beneath her blanket, eyes wide in the dark, listening to Alpha breathe across the room.
Soft. Rhythmic.
But wrong.
Too perfect. Too practiced.
Like someone pretending to dream.
She hated herself for thinking it.
She hated herself more for not being able to stop.
When dawn brushed against the stone windows, she rose carefully and began making tea. Ritual. Repetition. Something to hold onto. Something old.
She watched him from the corner of her eye. Alpha stirred and sat up with a yawn that looked too smooth, too timed.
And he smiled at her. The same way he always had.
But the smile didn't reach his eyes.
And maybe it never had.
Later, as the boy dozed by the fire, Selene carefully opened her journal and wrote in the margins. Old ciphers. Forgotten languages.
A memory test.
She tore out the page, folded it thrice, and tucked it beneath Alpha's cup.
Then she waited.
He found it hours later.
Unfolded it slowly, brows knit in concentration. His eyes darted across the strange symbols. She watched his lips move as he translated under his breath.
He blinked.
Then smiled. "This is from that ancient rite near Tharan's Hollow. You copied it from the vault, didn't you?"
Her stomach twisted.
He was right.
Too right.
The symbols weren't just a test of memory. They were from a vault only the real Alpha had ever seen.
The Echo wasn't supposed to know that.
Unless… unless it remembered everything.
Including what came after.
That night, she crept into the warded chamber. Mirrors humming softly. Still tuned to him.
Still reacting.
But one mirror, the tall one near the end, was fractured now. A single thin line running through it like a tear.
She stood in front of it.
And waited.
The reflection blinked.
But she hadn't.
Selene didn't scream.
She didn't cry.
She just backed away slowly, breath trembling.
She would have to tell the boy soon. Carefully.
Quietly.
Because if the Echo had left that chamber. And Alpha never did.
Then she wasn't sure who was sleeping just across from her anymore.
And worse…
She wasn't sure if she wanted to know.
Alpha's POV
Selene smiled too much now.
Not in a joyful way. Not the rare, crooked grin he used to wait for in the quiet between storms.
This was different.
Measured. Careful. Like someone trying to remember what being human looked like.
He didn't trust it.
Not anymore.
He watched her fingers trace a rune in the dust beside the fire. A meaningless sigil, she claimed. "Idle hands," she'd said.
But Alpha knew runes. That one was a lie-sifter. Old. Dangerous.
Why draw it here?
Why now?
His eyes darted toward the boy. Still asleep, arms wrapped around that stuffed thing he pretended wasn't his.
Alpha envied that sleep. Envied how the boy still believed.
Because Alpha was no longer sure of anything.
Not the tea in his hand .Not the warmth of the fire. Not Selene.
Especially not Selene.
He remembered her face from the chamber. When the Echo first took form.
How it looked at her.
How she didn't flinch.
Like they'd met before.
And maybe they had.
Later, when he went to wash, he stared at his reflection in the basin too long.
It rippled.
Smiled.
He didn't.
Back in the room, she handed him a folded note. No context. Just a half-shrug and a glance.
Alpha didn't open it. Not yet.
He tucked it into his sleeve and returned her smile with something that wasn't quite a lie—but wasn't the truth either.
If she was testing him…
He'd test her too.
He waited until nightfall.
When her breathing deepened.
When the boy's dreams turned soft.
Then Alpha opened the note.
A cipher. Half one he taught her. Half one she'd never shared.
Was she seeing what he'd remember?
Or seeing what the Echo might?
His hands trembled.
Not with fear.
But recognition.
Because he remembered writing a note just like this one. But not to her.
To someone who looked like her.
In a dream that wasn't his.
He folded it back up.
Slipped it under her pillow.
Then sat in the corner. Watching. Waiting.
Wondering which of them would break first.
Because if this was a game of echoes…
He wasn't sure either of them were real anymore.
She hadn't meant to fall asleep.
Not with the note still warm under her pillow, her body angled just slightly toward him, like a magnet to a blade.
But exhaustion had a way of sneaking in, and the weight of watching him crack beneath his own skin was heavier than she let show.
When she opened her eyes, Alpha hadn't moved.
He was still there, in the corner.
Blanket draped over one shoulder. Elbows on knees. Watching her like she might vanish if he blinked.
Like she already had.
She sat up slowly.
Didn't speak.
Didn't reach for the note.
Let the silence stretch until it felt like a bruise.
Then softly, "You didn't sleep."
He didn't nod. Didn't answer. But his jaw flexed once. That was enough.
Selene looked down at her hands.
She'd scrubbed them raw earlier.
Not because of blood.
Not this time.
But because sometimes, when guilt lingered, it left a taste under her fingernails.
She licked them now.
It was still there.
"I remember the first time I saw mine," she whispered.
Alpha's gaze twitched.
"My Echo."
There. She said it. Let the word settle like ash between them.
"I thought it was a dream at first. I thought I'd sleep it off." She looked up. "I didn't. I never did."
His eyes didn't soften.
But they didn't harden either.
Encouraged, Selene shifted closer, her voice brittle.
"It wore my voice. But it said things I never dared to say. Things I wanted to. Things I hated myself for thinking." She paused. "It smiled at me like I was the shadow."
Alpha finally moved. Just a little.
A tilt of the head.
A breath that caught too high in his chest.
Selene leaned forward, slow.
"You want to ask if I ever got rid of it."
He didn't confirm. Didn't deny.
"But I didn't. I buried it. Hid it behind rituals and silence. I made choices that I can't unmake. And now, every time I look at you, I wonder if I made the wrong one."
Alpha blinked.
Once.
Then again.
And for just a flicker, the edge around him dulled.
Not trust.
But the ache of something close to it.
He opened his mouth. Closed it.
Then finally: "Why tell me now?"
Her voice cracked, soft and hoarse.
"Because I think I see it in you. And I'm afraid… I'll have to make that choice again."
They sat in that fragile space. Breathing.
Not friends. Not enemies. Just survivors.
Balancing on the knife-edge between belief and betrayal.